Putting Sex In Its Rightful Place

Sound the klaxons! I am about to go on to write a non-watertight post which will include some assertions and much musing. WHAT IT WILL BE: a reflection and an invitation to debate, discuss and ponder (I know, I know, call the ponce police NOW!). WHAT IT WON'T BE: sociological treatise supported by pages upon pages of peer-reviewed science.

Sex is overrated.

Yeah, I said it. That's right. You read me right. SEX IS OVERRATED!

Now that I've grabbed your attention with my controversial soundbite, sit still and bear with me. I don't think ALL sexual activity is overrated...

but when I said 'sex,' you thought of penetrative intercourse, didn't you? Go on, it's the right answer! It's the answer I want you to give!

I've always been a bit dubious about penetration. When I was younger, it was the idea that something being inserted up you could be fun. If you think about it, that brings to mind injections. Injections are not very fun, now, are they?

(Incidentally, I've only just now made that link, so don't go crediting my teenage self with scope I didn't actually have...).

As an Asian woman though, the prospect of it absolutely fucking terrified me. Ideally, I would be imagined - and expected - to be a virgin, a sexual ingénue, whilst my husband could have had numerous sexual encounters, and we would not discuss it because you Do Not Go There. Why would you want to broach a topic that would only lead to strife? Wondering how many previous lovers he might have had, if he's being honest about that number, how you compare, why it's OK for him and not for you...

Not all Asian men are hypocrites. Some of the genuinely devout ones aren't. However, depressingly enough, it is the religion-following (rather than any sort of internal reflection and self-awareness) that makes them so, for a lot of the men I know of. Sikh men. Let it be said though, that the power structures are partly responsible. Even though men benefit much more than women in Asian culture, they're by NO MEANS free of baggage.

So yeah, I would wonder why the hell the whole world was so goddamn obsessed with sex anyway. From the age of eleven, I made a resolution, and this was my only life's resolution. Now it may sound sad to some, and maybe some sort of betrayal to others (OMG, WHY DIDN'T YOU LIKE, AIM TO BE AN ASTRONAUT OR SOMETHING?!), it was important to me. It still is - important and necessary, and I feel that I was very lucky to find it.

I vowed that I wanted to love and be loved. Note: I didn't say 'wanted to be married,' or that I 'wanted to be in love.' No, I wanted to be loved. Not drama and not tears. Not the sort of relationship where his basic acknowledging of me as a fellow human was a source of happiness. Not the sort of marriage where his leaving me to get on with the housework, rather than criticising me for not doing it the way his mum did, was considered desirable. A partner who could understand that, was THE benchmark by which I would set my standards, thank you very much.

Sex has always been important, but many would argue that it has become more recent in modern times. I would be inclined to agree, especially when you think of changing attitudes to pornography, the arrival of the Internet and a general liberalising of society. That's not to say we're all fine with talking about sex now, but you know, you have things like Anne Summers shops and mainstream papers such as The Independent running lists of 'The Ten Best Sex Toys.' Hard to imagine in the 1950s, eh?

However, the way we think about sex has often been problematic. For a long time, you had a love/sex dichotomy, and it still persists. The idea that love and sex could be separate (especially for women) began to develop towards the end of the nineteenth century. I'm thinking specifically of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), which tentatively broaches a subject all too familiar to modern readers: the notion that you can love somebody - while simultaneously being attracted to someone else. No doubt it was there before, but it was very likely taboo, especially for women. Fancy someone other than your husband? You strumpet!

For some people, I don't doubt that love and sex is often - maybe even always - separate. That may even work for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for a lot of people. Read any number of letters to any number of agony aunts, and you see the same ol' time-weathered issues recurring: I love a married man, but he won't leave his wife for me, blah blah blah. Or I'm unsatisfied and I'm having an affair, blah blah blah. Alongside this kind of thing, you get celebratory articles about women finding sexual satisfaction in their 40s by having affairs, and stuff like that.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that - perhaps because of an increase in sexual freedoms for women - it became more acceptable for women to 'do as men do' sexually. Unfortunately, however, that increase in freedom didn't necessarily coincide with a weakening of certain ideas about sex and gender. Hence, many women had more sex, but the old idea that women wanted love and men wanted sex still held firm in the minds of many. So, you got this stupid and painful situation where women could have sex with whoever, but for many, love and sex were intrinsically bound in their subconscious.

There's also the fact that sex leads to the release of oxytocin, which:

has various functions in the body, such as inducing labor contractions and milk ejection, but from evolutionary biology’s perspective, its main evolutionary function is to bond us to our children for life. It also serves to bond us to our mate…at least long enough to produce a child and (if we're lucky) get it on its feet.

We are not programmed for monogamy, nor our own sexual satisfaction, it would seem. I DO NOT mean by this to say that women should stop exercising sexual freedom like men. Evolutionary science has been conveniently used in the past to enforce gender stereotypes and permit men to 'sow their wild oats' while denying women the same freedom. That's what you'd call 'bad science,' though. Proper science shows itself to be egalitarian in showing that actually, we're all set up for the same goal: to further the species. If males will 'sow their wild oats,' then females will replace flagging partners.

This is where I come back in. Yuman beans are, of course, brain-equipped creatures and not just bags of hormones, correct? We realised the dangers of blindly following our instincts since very, very long ago (see: Greek tragedy), in the form of overpopulation, if nothing else. We can't have our cake and eat it too. Either we have long-term stable relationships, or we have incredible sexual peaks and troughs. The time-honoured way to have both is to fake replacing your partner, by means of sexual exploration. You may notice how people always use terms like 'reinvent' or 'rediscover.' It's change, but you're tricking your brain - instead of a new partner, you're simply using new techniques to keep dopamine levels consistent.

Another possibility, to be used alongside, is to reassess the importance of sex. To put sex back in its rightful place (AT LAST! I hear you cry). No sex vs love. No more of this 'I love my husband, but I have great sex with the plumber.' No more of this 'I love my wife, but my secretary is so naughty and dirty.' Actions have repercussions. That's the shittest and most important bit of being an adult. Especially when there's children or friends involved, and Lord knows, there so often are. It's almost embarrassing.

Be slow. Be messy. Be fumbling. Learn, gradually and carefully, how to turn each other on. Think of your sex life as a book, which you chop into bits and put back together again. Does the end HAVE to be the end? How final was the end, anyway? In so many cases, you probably read to the end and then thoughts lingered in your head. You thought 'I wonder what happened next to so-and-so?' Even if there was a sequel, the likelihood of it carrying on right where the last left off was unlikely. In cases where that DOES happen, the first media I can think of are soap operas and comic-book series - and what are they? Long-running.

Penetration is not the end, nor should it be. It's been established that many women don't come through penetration alone; evidently it's not the key to orgasm in itself. Yet we persist in elevating it to such ridiculous levels of importance. Teens are all so interested in 'going all the way' and 'doing it.' Very few people's first time is about learning how to enjoy sex; it seems more to be about 'getting it out of the way.' How depressing! That's life, though. Social conformity exerts such horrible, crushing pressure on us that people have sex - or pretend to have - before they're even really ready for it.

