Primarily then, Facing the Mirror combats that erasure. It places on record the feral vitality of lesbian love in India. Bisexuality, sado-masochism, casual multiple partners, the sublime headiness of perfect chemistry and emotional bonding-lesbian realities are reflected here in all their myriad configurations, denying neither its prurience nor its chaste tenderness. In fact, documenting the secret erotic lives of ordinary little schoolgirls, cocky tomboys, college girls, maids, aunts, married women, single mothers, sisters-in-law, whores, working women and housewives from Haryana, Meerut, and Mumbai, the book cumulatively poses two questions: If these are the public faces of women who love women, how can we label them as deviants? How can we ignore them? Yet, one may ask if the public face of lesbians is so commonplace, why can't their sexuality remain in the private domain? Like heterosexual love. Why should they 'come out'? Facing the Mirror answers that. The fragments of lives recorded here testify to the unimaginable ruptures lesbian women face in their everday lives: the pressure to marry, the persecution at work, the violence when they're 'found out', the rude separations, the ignominy of subterfuge. In fact few of the relationships documented here, last. Knitted hurriedly and in secrecy, they rip under pressure. Their epitaphs written before they begin in the shame and guilt.