Archive for Gender talk

When its no longer just a statistic

{ August 5, 2009 @ 12:50 am } · { Gender talk, Sexuality, harassment }
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A statistic becomes more than a number, when you realize people around you, who are just like you are a part of that statistics, have stories to tell you how right or wrong the statistic is. The idea of a statistic being a mere number becomes no longer true.

A blogger friend pointed out to me a statistic, 79% of women face sexual harassment at work. I did not think this as a big deal, because I felt we are in a safe cocoon. Indian corporate world, for that matter the global corporate world does not really face this problem so much, is what I thought. I thought these type of things are more at places where there are more uneducated people, definitely not at a place where most of the people have bachelors, masters or even doctorate degrees. Sometimes you just got to be woken up, in this case I needed it, and the blogger friend did it.

The first thought which came to my mind with sexual harassment, is that the level of harassment. How can one define the level of sexual harassment?, is inappropriate touch lesser harmful, than say an indecent proposal?, or asking for a sexual favor more damaging than subjecting a co worker to verbal discomfort?. I would jump and conclude yes and yes, but I guess its not just a simple thing. Firstly I am not qualified to comment about the emotional damage caused by any of these, and I believe this is one area where sexes play a vast difference, what I consider painful might be not so hurtful to a woman, and something which I consider trivial might be a big deal for a woman. Again, its not something, which is common among all women, its very individual.

There is an old saying in kannada, “hennu sahanaya swaroopa” [A woman is personification of tolerance"]. Even though I would disagree with this wholeheartedly, for making it a sexist comment, women in my life tend to prove this right most of the time. So when it comes to sexual harassment, I would really like to see a statistic of percentage of women who end up tolerating this, I am sure it would be an interesting statistic. I am not talking about % of women who do not think it as a big deal, that again I think is a interesting statistic, I am sure the numbers might surprise many of us. I am talking about women who are subjected to sexual harassment, and they tend to just tolerate this assuming they are supposed to do so, or too shy to report this, or plain fear of social implications or fear of job loss. If you thought in this new age corporate world this number will be low, I bet we would be surprised.

Being in the corporate world, I had to take a training about sexual harassment. I have to admit some of the section were really surprising to me, I never knew they could be considered as a sexual harassment. There were some obvious ones like touching a co worker, or even trying to get them to meet you outside work, but there were subtle ones like a forwarded email which could offend the co-worker,  or a joke made light heartedly which could offend them. For the moment lets just ignore these subtle things which could still get me fired, lets talk about the physical abuses. Like trying to take advantage of a co worker, by touching in appropriately or trying to do ..you know what. Anyways I really thought these things never happened in corporate world. I think I was wrong.

Lets come to the “liberated” thinking people, who dont think its wrong to involve in such practices, both men and women, do you think we have such people in corporate world?, women/men who don’t think there is anything wrong to use themselves to move up the ladder?. Isn’t this the most cliched topic of all times, being abused in movies from ages?. But still I would really like to know the real picture w.r.t this, anybody?..have you heard/known/done things to move up the ladder?, if not have you contemplated it?.

Last but not the least, the minority of sexually harassed men at work. To be honest I have never experienced this on myself, nor think it really happens. However, I felt the same about women, until I was woken up. Now that we are striving for gender equality in everything, may be we do have the problem. How about this folks?, do you think statistics on this regard would surprise us?.

Strong and scary

{ March 22, 2009 @ 9:51 pm } · { Attraction, Feminism, Gender talk, Moi }
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I heard a strong successful and independent lady ask a man, “are you scared of me!”, and instantly the man in me, wanted to yell, no not scared, attraction would be the right word.

I have read a lot from and about women, who fight for females rights, [I do not want to use the cliché feminist here], they always seem to be of the opinion that men fear the growth of woman. Woman going places where they were never before, proving themselves in almost every conceivable field, proving anything men can do, they can do better, these kind of things to be intimidating to men, giving men a sense of loss of monopoly, power, and that is what make men afraid. Fear brings in anger, and anger in turn violence.