I think the common attitude of 'lose virginity drunkenly, so as to ease fear, then have sex whenever I feel like' is fair enough, but watch out, people. If that's how you want to do, then you have to do it right. Go all the way. Don't think about love. Where sex leads, love does not necessarily follow - and you know what? That's not because men want sex and women want love. It's not because love and sex are opposed. It's because reproduction and monogamy are opposed. Yeah, that's right! How hilarious it feels to read that, when religion has been advocating socially/religiously/legally-enforced monogamy as the prerequisite for reproduction for years.

Sex needs to be rethought, and not just by feminists. Enough of the turgid meatstick in the quivering lower-lips. Enough of tits, asses and cock. Have you ever found somebody's eyelashes sexy? No? I sure as hell have (The Libertarian's thick, charcoal-dusting caught my eye even before his green-and-gold eyes). I like lips, in a man. The Libertarian has very rosy cheeks and lips, a freckled nose and unexpectedly dark, thick upper lashes. Half the time, I don't know whether to frame-and-display him, or kiss as usual.

I think I'm lucky, because I grew up with an awareness of classic Bollywood cinema, where filmi courtesans redefined the markers of sexuality. Between the sashaying of hips and the thrusting of abdominal muscles that we know so well, alongside wet saris, there was something new. I'm thinking of Madhuri Dixit as the courtesan Chandramukhi in Devdas, of the song 'Kaahe Chhed Chhed Mohe.' One of her most fervent admirers sings (roughly translated from memory):

'Jasmine makes fragrant her lovely dark tresses... Radha's face is aglow, electric... Her gait, seductive.'

In Sanskrit poetry, as well as old Bollywood, eyes, eyelashes, hair and faces are most often described as alluring. The face and hands are most often employed by filmi courtesans to seduce. It's still objectification, you might argue - but at least it's not quite as violent a form of objectification. It's not the same as when: 'you talk about getting laid, you never say a woman, you say a broad, a lay, a baby, a doll, a bird, you talk about butts and boobs, every time you mention a woman I see her either as a sort of window-dresser’s dummy or as a heap of dismembered parts, breasts, or legs or buttocks.’

There is some sense that a woman has some power, something concealed which is hers and which she can choose to give. Granted, this is somewhat illusory with a courtesan (a bought woman) - but I'm not telling anyone to be a courtesan! Nor am I saying 'cover up' or 'behave like a man/lady.' Sexual problems in a relationship are so often merely the most visible element of a larger underlying problem. Fluffy handcuffs, toys and dressing up are all very well. Just make sure it's not all one-way - and just make sure you're realistic about the relationship of sex to love for you. Does sex really = love? For a lot of us middle-class kudia, raised as respectably as we are, I don't really think so. Intercourse - especially penetrative - is not the apogee of desire. Standing close to someone, denying yourself, a loaded glance, a telling kiss - give it a try sometime if you haven't already, o no-doubt-horrified readers...

Sex Before Marriage - Bring It On

I have been moved to write this by a series of comments on a note I posted on Facebook. An American who took a bizarrely thorough interest (not romantic, just general) in me and who I fell out with/stopped talking to via the Internet a while back assumed that because I said I don't believe in waiting till marriage to have sex, that I am no longer a virgin:

'the mistaken.. version was...."I'm just saying that I don't believe in sex
before marriage"...i would be relieved.....if the contrary was not approaching
the end point....then u may say. why...to be blunt or direct as i call it... the
answer is:.because u were once a sweet virgin girl..!'

The implication being that 'once' I was 'sweet' and a 'girl' and now I'm not, apparently (Might I just say that I am so not disclosing any details of that here, it's my business and no-one else's).

That was precisely what infuriated me about such a comment. Where is the need to extrapolate from a general view of mine and then try to apply it to me? The ongoing discourse is only making me angrier and angrier, which at this time of sadness-prone-ness, is welcome.

More than anything, it made me angry because it reminded me of the wall that we South Asian feminists come up against - and will continue to come up against - when we try and deal with things like this directly. I know enough of our society to be fully aware that throwing up your hands and saying 'This is who I am, take me as I am' doesn't work. It might make you feel better, in that you'll stop living a lie, but then the bigots will regroup and bear down on you again. That's the precise problem - you can't reason with bigots whose beliefs are rooted firmly in their irrational, emotional prejudices.

I will just say that the fun didn't stop there. I replied, saying:

'.because u were once a sweet virgin girl..!'

Er, how can you presume to know about my sexual status just because I've said I no longer believe in sex before marriage? Nice jumping-to-conclusions there.

I know a lot of men, particularly those of South Asian descent, just love the idea of the virgin bride. However, knowing increasingly more about the realities of Indian marriages (at the very least), I find the thought of waiting until marriage quite terrifying, as do many women. Especially, as is usually the case, you don't know your partner very well, or even not at all.

And here is the rest of it in full. Him:

"the death of virginity at ur age begins.. when u no longer value it.."
i didnt quite pressume....i infer from the absence of a clarity...
i hope u dont find it rude...
i wonder if ur field research.. of "lot of men" and "indian marriages" reduced to ur CENSORED .."lot"

Me:

No. How did I imply that, even directly? I simply replied that my 'field of research' isn't necessarily as narrow as you seem to be assuming, and that I have based my opinions on judging for myself, things I have overheard and directly discussed, and my knowledge of what it is like trying to do things 'the traditional way.'

Him:

so are saying.. the ppl above 30 yrs of age... born and raised... in the "3rd world" have endoresed ur present view..? are including ur parents... u discussed this with them..


when did u come to ur current view point on this precious matters....?
did u include ur parents in this discussion..?

I stopped responding here, and then deleted him from my friends list. I was absolutely furious, and my ex even said 'What a dick.' I just could not believe it. A man in another country (America), who does not know me, who has no real link to me whatsoever and whom I have nothing in common with save for the fact that we both, as far as I know, 'originate' from India, policing my sexuality?

This is where anti-feminist wackjobs would leap in and say 'How is he policing it? He's simply asking if your parents are aware of what their daughter is up to, HAVING CONSIDERATION FOR THEM.'

To which I'd say: read the whole thing, fuckers. Where exactly does my stance (disapproving about waiting till marriage to have sex) cross over into my private life? At what point did I stand up and say 'YEAH, I'VE LOST MY VURGINITY AN IT WOZ GRATE TOO!!11!!'?

That's just it - I didn't, because contrary to the insulting assumptions being made here, this isn't another story you can write off as 'Oh, she met somebody she wanted to sleep with. Just another slut then!'

See, my 'skinny friend' who I haven't mentioned for ages took it personally when he found out that I'd kissed TL and said 'I thought you were different.' Trans: you turned out to be just another slapper. Note how the same assumption is being made about me by this man, ALSO of Indian extraction. Why, despite my affirming that the two things are not linked, does he persist in asserting that I must have had sex before marriage just because I said I don't believe in waiting? And furthermore, what business of his is it anyway?

