thought-provoking speak...images and associations for me!!!!!!!

Few years back when i was at osho commune(Resort) in pune, many western women were very angry with indians because of their sexual advances. Like someone came to talk about Reiki & suddenly, out of the blue tried hugging the woman. Instances like this were very commone there. And that place clearly revealed the ugliness of sexual repression of indians. NGOs like yours are the need of time to facilitate the healing process as indians carry wounds of sexual repression.

Pertinent post aachi

Yes repression/suppression etc, media images, notions of 'loose' morality abroad etc and concepts of 'easy' women. But just to expand on the psyche -its like usually men seek hookers to have the kind of 'wild' sex their partners/wives may not permit as well as to help them transcend their own inadequacy/inexperience/macho fantasy etc. I guess the sexual is nothing if not a completely projected space of all we are/are not. Looking at foreign women as more sexually 'free/adventurous/out-there' is in fact the notion. Hitting on her will be fine since she will not consider it morally shocking and hey if she concedes then look at where I will have scored. Immediately my own self-esteem rises by 100 points. Besides where's the down side? Its not as if she will know my friends/family and tell all.

Rohit is right about how acute the sexual repression in South Asia is.

Important piece of writing Aachi. I agree with Jasjit. I was just thinking the other day about this woman of Indian origin who came to Bombay to try to get into Bollywood and ended up being raped by two men in Bawa International (I think) hotel. I think a huge part of it is feeling that since these women belong to other countries they are most likely to just make a hasty retreat and so they (the abusers) will get off scott free. Not suprising given the dismal arrest statistics. Remember the Swiss woman who got raped outside Siri Fort Auditorium....abusers not caught to date.

And then of course there's that 'foriegn women are sexually promiscuous' angle always. And one must not forget to add that this impression prevails amongst all classes. Mind boggling.

love
Anusheh

I think Jasjit summed it up neatly saying that the sexual space is usually a complete projection of what we are or are not... and the repression Rohit mentioned. There just isnt enough education for men in particular, or on sexuality in general. Its not in our schools and in our families. There just isnt enough. The idea of the loose western woman is just too delicious in India - some hangovers perhaps from a colonial mindset perhaps - about what it means to "possess" a Western/white woman.. as a sign of power and status for a man who has internalized his dark inferiority so much.

Sundar, Rohit, Jasjit, Anusheh,

Thanks for your shares.

Jasjit i cant add a single word extra to your post. You said it all.

I agree with Anusheh also that the scenario is totally mind boggling.

A few years ago when I was in Liverpool a girl sitting in front of a computer got a sexually explicit photo on her mail. She was sitting right in front of me and burst out laughing. I turned to see what made her laugh and she caught me glancing at the photo on her mail. She got embarassed and closed the window. After that whenever we met in the hospital she would be very embarrased and also a little irritated at her predicament.

I was totally surprised to see such a reaction from a 'westener'. I understood for the first time that may be the sexual promiscuity thing that the foreigners are labelled as....might not be very true.

Maya,

well said. I think the psychology revolves round power and also like Jasjit said raising self esteem by 100 points.

With all this talk about modern dressing, influence of MTV etc I thought i'd share a small experience of mine with all of you.

I was coming back home from office one night. I was in an auto and it being a cold winter night I was all clad in warm clothes head to toe. At a signal my auto stopped next to a car in which there were a couple of young guys. They looked at me (I wonder how much of me they could make out with all of we wrapped in wollens)guessed that I was a girl and they started singing one of the MTV Bollywood remixes and making sexual gestures. The signal turned green and my auto driver quickly drove off.

I was very angry at first with the boys. But then I started laughing thinking of how they were imitating the dancers in the music videos. Then I felt sad for them thinking what ideas they must be holding about women, about sex, love, desire....

Aachi

Something you said got me thinking. Have we ever defined what we term 'promiscuity'? For a small town girl wearing jeans could be promiscuity, for an Indian metro life, 'living together' is promiscuity and for us what is broadly the west defines promiscuity. Do we think a western girl will be o'k with recieving sexually explicit pictures because 'everything goes' is our notion of western promiscuity? Surely people there are humans just like us, with individual notions of what is crude and what poetic, what is sensual and what violating. I wonder if you saw a film called 'The Accused' with Jodie Foster. It was( back then) path breaking cinema for 'feminism'the world over and I still remember the debates it triggered in India (amongst activists)

There was the whole subtle area of an individual woman's 'choice' juxtaposed against the matrix of gang rape. A 'promiscuous' woman (being suggested) even in western terms and then taking the whole threshold further through choice.

From my mother's generation I see that all I do/did could be so easily called 'promiscuous' and yet it has changed in my world to a whole new definition. And yet for many not! So does it not totally reflect an individual notion of actually how repressed we are morally/sexually(as an individual) and then project that exact notion externally?

A fascinating addition is that people who brand behaviour promiscuous are possibly carrying the notions from their own deepest desires/fantasy of what they would like to be/do and cannot. The resentment then surfaces as the judgement we all know as 'promiscuous'.

Just some stray thoughts.

well said jasjit..i am sure this site would invoke associations of "promiscuity" for some..matter of perceptions and image formations from conditioned spaces...

the whole game is the game of going from slavery to mastery..

do anything as a slave and the whole nature will call you names...do anything...yes even the promiscuous thing as a master and the whole nature will help you in every possible way... it is there to fulfll you not to reduce you...

but remember, the road from slavery to mastery will first kill you though later only to make you take birth on the side of mastery...

"A fascinating addition is that people who brand behaviour promiscuous are possibly carrying the notions from their own deepest desires/fantasy of what they would like to be/do and cannot. The resentment then surfaces as the judgement we all know as 'promiscuous'"

Jasjit,

i absolutely agree. psychology tells us that we hate in others what we know in ourselves and we love in others what we lack in ourselves.

I was going through the blog and thought I should give my two pence worth. Having travelled and lived in many countries, I find that the perception of the westerner as easy is not totally without reason. While I agree that hugging a stranger without invitation is absuletely ridiculous behavior, the average westerner is sexually very active and is very open to sexual encounters with people they are familiar with, especially when they are not in a relationship or are away from their lovers or spouses. The same westerner who would look at an Indian with suspicion given the stereotype of the sexually supressed Indian, would find it very strange that he/she is not very sexually inclined when the familiarity factor sets in. Its not abnormal that people have have sex on the first date but it is abnormal in the west if there isnt any sex after frequent meetings between two people of opposite sex who otherwise have no strings attached.
So to percieve the westerner as sexually open is not incorrect..obviously no one in their right mind would accept forceful behavior.

Thanks

Max

Hi Max

Whereas I agree that there are many cultural differences in the way both cultures perceive the sexual, one still can't generalise something like this, because I know of many westerners who in their approach to sex and sexuality are as conservative as the next Indian. I guess the point is that you cant generalise, because generalisations lead to myths and they roll into all kinds of insidious actions....like taxi drivers making inappropriate advances.

Just my two cents worth:-)

i think poor in india is at least lucky in this matter,unless governtment and NGOs implement five plan to improve their orgasmic experience.
They have earlier marriage or sexual encounter and experience orgasm at their peak unlike middle class who marry in 30s after all the water has flown down through ganga.