If I am honest, I would say ego is a very personal subject, and may not have much to do with gender. Male ego as such goes through a lot of battering over age, be it the local bully in the school, the goon at college, the evil powerful corporate world. Many people don’t realize how slowly their ego is getting battered, and from being a strong rebel, men seem to settle into a more of a social survivor who dream of scraping through the life without having to take too many troubles.

Work pressures are at all time high with the recession affecting each one of us, does feminism help the escapist men?, who really do not mind to take some help from their spouses. If a woman wants to be the hero, fight world hard, make money, feed the family, and be happy at the end of the day that by doing so they have been better then their male counterparts, isn’t it the best thing that a man would ever want?. In a way he has more freedom and independence to pursue what he wants to do, without having to worry about feeding his family, and taking care of his wife.

I think I lost the way with this post, this was supposed to be about men being attracted strong and powerful women, and It kind of went in a different direction.

Attraction to strong women isn’t a new concept. I am sure there have been hundred’s of men who are attracted to women who are strong. Women with minds which can challenge spiritually and can fight for their beliefs and opinions about matters which can be really stimulating to both the partners. When I hear about nagging between couples, I always have a feeling its lack of topics to argue about which results in nagging, If couple spend more time discussing topics which can be really thought provoking, the mind is too busy to even bother about small things. Would you rather discus and argue about say physical intimacy then some wet towel, or a lost sock.

I remember a blogger friend teasing about my liking for women who are more modern in approach, who does not think twice before picking up a drink, or even for that matter choose career equally or more than their family life. I have a feeling that they would be in a position to understand my stand on my career a lot better.

There has been an old saying that two swords cannot fit a sleeve. Would two strong career minded people make a successful couple?, A part of practicality makes me say no, it would be a disaster. But another part of me says, why not. Let us not get into the part, where we discuss kids, I mean with two busy people, no time for kids and other things like that. But as a couple would they be successful, will it result into a lot of clashes, and an eventual disaster. I believe as long as there is a mutual understanding and a respect for equality, within a relationship, the compromises should become mutual.

How to avoid competition in such a situation is a whole new topic, may be I would love to hear from people who are more experienced than I am, to talk about that.

As far as attraction goes, as of now, looks like my taste hasn’t changed much, I still seem to like strong women, capable of discussing any topic with me, and being able to argue till we drop tired.

Is it just me?

{ November 10, 2008 @ 4:28 pm } · { Gender talk }
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Is it just me or all of us think this way, is this the famous face of the male cheavounistic pig [MCP in short] which  the feminists from all around claim, does this hypocracy exist in all our heads? why is it that it becomes so difficult to accept that women just like us men can have negative thoughts, they too can have shades of gray in their character, they too can intentionally cause harm, they too can be sadistic in nature, they too can be guilty of sexual abuse. Why is it that when it comes to women, general idea is that of a clean white slate, and with men, our mind is open to accepting black, white and gray characters. 

The workplaces all across India are changing so much, we see a gender equilibrium in almost all sectors. Workplace politics for ages has been one of the major concerns to many people, its like the common cold, which eventually catches up on you one time or the other. So with the gender balance around, there are female bosses and their male counterparts, we have people of opposite gender working for you, with you and above you. So have you ever felt prejudiced?, honestly I have, I have a feeling that women hatch a lot less conspiracy then men. Does this bring out a possible subconscious thought that woman are naive, and cannot think bad for someone else?, in a way is this not a gender bias?, treating women in-equally?. or does this constitute a bias against men?.
Take any media for that matter, be it print, television or movies, and tell me honestly what you feel when you read about a possible report of an abuse, or a criminal offense, what picture comes to your mind, men or woman?. I would be lieing if I say I see woman, because I don’t. Given a fight between a man and a woman, more often then not my first instinct says its the man who might be guilty. May be its not just me, how many times in movies do we see a women who is the main villain, even the vamps end up being shown to be kind hearted at the end, or someone who have been forced by circumstances, where as the men are the intentional mean people, with all the negative thoughts in the world. But have to admit, with the advent of daily soap, and a lot of saas bahu serials, we do get to see the she-villains a lot, but again they are not easy to accept as being real, or atleast I do not think they are real characters. 
We see so many instances of sexual abuse against women reported, and we hardly get to hear the same against men, does this mean they do not happen?, or do men never considered for sexual abuse. I did read about a school teacher in the US being convicted of abusing a minor male student, but that’s it, have never heard anything like this. Whenever a sexual racket is busted, or a mishap comes to light, its always the male involved in the issue who gets blamed. More importantly the general perception in minds of people, or to be certain in my mind atleast its the male who gets the initial finger pointing,
Are we going wrong here?, or is it something which is evolving slowly and our social outlook towards women and crime changing?. More importantly are we being hipocrates and reluctant in accepting women can be as bad as men, [just as the society was reluctant to accepting women could be as good as men]