Witnessing the break-up of a marriage, being aware of the lack of sex education that women of South Asian descent receive (South Asians in general, but it's worse for women since the obsession with our being 'pure' and 'innocent' means we don't get to participate in the same kind of consequence-free fucking and hence experience-gaining that the males frequently do...!) and considering the things that will be expected of me when I'm married, as well as a comment on Pickled Politics by the commenter Jai (which I won't link to because I have no idea where it was now)... all these things made me think. A big part of my sister's break-up was the fact that the guy didn't want children with her.

I began to think about that. I am a fairly sensual person and I knew I'd want to have sex for more than just procreation, but given my lack of knowledge how was I supposed to know what to do? I will tell you totally honestly that despite receiving some sex ed at school, I wasn't even sure where in me it was meant to go. Yes, I was that clueless. I did research on this (Internet, talking to friends) and was told that in order for it to go in, I'd have to be 'wet and slippery.' 'How does that happen though?' I asked. 'You have to be relaxed and turned on,' I was told.

I thought of a woman shipped over from India, to meet her husband for the first time, or my sister, married to a man she had known for a matter of months, a man who enjoyed slighting her and trying to control her. I thought of the prescriptiveness of our culture that treats sensuality, but female sensuality in particular, with huge doses of guilt and shame, preventing women from being able to understand their bodies and use them effectively. Jai's comment had been that for many women, the wedding night is effectively rape (I think he was talking about arranged marriages in particular though). I thought about it, and hang on, he was right. The 'consent' given was highly dubious - not really given by the woman within the couple, but applied from outside by society, in the form of the marriage ritual.

Far from 'consent,' it was rather submission - a submission which her female relatives, more often than not would groom her for. The patriarchy would make her understand that this was expected of her, because it is a husband's and his family's right to expect an heir. Many women want stability and want children, and then are implanted with so much fear and such low expectations, that they yield. It is a general submission. Learning to live with it is Stockholm Syndrome, not love (though that's not to say that love can't happen in the course of the marriage). When you have to sleep with a man at the start, when you don't know him well enough to be safe OR you do know him but he doesn't understand/appreciate your needs, it ends up becoming rape, does it not? The 'consent' is extracted, not offered freely.

Although, I bet that in many modern couples, the 'wedding night' doesn't happen at that time, because they are probably both too exhausted by the day's events. Ironic really - I criticise the excess of Indian weddings, but I suppose in a way, it's almost doing brides a favour in some instances...

I must say here again that I haven't touched on all the things that have drawn me to think this. Meeting a long-lost friend who had put her daughter's husband and in-laws in jail for their rampant mistreatment of her (including violently buggering her, which my friend only learnt of via the police report, which she couldn't bring herself to finish, understandably), the idea of marriage as prostitution... (I know it's Bindel, but swallow down the horror and just read the interview - she doesn't interject! Thankfully. I think she's probably too overcome with hero-worship, or something...).

Both that American and my ex-friend can fuck right off, because they are just more dull, unthinking collaborators with the patriarchy. Who gives you the right to police my sexuality, ey? It's MY BODY, not yours, and not really my parents' either. To be crude, if I have sex or not, it's MY BODY PARTS that are interacting with another's, not my mum's and not my dad's. Ergo it is only a matter for my parents if I were to get pregnant (H to the E double L no) and have to rely on them financially - because that would directly affect them.

I find it outrageous too that my virginity is assigned a value and deemed as the marker of my becoming an adult. How fucking patronising is that? I'm an adult upon reaching the legal age, though I could emotionally be an adult beforehand. Engaging in a physical act, while undoubtedly a milestone, is not THE milestone for me, thank you. I must ask as well: why is my sex life or lack thereof so 'precious' to you? Is it a heap of gold in which you have a stake invested? Did you 'give' part or all of it to me? No, you did not. So, mind your own business and piss off, if you please.

It really does bewilder me why people do this though. Is it because I am fair-skinned and relatively pretty? Not just that, but I look younger than I am and sort of innocent, which is probably why the weirdos seem to flock to me. I'm also relatively open, friendly and polite, which no doubt encourages them. It infuriates me though, because my parents have always tried to imply that such behaviour is 'weak' and that made me only more determined to stick to it. How dare you think I'm weak? I'm strong enough to admit my own ignorance on many topics, and I'm strong enough to have carried the emotional weight of someone 10 years my senior. It's my body; butt out.

(I just wish I could be one of the Save The Earth Foundation members beating up the Sri Ram Sena wankers who attacked women for daring to go to the pub in Mangalore). This is why I want to make sure I do SOME SORT of women's rights-based work this summer, even if it's only for two weeks. A girl's gotta fight.

THANK YOU to my four subscribed readers by the way, I appreciate the fact that you think I'm worthwhile enough to subscribe to and I am sorry for my general shittiness. I'm really not good with people. :D As to lurkers or random readers - I hope you find something educative here. If not - well, tough titties.

Giving Up, Giving In

Oh dear sweet blog, what an utter, utter relief it is to be tappin' away on you again! I have had a seriously bad week (things really kicked up on Sunday morning, but I will only talk about that once I have the strength/anyone asks).

I read this article which got my mental cogs whirring rustily. Maybe I'll even write on it like I used to, who knows??! Lack of sleep, serious emotional stress and general need-to-cry have left me clogged and murky upstairs. What I really need is some sort of anonymous guardian angel figure who will kidnap me, appease the various people who are baying for my blood asking me to do the bare minimum expected of me when I signed on to take a chunk of Governmental money to be educated. I get told that I am a good person, who makes people happy (chiefly by The Libertarian, bless him) but I do feel like a tremendous failure when things pile up on me. The knotted narrative of my life so far, in which all the events connect and nothing can be left out to fully understand the enormity of current problems, makes it that much harder.

After handing in an essay two days late by accident, after having spent all day writing another which WAS due today, I almost fell to pieces. Never had my skin felt thinner in recent memory, as I stood in front of the office of the somewhat perplexed Administrative Director of the School of English and Drama! I could feel heat creeping upon me; I knew how it might look to them, and I was ashamed. 'I'm not your common or garden layabout!' I wanted to shout with some sort of perverse pride. 'No; I'm in this situation because I'm pathetic enough to be deeply affected by the suffering of others! GO ON! PUNISH ME!'

Defeatist, much? I managed to recover 'Fight Mode' once they, very kindly, gave it an on-time stamp after all, but I was afraid. I knew that my memory, taxed with misery and fatigue, would probably fail me. Sure enough, it did - the essay was of course due in two days ago. Everyone else isn't always wrong, my mother used to say to me. It's YOU. I went to see my course organiser, quivering on the brink. She was very considerate and my skin thinned further, dangerously. She had misunderstood things slightly. I clarified. She went to recover my essay, and my skin collapsed altogether. Sat right there in her office, I cried. Oh, how much I wanted to cry my eyes out! How I wanted to slide to the floor, pull my coat over my face and cry pathetically in great, big, bursting sobs! Embarrassingly enough, my eyes are filling with tears in my university library as I type this.

