It has been a long time, about two months, I am not sure if anyone even reads this blog any more. One thing I know for sure, is that this was not a un-intentional absence, I just had some questions about the contents of this blog. One question I always had in my mind was, how come most of my posts here were hinting towards physical act of love, or physical intimacy, or anything which got to do with sex. It kind of irked me that someday I would have to answer someone if they asked why did I write mainly on that topic here. I wanted to define an alternate scope for the blog, or may be deliberately try to come up with another topic to ponder over. That coupled with other issues I was going through with meant that there was no pure pursuits for my mind for this long.
Last week I was reading “Unaccustomed Earth” a collection of short stories from Jumpa Lahiri. In one of the stories she describes the scene of love making, no guys not for the perverts, its not graphical by any means, and its just a couple of sentences, I finished reading it and immediately looked around to see if someone saw me reading it, was someone reading about my shoulder. It was so impulsive and reflexive. I’am not a 13 year old anymore, I am fast approaching end of third decade in my life, and still a feeling of guilt has never got passed me. This suddenly sparked a thought in me, I wanted to reach out to all unmarried guys and gals out there, or may be even married ones, do we think there is a sense of guilt associated with sex around?.
May be that’s guilt which was preventing me from writing anymore on pure pursuits,
who instills this guilt in us,
Is it really justified?,
or are we acting foolish here?.
Firstly am I the only one who feels this guilt?, hmm I would like to take sides and proclaim that I am not the only one, or may be number of people who have thrown away this guilt out number the others, but then I feel really foolish about this guilt at times, which makes me wonder that its only me who seems to have not grown up. As I began to wonder where the guilt all started, was it parents?, society? Or may be people with whom I grew up. I think its partly all of them. When the other natural things like hunger, thirst and other bodily activities are thought carefully, somewhere the taboo-ness associated with sex makes it kind of peek-a-boo emotion, like that universal truth which one should never get it open, people condemning any faint hint around the subject. Its like that torn pages from the life history which makes people more curious and gives them a feeling that it’s a thing to be hidden kind of feeling.
I think its one of the subjects which brings out the worst kind of double standards in me, what makes it worst is that the double standards on this topic are such a big part of our life, that it doesn’t even bother us that we are taking such a stand. Not all of us are innocent you see, In the curious teens most of us have sneaked in porn, or browsed the net for those forbidden pics, or dreamed of entering the high profile strip joints which are banned here in India, so when there is no guilt in doing or wanting to do that stuff, how come a private reading of an interesting book, with a small mention of the act makes one feel guilty.
Shouldn’t I be feeling worse for showing the double standards?, shouldn’t I accept that its just a part of me just like any body else?. I would have loved to fake a guilt, at least you know for yourself that its just for the society. But no, its not just for the society, it’s a genuinely felt guilt, this kind of worried me.
I then thought about the gender angle to the subject, because for ages its been depicted that men are these sexual vultures, where as the women as the most asexual species on this earth, does the number of people with this guilt depend on the gender too?, I mean do women feel more guilt about this?.
How does marriage have an affect on this?. For years marriage has been the legal license for bodily love, so does it mean its supposed to wipe off the guilt?Some thoughts to ponder over
Guys and gals, married people, women out there, any thoughts?