I am found guilty, are you?

{ July 27, 2008 @ 3:22 pm } · { Gender talk, Moi, Sexuality, Uncategorized }
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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?

Zemanta Pixie

Tunes of the changing age

{ May 31, 2008 @ 11:54 am } · { "Body or Soul", Gender talk, Sexuality, age }
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I must admit, I have been very lazy these days, even on days where there is much going on my mind, thoughts flowing forcing me to scribble them on the notepad, I seem to ponder over them in mind, rather than over here on the blog.

The other day I was reading a book and an incident in the book set me adrift in this direction. Sexuality, one of the least discussed and the taboo subjects, one which is not meant to be discussed about, how does it change with the age?, does sexuality age differently in men and women?, at what age do we say that’s it, we are no longer interested, or is it really age which makes us loose interest.?. These questions plagued my mind for days together, as I began searching for answers, with least background, and even lesser experience.

In a way I was hesitant because I am not qualified experience wise to write about this, being in mid twenties I have hardly seen the world w.r.t to this subject to make any kind of observation or theorize, however this stubborn opinionated mind of mine is singing a different tune.

Lets begin with men. I have read many places, and spoken to many people who believe that men of all ages, at all times, think of only one thing, that’s sex. The day in the early teens when he begins his journey from boyhood to manhood, till the day he leaves this earth, he would never say enough, is what many people believe. Is it really true?, is it true that age has no effect on a man’s sexuality?. I think age surely does have an impact, in some cases age counts as the time spent on earth and in many other cases age can be considered as the maturity one tends to develop with time, the realization of the deeper meanings in life. I am not saying with maturity people become asexual, what I am thinking is people attach different meaning to the act.

Women on the other hand are said to start a little slow, you know idea of romance sets in first and then its followed by sexuality. In a more well defined journey, women are said to evolve sexually over the years from uninterested, to slightly interested, peak during mid thirties and then finally slowly begin to loose interest. I have never spoken to a woman regarding this, nor have I read many books on this, may be fellow bloggers can contribute their perspective here. From what I have perceived, I was surprised to get a feel a woman’s sexuality a couple of times, even though its very subtle, very figurative, but at the bottom of it, not much different from that of a male point of view.

Again whatever I said till now does not disprove the belief that men of all age think of only one thing. Lets consider a small journey of a boy. When kids grow up, until a certain age they do not see the difference in gender, live alone the idea of sexuality, as they grow up the idea of gender and its differences are instilled by we adults in them. Making groups of kids in school based on gender, forcing distinctive dressing sense on to the kids etc, slowly the distinction becomes apparent in the eyes of the kids. Preteens is an almost age of innocence, when the guys show keen interest in opposite sex, I think here all they want in many cases is just a friendship, and to be respected amongst the peers. Even at this stage the curiosity is not yet set in. Only in the mid teens/to late teens when the sexuality and curiosity plays havoc in a boys life, he is discovering many new things in himself, new feelings, new ideas and even new functions of his own body parts. Now Isn’t this a natural age to grow curios, also in a way age where one tends glorify sexuality in one’s own eye?.

A preteen or teenage girls are said to fantasize a lot about romance, the idea of an ideal lover, the one who will walk them to the moon, and they are ready to trade anything for it. I feel a lot of preteen/teen sexuality in girls is mainly in search of the romance, and also a thing they believe they have to do achieve what they really want. Its only later, years later they do realize the various subtleties of romance, and possible existence of a something like pure lust in their relation.