Instead, I hyperventilated my way back to some semblance of composure. I could not embroil this poor woman - who had once asked me if I was alright after the seminar, because I hadn't contributed - in my personal failure to handle emotion. So, head dipped and shoulders shaking, I 'sucked it up'. A vague numbness settled over me and when she returned, I could occasionally flick glances towards her. There was an awful, genuine kindness in her eyes when she (repeatedly) apologised. She could probably tell from my shrivelled eyes that I had problems. Hence my inability to meet her eye. She advised me to speak to my advisor and submit an Extenuating Circumstances form. I comically imagined entering his office to meet with him and descending into a disastrous, weeping wreck.

A fear and pride held me back, just like it does. I want to resolve my feelings somehow. The urge to live, to be something is strong in me - but so too is the urge for destruction. Why? Why do I want to lie across a stranger's table and cry out my whole life? Why do I want to invite them to stamp over my feelings? Deep down, I know they probably won't. They'll just be appalled. They will probably, as many already have, give me credit for coping with the amount of familal bullying that I took.

I am a hypocrite though. I usually like grey areas, I like things to be complicated. Yet when it comes to the whole 'I need to get away from my family, but they have made more vocal expressions of love towards me recently than ever before and I feel horribly guilty. Plus, I'm the only real adult in the house emotionally' - I wish I could pass. I really do.

The source of much of this angst is that, when I returned innocently home last weekend to work on the essay I handed in today, I was served up the information that my elder sister (who was there, as I complained in my last post) is there for good because she has left her husband. He has always been abusive (not physically, thankfully for him). Much to my amazement, it was my parents who had told her to come back. A giant psychological shift has taken place - both my parents and my sister are being forced to reassess the way they see the world. My sister, at the age of 31, is being forced to consider life without a partner and children. I know that sounds dramatic; but that's how it is in her head. Remember that as a card-carrying member of the community we live in (unlike me), she subscribed fully to all the bullshit dictated to us by my parents, and especially my mother.

My mother, in a manner which really shouldn't surprise me, obviously feels both relief and guilt in great measure. I don't think she's quite emotionally developed enough to realise that, but as somebody who has borne the brunt of her tactlessness my whole life, I can see it. She keeps talking about how glad she is my sister is back, bringing up family skeletons and saying in an accusatory way 'I don't know how you stayed with him!'

GREAT, Mother. Just great. She's already feeling guilty of betraying him, as the abusee often feels upon escaping their abuser, and trying to make sense of why he married her in the first place when he obviously didn't love her. Make it worse, why don't you? Truly, we can do no right. We actually pointed this out to my mum ('If she had come back sooner, you would have accused her of not working at it') but my mum seemed rather oblivious. I don't hate my mum like I came close to in the past - I despair of her. She had the sheer presence of mind to bring up my sister's ex-fiance the other day (who broke off the engagement unexpectedly and without contact, and then tried to hide from her afterwards, fucking asshole) and say of her soon-to-be ex: 'It must have been something you did that really irritated him.'

Fucking hell! Though I know it really doesn't sound like it, she meant well in her completely cack-handed way. As my sister sobbed into her fleece, I turned and refashioned my mum's bald statement into what it was probably intended to be. 'You see? You see?' my mum leapt in eagerly, as she often does when I comment on the sorry affair. She flags up the evident sense in what I'm saying, I think with some relief, because Mater REALLY doesn't know how to do emotion.

So yes - at a time when I was already under hideous levels of pressure (two essays, Master's applications, a French presentation which should have been done LAST YEAR, behind on general French work and barely keeping up with my reading), this landed slap on me like a big, fat, fucking turd. This kind of shit makes me angry enough as it is, but the fact of it happening to my sister, my mum bringing up similar family history and meeting an old friend who had put her daughter's in-laws behind bars after a long fight increased my sense of despondent rage. At the very least, I wanted to be at home to look after my sister for the short period of time she has off, but nuuuuuu, I have to keep going and do fucking shit. Well, I am only human. I fail. I failed today. By a miracle (i.e. making it probably quite obvious that I would not refrain, if pushed, from crying in the English office), I was saved - but this is bullshit, yo.

I shouldn't have to be in this position. Maybe I sound like an ingrate for saying that, but that's how I feel, I'm afraid. I have no bitterness about all the time I lost looking after my sister (why the fuck should I?) but it just seems so very fucking unfair that this kind of bollocks happens to me. Furthermore, when I grovel before my advisor and the evaluatory board that may or may not condemn me for my failure of memory, I must reduce this all to one paragraph. How shittily pathetic is it going to sound, do you think? 'Sorry, I think I'm developing a stomach ulcer because my sister's getting divorced.' I know it's not right - but good God, part of me almost feels like I deserve it. Maybe I do. Maybe I should have been professional to the end, as my mother no doubt would have been.

Ah well, fucking bullshit essays handed in, still not had a shower and the French presentation looms over me like an executioner. Time I went back to the flat, had dinner and leapt out of the window forced myself to read until I fall asleep with exhaustion and then stay up later than necessary for no good reason because I can't relax and the fridge is too loud.

Well, I'm a regular bundle of joy - but so run the joys of blogging. It's like offloading on people without actually doing so. No need to make small talk, no need to force myself to be suitably smiley. I am free of social convention's oppression and I can wallow in my mounting unhappiness. Not a joke, not a hint of a smile. Sometimes even krazy jelly beans lose all their colour.

Time Of The Month

Me needs a rant. I have come back home, been received back into the warm, Internet-fuelled glow of home... and what do I find? Only that my sister is fucking sleeping in my bed. Why can't we just have ONE beautiful, unforgettable night together, the double-bed and I? The Libertarian was visiting me as usual yesterday, and I sleep marvellously in his arms (and generally better when he is present), but otherwise, my thoughts scrabble about like overexcitable rats in a maze to the potentially chart-busting sounds of my fridge whirring and making sudden loud popping noises, unexpected semi-explosive clanks of the radiator and idiots being themselves in all their glory outside my window. Let's not forget the joys of living in a student house - one person uses the water in any way whatsoever, and the plumbing broadcasts it to you like a delightfully primitive version of Twitter: 'L--- is washing her hands', 'J----- has just taken a piss,' 'L--- is preparing the veg for her usual 12 a.m. supper. Please insert fork violently and repeatedly into delicate brain matter as required'.

Music shall not be made (the music of I, yes, that is ME, SLEEPING FOR ONCE and also occasionally breaking wind) between the sheets, because MY FUCKING SISTER IS THERE.

One of my best friends, quizzically: 'Isn't your sister married?!'

Well, exactly. So here is a poem from 2004 to keep me going. Thank you to all ye who commented on the passing (now official) of my laptop. I ONLY BOUGHT THE FUCKER IN 2007, IT HAS EMERGED! FUCK YOU, Fujitsu Siemens. Fuck you *shakes head*. I just keep hearing 'Buy a Mac, they never get viruses.'

