Why is it every single thing, even remotely sexual, brings me guilt. Its not a healthy trend, in fact not at all a healthy trend.
Archive for Sexuality
When its no longer just a statistic
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?.
Its only questions…
Have you ever, out of blue, yearned for human touch? romantic, sexual or just humane?
Have you followed it with guilt, rather shock and suprise as to what could be the origin of that yearning?.
Have you felt bad when it goes away without being satsisfied?.
I am found guilty, are you?
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?
Tunes of the changing age
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.