I think men in early twenties tend to have this bursts of animal extinct in them, more on the lines of bursts of erotic thoughts and then dwindle away, even fantasies too seem to be more in this age. However I think this age [number] is coming down, more and more teenagers or early twenties people exploring more of their sexualities in India now, and even abroad I think the average age has gone down a lot, and with that, the age to fantasize too.

Nowadays I ponder a lot on this thought, I wonder at some stage one will loose the curiosity in sexuality isn’t it?, at the end of the day its just a body, how much different can it be?. That makes it interesting, is it the age in me speaking when I get such thoughts?. I guess men entering late thirties and early forties take it easy, there is no longer the curiosity nor the peer pressure, and I think it may end up being more pleasurable at that age.

I think woman on the other hand discover lust at a slightly older age compared to men, even though biologically women are considered to peak much earlier than men, I think they become more adventurous when it comes to their sexuality a little later, may be I am totally wrong, but this is what I feel. May be some years down the lane, they really tend to discover themselves and their sexuality. In many cases, long after they become sexuality active. I also feel, they tend to develop a sense of urgency in them, I am not so sure as to what they are afraid of, whats going to end so soon?, why is their a sense of urgency?. Or is it that there isn’t any urgency?.

Moving onto the old age, I have absolutely no clue about this period of one’s life, and this aspect of that age, may be some of my readers can give us more information about the thought process at that age.

Its been a while I wrote something for the body or soul series, and this topic made me think a lot on the subject.

Amateur thoughts

{ May 3, 2008 @ 12:37 pm } · { Attraction, Gender talk, opinion }
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My views on this topic are very amateur, with almost none or very little understanding of the topic, the post is just a creation of my thoughts and what I feel about the subject, lot of views are abstract and am not really sure if my views are correct, finally the post is incomplete I might continue this some day again, all I wanted to say was I do not mean to offend any person homo/hetro sexual, please do let me know your views or please feel free to correct me if my views are totally off reality.

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I once commented about homosexuality on one of the posts by Chennai ramblings over at her post “rant for the day”, it was long ago in February, I never got myself to think more on the matter, until today.

To begin with I was a lot like my grandmother, she just dismissed the possibility of a man marrying another one, in her books its impossible, well I started out very much like her, I could not imagine, how such a relation could exist, to imagine copulation amongst two men was something I couldn’t not even think off, same with women too. I know men are supposedly turned on by two women together, but believe me I could never imagine something physically meaningful between the two women or men. Anyways as my comment on the post, I feel there is a lot more involved in a gay relationship more than just sex.

One question that crossed my mind was “do people get into a same sex relationship as a result of a hetro sex relationship turning sour?, when people have had a bitter experience or a string of bitter experiences with people of opposite sex, do people give up?, or may be with a hope that people of the same sex may understand then much better do they change their orientation?. Do they end up searching for what they could not find in people of the opposite sex in their same sex partner?. It looks logical to me, may be in many cases it is true.

Physical proximity in many a cases could also influence one’s choice I guess, during times when one needs an emotional partner, and I am sure every one needs emotional support at times, and may be at times like such physical proximity to people of the same sex, may lead to mutual admiration and a lot of emotional bonding, which in some cases may end up turning sexual. I do know that there are a large number of platonic same sex relations everywhere, and I am part of some such relations too, and not all of them turn romantic, but may be in some cases people do develop a natural liking just like a hetro sexual platonic relation turns into a romantic one.

One question I would love to survey across the world would be, how many gay relationships have triggered of from a sexual attraction?, I will not be surprised if many of them are not triggered by sexual attraction, all people think about homsexuals are their “sexual orientation”, I believe there is a lot more to it, it’s not just lust, I do agree that just like hetro sexuals there will be cases where people sparked off relationships based on pure sexual attraction to begin with, but I think there is a lot more to it then just the physical act of love.