Yes, and live on water and whatever has fallen onto the carpet until I graduate. Instead, here I am, back at home just so I can apply for a Master's and write an essay. :-(


Time Of The Month
I hate it here. Everyone’s cheese to my grater
I want to shred them and rip them up like
Balls of scrunched scrap paper. Get AWAY from me!
I’m offering no leniency. If you plan to get
What you want, then leave, annoying me, like
Spilled water drops on an oil-coated surface,
Dream on. The burn marks will stay with me
Scars of trying to keep my anger on a steady simmer
When it longs to boil over; the lid rattles
The pot that is my face strains; copper glows
Becoming brick-red. How much more should I take?

Don’t piss me off. The temptation to pluck you
Between finger and thumb, then toss you away
Like so many unwashed clothes comes. But you’re
A waste of space; hell with it, I’d rather flick you
Or kick you. You sit smugly in my place with
A look of challenge. Do you want me to rip
It off, and use it to clean my shoe? I’ll wring
Tears aplenty from you, like blood between my thighs.

Put you through a mangle; I’ll bend you to my will
Like Yuri and his spoon, only smoother, pernicious.
Tell me; how do you like your humiliation?
Ritual, indelible, or just well done? You answer
The question, I question your answer, since like
A used-car salesman, I’m master of my craft.
I deliver. Retribution. I know how to pull a spin,
Constant is my aim to kill. Manipulative and
Mendacious incubus. I am as a little fire-cracker,
Tailed as a tadpole, smashing brightly on the pavement.

I’ll dabble in wordplay, teasing out my tongue
Supple and thin; all the better to lash you with.
My gut seems to contract and squeeze, burping
Out more crunching aches. This discordant rhythm
Is echoed in the auto-ignition of my fury at
The slightest frisson of friction. Frustrated and
Irritated, because I always feel unclean!
Take care that you never dare cross a girl
Of sixteen when she’s menstruating.

P.S.: The best agony uncle ever is back! Bow down, bow down! REEEEESPECT!

And FOR ALL YE COMIC FANS (the Watchmen movie is out this year! Hyperventilate, hyperventilate).

Marriage: Legalised Prostitution?

I have been moved to consider this topic by a thread on PP which invoked Germaine Greer and her views on marriage. Watch out: I'm about to get quote-happy:

I am a Bollywood romantic at heart, bt just saying while we all talk about forced marriages and arranged marriages and what have you - there is a view on marriage itself that’s worth chatting about when we want to discuss gender relations!

But yeah, I’ve seen too many relationships where men are still more dominant and once kids come into the equation - we go back to hunter/gatherer mode immediately . Unless society is structurally changed this will always be the case. This is what Greer meant perhaps when she says..we are still wondering whether women want to be equal with men in an unchanged world ( which is her idea of hell) , or whether to fundamentally to change the world. Unless we fundamentially change structures - we’re always going to find many marriages as legalised prostitution.

You know it was only recently that in UK law it was OK for a man to have forced sex with his wife and for it not t be considered rape. This is no longer the case- but the law changed in the last 10 years I recall (or something). This tells you something about marriage and men’s property rights to women!

Greer would also argue it’s women’s dependency and need for men that entails the prostitutions - not just the economics but the emotional need. Whereas most men don’t seem to be as dependent on women emotionally - or at least they can close off, box off from women until they meet the special someone. There’s a biological trick there somewhere i suppose, women might be able to do this until a certain point when they might want kiddies - and can’t be as emotinally carefree..

The really lovely thing is that I’ve grown up with the best role model men /brothers you can imagine - even with their idiosyncracies to want to ‘protect’ us .. so even with my friends who will say men are this and that , i am usually the one that will say - ah, but not all men, touch wood, i’ve been lucky to be influenced by good, strong male role models.

i guess greer would propose equal pay as the first option which we don’t have at the moment, and changing society’s expectations that women/mothers will be the primar nurturers. But i don’t know how far Greer went on this - i personally think as long as women face the reproductive challenge more, we’ll always face the same inequalities.. there’s a joke at work about some of my female colleagues, it goes like this: ‘what’s so and so doing these days with their career?’ and the answer will be, ’she’s on the baby - track’ not the career track - see what i mean? Having children takes women’s career’s back considerably but it doesn’t have the same impact on men, unless they are the primary carers and nurturers.

I think we’re looking at changing reproductive roles - or finding technogical leaps here, to get to where Greer might suggest we go. This is quite scary and radicaal - and not sure how far science would progress with this. Margerat Atwood has some interesting gothic fantasies on this sort of thing.

Most women when they have a child will go part time work, and if they haven’t gone part-time, they will most certainly do this by child number 2 - unless her partner assumes the primary carer role.

All cherry-picked from halima, one of the better commenters on the site (although there are many).

See, I agree with this, but not completely. The fact that I've found a wonderful man who has no objection to helping out with housework and no control-freak tendencies over how to approach housework, has made me less cynical about the prospect of finding someone 'marriageable' for me.

Confession time: I have never been particularly comfortable with the idea of marriage, on many levels. Firstly, because I believe that many, many people 'settle' rather than choosing somebody who they actually connect with fully (in all fairness, it's hard to tell, especially if your serious-relationship experience is limited). Looking at this from a common-sense perspective, this is disastrous because when they meet somebody who they DO connect with fully, the shit gon' hit the fan, one way or another. I am speaking from experience here...

Secondly, because I was brought up with a very Indian view of marriage, as having to submit completely to your husband's family. 'Nuff said...

Finally, because - strange though it might sound - I feel that marriage is somewhat unnatural. It feels to me like society's demand to scoop up individuals and place them on a little shelf of 'respectability', proclaiming them bound together forever, amen. Feelings change, and people fall out of love, and especially if they have 'settled' (remember, like I said, it's difficult to be sure sometimes!), marriage is going to exacerbate an already ugly situation, because then you have to get divorced.

This seems like inviting trouble to me - if you're happy with somebody, why do you have to make a show of it? Can't you just live together, or - if you really must - hit the registry office?

However, this feeling of mine is again tied very much to the Indian notion of marriage-as-a-spectacle. I have always felt that this turning of marriage into an exhibition was actually a tacit threat to the bride and groom: here you are, you're being made into an example of a success story and now you BETTER bloody well stay together. As if making a very public showcase and celebration of their togetherness will safeguard against potential marital problems. It's also often a sort of pay-off to the bride to compensate her for the fact that she's probably going to be pretty bloody unhappy for at least the first year of her marriage (if not longer), as she forces herself to adjust to the quirks of her groom and his family.

Though there may not be a dowry for most (hopefully all?) British Asian families nowadays, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that the tradition of the bride's family paying for the wedding is simply its modern equivalent. I really don't agree with it - if you really want to cling to tradition, have the bride's family pay for the religious ceremony and the groom's pay for the party. Ideally, it'd be an equal split.

'But the woman is going into the man's house,' traditionalists cry. 'They'll be looking after her for the rest of her life - why should they pay towards the wedding as well?'

Symbolism, darlings - it's all about the symbolism. The big, big, BIG problem for me is the way the process is STILL about the transfer of a woman as though she were property. We need to divest the process of all the signs of this and start letting it be what it should be: a union between two people which is occurring with the full awareness and consent of both.

So - no more of this 'passing from one family to another.' I find this one of the most ridiculous notions there is. Yesterday my mother wept at me, saying how I was the only daughter she still had any control over, because the other two were under the control of their husbands now. I managed to sufficiently unstiffen myself in her embrace, and barely resisted pointing out that she had repeated to both my sisters that they should follow the desires of their husbands and that they should spend time with their husbands' families because 'they are your family now.' It wasn't exactly a gentle dismissal - it was a rebuff, a rejection. I know she 'meant well' but this is proof that 'meaning well' is often fucking bullshit.

During the religious ceremony, you (the woman) have to follow your husband around the Holy Book and after it's all over, he comes to get you from your maternal home. There are also a couple of traditions where the (usually younger) female relatives of the bride demand money from him in return for letting him enter (when he first arrives for the religious ceremony) or for returning his shoes.

Though I might sound like a killjoy, I couldn't help seeing all this as further commodifying the bride, turning her into an expensive gift purchased from her family by the groom's family. When you consider that virtually all Asian marriages are engineered with some sort of social-climbing in mind for both families, it just makes it worse. I have taken part in this; I have laughed alongside as we demanded £50 each. It's not the worst aspect, but slotted in beside all the others, it doesn't look too guilt-free a pleasure either.

Let's kill the notion of big, elaborate weddings before anything else, I say. I have never seen the appeal of being woken at 5 and then paraded, exhausted and emotional, before the eyes of people I don't really know or care about, but who have been invited because they invited us to a wedding of theirs once, while being hissed at to 'watch your lehnga (skirt)' or 'pull your top up.'

I am really really cranky when I haven't slept enough. I'd end up being a nightmarish bride, giving people murderous looks as my blood-sugar levels crashed, scowling when they told me I looked beautiful, tripping over my lehnga as I followed my groom around the Guru Granth Sahib. As I bent to bow before the holy book and he smiled radiantly at me, I would be ludicrously intent on preventing any part of me getting caught on the rest of me, thinking (in a thick Scottish accent): 'YOU. It's yer fookin' falt I'm doin' this! Why do ye git off wit' wrapping some fabric round yer heid while I have to be a woman? And I want tae be the one carryin' the sword!'

(I would, you know).

I say all this, yet I know that I am going to be made to get married (I think that might be responsible for exponentially increasing my resentment...). Why? I'll tell you why - because it has suddenly got through to me recently that the 'life partner' of my choosing never will be (and never would have been) to my parents' preference. I mean, I've hardly turned out how I should've, so why on Earth is my partner going to be any better?

Blindingly obvious, you might say - not so! When one has no cause to think about these things, one doesn't. Insulated in a little cloud of denial, I la-la-ed along, but as of August, I am increasingly realistic about what my future might look like. Plus, I met and fell head-over-heels in love with a man who is even more 'wrong' than the previous one, but who treats me like a goddess and who I have actually found myself compromising with. See that? Not sacrificing - compromising. Bloody miracle, I thought.

Anyway, seeing as how I am going to make my parents unhappy no matter what, I am seeking to 'compromise' by letting them have their way on the marriage front. Also, I'm hoping to get money off of people in exchange for doing things the traditional way. I have however already specified to my mother that I do not want anything fancy and that no, I am not saving for it, because I don't want the damn thing. My parents will want to invite tons of pointless people, so THEY can cover the costs!

I agree with Greer and halima: there is no point in seeking equality in a world which remains weighted against women. You have to change people's habits and perceptions to make a difference. So I say:

- More paternity leave for dads. As well as this, employers should actively encourage fathers to take leave and care for their children. In the current system, it gets taken for granted that women will be the ones leaving for this reason, and so they become disposable in a way that men aren't. I say, FUCK DAT!

- A reassessment of the importance of parenthood. This will no doubt sound bizarre, especially after what I just said, but I'm trying to say that we should stop being so child-centred and encourage parents to have a bit of time on their own. I think young mothers really need this. Granted, you love your children and you get the protective, possessive instinct, but there has to be some perspective.

I think parenthood needs to be 'secularised' a bit more. You still get it being seen very much in a religious or divine light, and that's bad, because it's ultimately a human function that needs to be open to criticism like everything else.

Everyone probably wants kids at some point, but really, they're not the be-all and end-all of existence (you could always choose art instead!). The problem is that you are expected to become automatically selfless once you pop 'em out, but... individuals are individuals. We all need our own space and time alone. Giving yourself entirely to your children, especially if you're of an independent cast of mind, is disastrous. You're probably going to want them to be just like you, and fill all the opportunities you missed, and well... need I go any further? It'll all turn on itself ironically to the point where their existence is constantly undermined with guilt because they can see that you have given everything up for them and you're not happy. They're not stupid and yes, I do speak again from experience!

Of course, this is only possible if both parents are pulling their weight.

- A child should always have two parents. I'm not dissing single parents here, simply stating a fact: one parent is going to get utterly overwhelmed it's not fair. What I'm really trying to say is: let's have more gay couples adopting! People start carping on about gender role models and whatever; I say, if it's a boy with two mums, give him a godfather or uncle he can depend on and you're cool.

None of this 'There must a mother and a father' crap. It's not insurance against future troubles; if you want particularly painful proof of that, ask the daughters of the British Josef Fritzl. Those who try to claim that gender roles are somehow divinely enshrined might like to know that no, bitch, actually it's down to BIOLOGY. It's hardwired into us to find certain things attractive and others not so much. Like long hair on girls for men. Still, most people tend to think of themselves as more than a collection of dumb cells, so - NEXT!

- Split the housework fairly. Some women, like Carol McGiffin, will be happy to do a greater part and leave certain tasks that they don't enjoy to their partners. Others will want it to be equally split. I myself believe it should be equal. We tend to be creatures of habit, and if your husband gets used to doing less, you're going to have a fight on your hands in future when you want to take a break.

If both of you have your preferred tasks, then roll with it that way. I prefer to cook, for example, and my man prefers the washing up. Neither of us has a problem with the other's position, but we know what we prefer (and he does it so fast! Two plates and cutlery washed in two minutes). He also helps me chop things when I'm cooking, which saves us both time. :D

- Indian mothers, break the cycle. Stop asking your daughters to make sacrifices and start asking them to make compromises instead. For every girl who is supported to the hilt by her parents in this way, we have one less woman circulating in the 'abuser-abused' hell of post-marital relations.

Two things must change:

1) The age disrespect. In Indian culture, if you're younger, you have no authority to comment on things. Even if what you are saying is relevant and mature, you'll often be ignored because you don't have 'experience' (apparently being a bit older is all you need to make you au fait with the ways of the entire world). This creates a culture where debate is smothered, deference is idealised and abuse of authority is all too possible. When this is combined with the element of near-Freudian competition for the son between his wife and her mother-in-law, you get a situation where the same noxious traditions are perpetuated and one or two people can ruin the lives of an entire family.

No more! If you treat your children with respect, we can put a stop to the thinking that goes 'Now I'm an adult - my turn to treat younger people like crap.'