I once read somewhere that people never turn gay, they are born gay. I am not so sure if this is true. When I was a kid, I hardly knew about whom to get attracted to, nor today, I mean I cannot force myself to like a person, same way is attraction too, but what makes me yearn for a relation with the opposite sex but not same sex?, sometimes it puzzles me, what tells me or what prevents me. So if this can happen at this age, I am sure as a kid not many people can control who they get attracted to?, can a boy or a girl who has no idea what a relation or a physical relation means decide his/her orientation?, I mean can some young kid really get attracted?, let alone same/opposite sex. I somehow can’t get myself to believe that someone is born homo or hetro sexual.

more ramblings to follow… someday :)

Communication and Gender

{ April 14, 2008 @ 8:15 am } · { Gender talk, opinion }
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One of my blogger friend asked me why I had not updated this blog for quite some time now, and I replied that may be I am not pursuing anything pure these days. The statement in many a sense is true, I am kind of blank these days when It comes to thinking, also the books I am reading haven’t sparked any debate in my wind worthy of finding its way into this blog. On Sunday, the national daily, Times of India carried an article about communication and gender, I mean how men communicate, and how women do, and what’s lacking when the two communicate with each other. Well they really did not sound the way I just said, the paper put in a lot more glamour and the ‘IT factor, what interested me is a block of pointers they put against each gender.
Here it goes.

Men,

  • they interrupt or speak over others to assert themselves and their role
  • establish less eye contact
  • use fewer facial expressions to convey emotions
  • rely on more open body positions [no crossed legs and crossed arms]
  • use more gestures body reactions
  • men touch others more, value touch less, and are touched less by others
  • men use more non verbal cues of power or status to indicate a degree of influence and control
  • men are better at map reading.

Women

  • they wait their turn to speak so talk can be shared among equals.
  • women ask questions to invite others into the conversations and show interest in other’s ideas
  • women establish more eye contact
  • women use more facial expressions, fewer gestures to convey emotions
  • women rely on more closed body positions
  • women touch other’s less, value touch more and are touched more by others
  • women are more sensitive to expressions, for example they are quicker to not even the twitch of an eyebrow

The rest of the article is about the way men and women should communicate with each other, and how one should pick up cues and subtleties of what the person of opposite sex is saying to us. Hmm frankly speaking, though the tips might be good, it did not interest me much as I was not looking for it. However these pointers of sorts generated a lot of interest. The post to content to follow, is just a theory, and totally biased by my own theories which are formed by observing a close group of people, so I do not know if it applies to people in broader sense.

Starting with the age old cliché that women talk more, so it appears the study revealed that women speak about 20000 words per day, where as men speak about 7000. Well I have seen both men and women who speak a lot and those who don’t speak at all. But one thing I have observed though is that many women are very descriptive in communicating, they give importance to smaller details, for example when my niece tells me a story of a prince, she many a times starts with where and how she heard the story, and sometimes when she is in full mood describes what she was wearing that day, and even the story part, she tells me more about the way the princess walked, and even her face is full of expression. When many of my nephews tell me a story, they are more interested in completing the story and moving on to the next activity. Even as adults, one of the biggest nags around is that women spend a way too much time on phone, even though I hate sexism, I kind of statistically agree on this one, I have seen many of women in our family way too much time on phone compared to men. If you ever try to decipher what they talk so much, you will be surprised, I mean the details communicated, is much more descriptive that a news paper, now is that detailing necessary is a totally different topic, but the levels of interest shown towards communicating and the detailing does differ a lot, men on the other hand seem to just convey rather communicate matters, now again both the parties, the conveyer and the conveyed do not seem to miss the lack of details, and more or less don’t bother the details as well.

The survey seems to say that men interrupt in the middle of a conversation where as women tend to wait their turn. I am not so sure on this one, I have seen many a discussions where women are as eager to put forth their theories even if it means interrupting the current speaker, I remember first tip I received as an in intern in one of the software companies, I was asked not to prompt the team member even if he/she is going wrong in what she is talking, may be its a soft skill which many of us lack, over the years I have struggled to learn to keep quiet when one is talking nonsense, or what’s nonsense according to me, my goal is to talk less, even If I know a thing, talk about it if and only if it is required. Coming back to men not waiting their turn, its really ironical, as
per the other cliche, men never get their turn t speak J. But I kind of agree a little on the about trying to assert, many a people both men and women do interrupt to assert what they have to say.