2) The idolising of male children. When I see this happening, it fills me with disgust. I want to slap fawning mothers around the face and cry: 'Look at your son. How DARE you be proud that he survived at university, when so many people's daughters have not only survived, but excelled themselves, cooking proper meals and managing to maintain basic standards of hygiene?'

People like my mother try and excuse what they do on the grounds of 'Boys are less mature than girls.' DEFEATIST BULLSHIT! Circulate a lie long enough, and it will become truth, as has happened here. My brother is studying to become a doctor and I have no idea what I'll end up as - maybe a teacher. However, he sponges off my parents, can't even feed himself and is incapable of realising even when he has to do chores for his own sake. I can cook, I always try to spend my own money and I respond to my mum's attempts to guilt me into doing more, by *gasp* doing more. It is manifestly unjust, but it is never going to change, because my mum will go on parroting the same crap at me.

It's pitiful actually, because when I point out the unpleasant truth to her, she looks at me and then starts asking ME to be authoritative. If she's smarting over him not calling home enough, I have to talk to him. Why? 'He listens to you.'

I have just realised how utterly ridiculous the situation has become. My parents have spoilt my brother so much and placed him above all of us girls so much, that he is now above the very female who gave birth to him. FAIL.

While it's true that women fulfill at least one function that their partners can't (breast-feeding), that should mean there is even more of a drive to balance out the inequality. Boys need their fathers. Not that girls don't, but we have seen the effects when boys don't have a stable father-figure to teach them respect for women. They trickle out into the sea of misogyny coursing through most cultures and societies, and get lost.

Let's have paternity/maternity leave turned into more of a 'lifestyle choice', please! ESPECIALLY for those with more than one child. The parents should take it in turns to spend time with the children, and hopefully they will have extended family on hand to give them couple time together.

I also feel that women should stop being forced to choose between their career and their kids. I agree with Lynn Barber who thinks that we shouldn't favour older mothers and for all the people collectively going 'Well, WTF?!' I think that maybe we should have a system like this:

Early childhood - Both parents present, but mother's presence greater (as is biologically required).

6+ - Both parents contribute in equal measure.

I propose we take Anna Ford's advice: stop being such ageist bastards and start having a slightly older workforce. I feel that husbands should take over as women get into, oh, I don't know, their 30s so that the women can go back to work and get back into a career first. Then the husband can follow. I mean, what's the problem? We're always being told how men improve with age (like George Clooney, for example), but somehow the same isn't applied to women. So why don't we take that as law, then, eh? If men really do improve with age, then they can go back into work later. Maybe have one partner work 3 days a week one week, and then swap it round the next? Why not?

Youth is overrated and I'm none too sure why on Earth we're all so obsessed with it these days. I mean, sure, fear of mortality and all that, but wtf is up with all this need for people to have 'achieved something' by the time they're 20 or whatever? Precocity needs the weight of experience, and that's why so much modern pop music isn't as good as it could be, for one. Indie bands in particular rarely seem to make it to a second album, and often even when they do, it's worse than the already-weak debut. Stop expecting classics at the drop of a hat, you impatient bastards! Classics take time! What really saddens me is that you don't even seem to get the 'great album/good-to-mediocre album' pattern any more; usually it's '65% good to 35% shit' and then '55% good to 45% wtf?!'.

The best performers tend to be those who've had time and freedom to develop. That's why, while the hype manufacturers crow about Adeles and Duffys and whoever-the-fuck-elses, I will wait quietly for another gem from Amy Winehouse (3 years between albums! And she's 25 now! SHOCK) or Róisín Murphy (two years AND SHE'S 35! Cue fainting fits).

We aren't idiots, us yoot, but we aren't visionaries either. TIME is the necessary ingredient as always. So please, popular media, stop writing us off and we'll get back to you.

Recommended Additional Reading.

A Treatise on Women's Mags; or Is This Feminist?

I'm going to make a proposition here that I think is not particularly daring... or necessarily all that political. I feel that it's just something that has to be said.

I've already ripped the shit out of marriage in a previous post. See, I really do get why people love marriage. It's because they love tradition and their dear little brains just look at the cover of the book and go 'My, but that looks wonderful.' Of course it looks wonderful! You can't predict the future now, can you? I'm not prone to believing any of us yuman beans can, in all honesty.

So WHY WOULD YOU TRY? Why would you slap a giant condition like a marriage-contract (for what else could you call it) onto something that's dying on its feet as a 'relationship' already? The idiom 'hammering the final nail into the coffin' seems very apt here.

Marriages when both people are really sure of what is involved - i.e. if they've lived together for a while, or if they occur later in life when people have had more life experience - are most certainly a wonderful event for those who attend them, and an inspiration (with a decidedly religious glow, ahem) to the rest of us.

Yet how common are those kinds of marriages, really? Especially within the British Asian community (and in India...) where both partners come to the table deeply hampered by inequality. As I have said before with various other things, this isn't just an Asian/Indian thing, it happens everywhere.

And this is what I want to move on to attacking today: the deeply traditional idea that you HAVE to be in a relationship to be happy and/or complete as a person. The reason I ask if I'm being feminist is because this is something women are fed CONSTANTLY. I was discussing this with a friend and we agreed that on the whole, it seems that men are encouraged to seek sexual experience while women are encouraged to form relationships. Anybody else see the potential problems in that?

I'm not asserting that as an absolute truth by any means, but if you want some form of evidence: look at the male homosexual community and the way just about everyone (including some of them themselves) equate 'their culture' with hedonism, kinky sex, partner-swapping etc. I would dare to say here that we don't really know enough about lesbians to venture any sort of stereotype that isn't immediately wrapped in masculine-tailored bollocks (i.e. 'all lesbians are man-hating dykes,' or 'all lesbians can be 'cured' with the arrival of the right guy,' or 'all lesbians are nymphomaniacs'... see what I mean?). Gay guy-mates of mine have commented that they actually do wish to settle down with somebody, but that that's not really something they can advertise in the sex-oriented gay dating scene.

The solution for this is NOT (I don't think), for women to just try and 'even the score' by becoming as sexually-oriented as men. By all means, ladies, go in search of the perfect orgasm if you wish. Just be aware that you're facing off against your biology, which wants to reduce you to the level of a childbearer and not much else, if you don't watch it.

That's why I really don't see the logic in 'friends-with-benefits' situations. Duh, could you ask for trouble any LOUDER? Could you take hold of the can-o'-worms and wrench the lid off any harder, please? The worms will hit YOU in the eye and then YOU'LL complain. Some people really are developed and mature enough to rise above their biological instinct and handle these situations as they need to (I'm thinking Tallulah Bankhead here).

Unfortunately, many of us don't see the obvious problem in entering into regular sessions of close physical contact with somebody we know and quite probably like and trust to a fair degree. Wait, read that back to me - NOW do you see the problem? What makes you think the other person being your 'friend' is going to make you 'safe' from attachments (if not simply MORE at risk of falling for them because you're not paying attention?) ? As my brother would say, NAAW MATE.