Establishing less eye contact, well is it?. Actually have never observed this one, I think most of us Indians do not make a lot of eye contact when speaking, or may be I am totally wrong on this one.

Use of facial expressions, I think men do use a lot of facial expressions, its only the men do not have elaborate expressions, for example displeasure might be indicated just by a grunt, or a quick expression, where as women seem to be more elaborate. But unfortunately the last post kicks in here, we men are very poor observers when It comes to facial expressions and body language, most of the times the person is speaking to me only through his/her words. I am really surprised at the small things my mom or my cousin sister pick up when I speak, without much difficulty they can find out if I am hesitant, lying, or happy or sad, I used to boast of wearing an iron mask, not giving out signs, there are few people like my friend S, or my mom, or even some of my cousins, who just read me so easily, my dad or my male cousins on the other hand, firstly do not care much, second do not seem to find out unless I give obvious hints, like not
Eating properly, or humming extraordinarily loud when happy.

Regarding body positions, and women closed body positions, I am not really sure if it is correct, men cross legs when listening attentively, so do women. Many men have the habit of crossing legs as a sign of power, even though its not crossing legs in the traditional sense, its more of one leg perpendicular to the other. Its a little surprising too, according to the old schools of thoughts, women in India did not cross their legs much, I mean as I said its kind of indicative of a class and supremacy, which women were not supposed to show in the olden times. And men on the other hands never crossed their arms, its more indicative of submissiveness, women too on the other hand never crossed their arms, they are supposed to be the open armed people, ready to hug their kin.

Guys you do know how uncomfortable I am with the touch, and I do know that not many men are like me in this regard, may be many men touch other while speaking, but I have seen women too touch a lot while speaking, even though its not with complete strangers, many of my friends and relatives who are women, do not mind patting my back, or holding my arms, or even a casual touch now and then when they speak, but I think the part of valuing a touch is true, women do value the touch more, and also restrict it to people who they are comfortable with. I don’t have a view about this from the men’s point of view mainly because I am still not over the shyness or obsessions or whatever you want to call it, touch still is not comfortable to me.

Communication, never thought there are so many things talking, and so many more things out there to be listened to, does communication really differ according to gender? What do you guys think?

Would you call it dedication?

{ February 9, 2008 @ 7:35 am } · { "Body or Soul", Gender talk, Virginity }
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Dedication, thats how I see it, no I am not talking about the dedication towards your studies, nor towards one’s carrier, nor towards one’s girl friend or wife. I am talking about the dedication towards one’s body. I think virginity is dedication to one’s body, and making sure you respect your body more than anything else.

As with all the posts over here in my pure pursuits, this as well is a bundle of contradictions and confusions. To be frank, I honestly do not think of virginity as a virtue in a women, I mean not just woman. I might be not a complete believer of the traditional “hymen” being the proof, however I will be lying if I say, I do not value one waiting for a right single partner, both men and woman.

I do not want to talk about whether hymen must be the point of concern, instead I was thinking about how much should one give importance to monogamy, and making your better half the only sexual partner for life.

I know monogamy itself is debatable, many believe that at any given point of time in life, if you are making sure you are not being with more than one particular partner thats monogamy. Unfortunately I do not believe in that, and still continue to believe that one should give a fair thought before one enters a physical relationship. I know this is heading to the old debate of body or soul.

For many a people who still believe marry only once in life phenomenon, shouldn’t one make efforts to dedicate their body to just one individual?. shouldn’t this be something exclusive and personal between the two?.

Again the thought might be something thats being churned out in the hypocrite traditional part of my mind, while the other side is screaming, asking why?, why should one dedicate?, can one make sure that their mind had never strayed away towards another individual before marriage?, can one result in abstinence in that regards. We can be fairly sure, either of the individuals might have had thoughts of romantic nature before, so why not the same wrt body, for many a people consider mind and soul more important than body, so when you can live with a non virgin mind, why not a non virgin body.

I somehow have the feeling that every relationship begins with a trust and hope that this is going to be “IT”, my relation for the lifetime, he/she is going to be my partner for life, so at that point what do one do?, should he or she abstain from the physical act because he is not sure about the end result, no one can be sure right. If one considers marriage as the point which confirms, ok now nothing else can happen that can drift the couple apart, so thats the right time to move forward. Its still possible that it might end up in a divorce, or god forbids death of one of the partner.

So for what should one wait, steady relationship?, engagement?, marriage?, few years of marriage?.. till when?.

Someone once asked me a great question once.. not sure where, must be in one of the blogs. so just because you want to dedicate, what would you do if your partner turns out to be not a virgin. Really tough question that was. You know that question made me wonder, will I be in a stage where my love for the person would be so much that I will not care about one’s past life, more importantly the past life of one’s body.

I still do not have an answer, sometimes the logical mind of mine says I would ignore, and sometimes the practical mind of mine doubts of a wilder reaction. That takes us to the square one, so should one really value virginity.

As I said before, I feel everyone wants to do this I suppose, or I might be totally naive in believing so, but I was thinking of those extreme cases, where one totally stops caring about their body, and the sanctity of exclusiveness. I feel there can be many influences in this regard.

Lets take the case of external influent like Drugs, Alcohol things which can put people so high that they do not care about who is using there body to do what. Sometimes the addiction becomes so strong that they do not care if they end up sacrifising their own rules and body to get a gram of hash. I think this is shows a little bit of weak mind, if one cannot control their addiction, or begin to loose control of themselves under the substance abuse, I do not think there is a lot of thinking going on in there.

What I am more weary about is when, people reach a mental stage where they do not care about their body, and it becomes a way of getting back at people who have troubled them, or kind of rebelling against the society which makes certain things forbidden. In most of these cases, the other person in such a act, is not even aware of how he/she is being used, or what implications it is going to have on the person’s life.

Coming back to the questions,

Do I value virginity?, I think yes both in men and women,

Why? not so clear,

Virgin till when?, I guess till that one person whom you can’t think of moving onto someone else,

So what If I did a mistake in choosing that person?, mistakes do happen, but should that affect what we value? mistakes are meant to be forgiven/ignored when you value the person much more.

What do you guys think??

Friendship Talkies

{ January 10, 2008 @ 4:32 pm } · { Friendship, Gender talk }
{ } · { Comments (2) }

Anna Garlin Spencer who was an American feminist, speaking about man/women friendship, once quoted saying “The friendship between a man and a woman which does not lead to marriage or desire for marriage may be a life long experience of the greatest value to themselves and to all their circle of acquaintance and of activity; but for this type of friendship both a rare man and a rare woman are needed“. What I recently discovered not only rare men and women are needed for that kind of a friendship, but even rare people needed to understand one such friendship.

I generally don’t believe in keeping contact with people, whose views I cannot appreciate, or rather cannot stand. Unfortunately when they become a business liability, you end up keeping interface with them, even though you hate their presence. “Falling in my eyes” was an instance of such horrible person, with whom I still have to interact.

When you meet a person, you really can’t know his/her real attitude, and thus may sometimes end up being friends with people whom you later discover, to be really bad, or incompatible with your ideologies. I generally distance from them slowly, just hoping that they don’t feel totally left out suddenly. Still over the years I have maintained contacts with all such one time good friends. Recently, on the occasion of the new years, I pinged a one old friend on gtalk, mainly to wish him a happy new year. Its been almost more than 6/7 months since I had talked with him, or emailed. After the pleasantry exchanges, the usual hows work stuff, he started to loosen up, and things which I hated started to come up. Its surprising how people keep track of what you are upto, even without talking to you directly, he seem to know whom I am spending time what, whats happening at my workplace, and with whom I was generally in good terms with.

When you are not aware of a relationship, I guess the best thing you can do is not to talk about it, because you never know how you are affecting the other person. He started commenting about a nice friendship I have developed over the recent times. I could not stand it. He had absolutely no right to talk about a friendship, in such a bad taste. Firstly I doubt if he has ever understood how a friendship can exist between opposite sex. More importantly I don’t think he understood what friendship means in general. I gave an excuse and logged off the gtak, but I was pretty pissed the whole day.

The next day my reader showed up this post from a friend No place for friendship.
Its strange how often the friendship gets misunderstood, sometimes from the people involved and many times from people outside. When there are sentiments involved, it makes it all the more sensitive topic to be dealt with.

As I do not have much insight about how women misunderstand the friendship, I will chose to write my views from the male perspective. People always accuse of the men to misinterpret friendship to a relation of romantic interest. I think I agree to this partially. I do not know if it only happens wrt males, but in some cases, I have seen myself, and felt in a odd occasion, that I misinterpreted the intention in a friendship. I guess this is inevitable in a non established relationship, when each have their own agenda, or probably they haven’t even set up their minds as to what to expect in the friendship. Do you think the one who misunderstood is guilty?, I am not so sure on that one. One thing is for sure, when the misunderstanding comes out, in most of the cases, thats the end of the friendship.

Talking about the more damaging part, people not knowing anything about the relation, people who see that from a distance, many times have something nasty to say, hurting the sentiments of the people involved, especially if it is about a person whose friendship you really care about. As it happened in my case, my respect for the person further deteriorated, more importantly put in a doubt in my mind, what if all people are looking at the friendship with a bad perspective?, more importantly what if the other person has other ideas more than friendship. Basically ruined something which was doubtless.

I agree this does indicate a weak friendship, what some one says or does should not have any effect on your strong friendship, thats ideal situation we are talking about, and it takes time for all friendship to reach that stage, and in the mean while, someone makes such a comment, and it really effects you.

For a long long time, I did not believe in pure friendship, not with the same sex, specially not with the opposite sex, but perceptions do change, for some sooner and for less fortunate ones like me later. Why is it that common a notion that “Man and a woman cannot be just friends”.

Sexuality and Gender

{ November 24, 2007 @ 7:59 am } · { Gender talk }
{ } · { Comments (7) }

I was reading an article on Times Of India some days back, it was on the raise of the number of people opting for “Friends with benefits” or what the article cheaply stated as “**** buddies”. For starters its an arrangement to get some un emotional sex, with either your friends or someone whom you term as **** buddy. Its an attempt to enjoy the act with no strings attached.

I really don’t believe in the idea, but thats not the subject of the post, the thing that stuck me most of hypocrisies within me. I really did think for a second, why would a woman want such a friend, I really did forget for a while that women too like men might have same needs. So why is that women are considered to be these sexless beings where as men on the other hand are supposedly sexual maniacs. Why do we consider women to so benign sexual feelings wise.

This gender bias is not something which is new, I was just trying to recollect any of our olden epics which depicts sexuality of women, I could hardly come across any instance, only one which came near is the episode of Shakuntala, she is described to have been very excited seeing prince Dushyanta in the forest, and the poetry does mention more about how excited her body became after seeing him.

Even in the Indian movies, women are always shown to be the more patient types, they are never the one with the sexual feelings, they are always more emotional love seekers, at the most they are shown to be naughty a little, but when it comes to bodily feelings, the heroes are the one who make advance and the women are always telling no types. I can think of only the film maker Raj Kapoor who did show his women to be a little more aggressive sexually, with him as the hero, he always portrayed women to be more informed about these things, and always women instigating the relationship.

There must be some reasons behind the cliche-s, is it because women are not more expressive?, To be honest I don’t think men express too, I mean atleast not much more in this matter, or may be my perception is wrong. I feel personally that both men and women shy way from most of it in company of others, may be in private it is a total different ball game.

From what I have known women from the blogs I read,  I guess they are equally interested or uninterested like men are. I sometimes feel totally uninterested in some areas which I think is over hyped and sex is one such thing, and some times the body does take our brains. But then I am sure women too must be going through the same feelings. They must have ogled at some person who excited them, and on another day, their intellect got stimulated much more than their body.

So what do you say?, aren’t we hypocrites?, Should women be considered as sexless human beings?

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