The problem is that we really don't do enough to support each other as ladies, now, do we? I'm looking at you here, women's magazines industries! Then again, what's to say that you are even really trying to 'connect' with women? You might have female editors an' all, but the owners are more than likely probably still men, and the shareholders are the people who really matter. Cynicism, here I come. The French singer Yelle had the right idea when she sang:

'C’est la faute des ma-
Des magazines
Les Maries, Les Frances
Les Marie-France
Les femmes pratiques qui en ont pas marre
Des cosmo vogues et tout l'bazar'


Translation:
'It's the fault of some mags - some magazines / The Maries, the Frances / The Marie-Frances / The 'practical women' who haven't had enough of them / Of the Cosmos, Vogues and the whole bazaar.'


You women's mags, you give us a real half-assed picture of the situation. You tell us: great, go after your female orgasm. You encourage us to stay good and monogamous with your endless articles on 'how to spice up your sex life' while simultaneously and subtly trumpeting the values of casual sex with your reader confessions columns and the endless stuff on attaining the perfect climax (again), taking a lover etc. I have Cosmpolitan in mind particularly here.

Women's mags aren't 'all bad,' of course - I don't mean to imply that they are (Marie Claire, for one, has some very interesting and well-written articles, such as one about Real Dolls...). They're just selfish - as is everything out there at the end of the day. Women's magazines won't tell you what to do once you outgrow their 2D status-quo world. Look how shittily simplistic their solutions are: either carry on as you are, looking for a relationship all the time, or make sex the main factor.

There is of course a third way that they won't tell you because it's not in their interests to do so (they prescribe this in small doses, usually to women who have suffered a recent break-up or who have emotional/mental health issues of some kind). Get the cheesy disco music ready, people, because that is to 'Love Yourself.'

Actually, hell with that. We live in a post-psychoanalytical age, where we are trained to ascribe meaning to things (such as our personality quirks) that may not even need it really, and I just don't DO cheesy disco music anyway (give me some Justice or Donna Summer, fool!). So instead, pop on a song that makes you laugh and BE YOUR OWN FRIEND. To briefly invoke the oft-whipped carcass of marriage again for convenience's sake: if you can't spend eternity on your own, how the hell are you going to spend it with somebody else? And vice-versa. Take a leaf out of those magazines' book (thank you Ugly Betty for making that metaphor actually work!) and GIT SELF-CENTRED.

The way I see it is this: despite what your parents say, despite what society says - no matter who brought you into existence, or who sees you out of it - you are born alone (unless of course, you are a twin, or one of triplets etc. etc., but even then you won't all be leaving yer mum's tummy at once!). Does that not make loneness the most natural state in the world to inhabit? There is something glorious I find - dunno about y'all - in gracefully accepting that.

No-one says you have to be misanthropic (not all the time, anyway). No-one says you musn't value your friends or relatives, or your partner (or whatever the fuck you call them). It is rush-of-blood-to-head LIBERATING though, when you realise, that you shouldn't have to be defined and existent entirely in terms of others. I have come to value the bond of friendship - REAL friendship - as quite possibly the highest human connection there is. However, there's a lot to be said for enjoying one's OWN company from time to time. And if you're somebody whose mental tank always seems to be running overloaded-full (comme moi), then find a way to go and birth your thoughts into the world.

In his Essays, Francis Bacon essentially said that men could choose between children and creative endeavour, which was why the greatest artists had been childless men. A very wise and interesting observation, I think you'll agree, and then I hope you'll join me in saying '... but Bakey, now the wimminz can do that too. Relationships, marriage, and kids (in order of seriousness of impact upon one's life and future) are not the sole feckin' purpose of our existence.'

So fuck you, biology! Here's a chance for us all to be equal. And hey, if there's less stupid people falling into these binds, hopefully that means a smaller influx of idiots turning towards extremely conservative/religious/overall fundamentalist viewpoints - or falling victim to them.

Own yourselves. No-one wants to be another Bristol Palin, regardless of whatever their age is (just look at that poor girl's eyes in the picture... I can imagine how she will look once being a 'mommy' takes its toll on her). Own yourselves and RECLAIM YOURSELVES!

Marriage: I Ain't Sold

This post was inspired by Nesrine Malik, Desi Italiana and Sonia... thanks, guys.

Well. I must begin this post by congratulating myself on avoiding eating more than 1-an'-a-bit squares of utterly tasty Sainsbury's Belgian dark chocolate, especially after having eaten a sin-filled pack of Walkers' Max Paprika earlier. I am a feminist and ergo not crazy about looking overly-youthful and wisplike all the time (the former would really be cause for concern, as I am still quite young!), but if you do not have the metabolism of a greyhound and are likely to get grumpy after eating too much 'crap,' you have to watch it.

This post is intended to be about marriage, especially its place within Indian culture. I have learnt a fair bit about this recently, and I feel that it's time I wrested my blog from the caprices of creativity and pushed it back towards the polemic. Unfortunately, because tiredness and stress have somewhat 'worn the wick' recently, I may descend into what is essentially a series of no more than randomly-caught observations.

I used to think that I could escape the clutches of the Indian society that surrounded me by choosing who I got married to. There was a rather great irony in this, because I would say that feminism/egalitarianism is more important to me than keeping my parents happy and upholding a certain idea of Indian 'culture'. Ever since I was little, I have burned at the notion that females should be considered inferior to males in any way, especially in this country. Even the whole 'men are naturally stronger' argument never cut much ice with me. I mean, bitch please – are all men the same? No. Are all women the same? No. For example, a dedicated female javelin or discus thrower is probably going to be of greater strength than an Asian rudeboi of the same age, unless, like my brother currently is, he's so obsessed with getting 'hench' that he's significantly bulked-up.

Aaaaaanyway… I used to believe that one could have the best of both worlds. I could placate my parents in the merest sense by marrying someone brown and to all intents and purposes, Sikh. Even if he was secretly unsure (like me), or a naastik (atheist), it would be OK because, like a well-placed visual illusion, everybody would see what they wanted to see.

The problem with my little picture is that it was missing someone fundamentally important: me. I was thinking about entering into an arrangement that would be convenient for the other person and appease his family and mine. I have always taken pride in being the firebrand of the family, but I didn't see the obvious until it was pointed out to me repeatedly by a very dear friend: I'm not ready to get married and I never will be.

Now, I can understand the line of thought that goes 'oh, y'know – it'll just be a stupid wedding and then you have the rest of your life.' I can understand because that's what I thought up until a few weeks ago. What bullshit, yaar! Whether you're a girl or a boy, if you're Indian, shaadi (marriage) is the whole point of your life. All that differs is the point at which this is impressed, and then eventually, imposed upon you. If you're a girl, chances are you'll be conditioned from childhood (whether you realise/enjoy it or not) to be a wife and then eventually in some ways, a mother. Whereas with boys, it varies - many of them are left free to do as they like until a certain age when the kitchen sink and all is suddenly dropped on their head.

This must be said, because the current double standards that are deeply ingrained within Indian society (more so in some classes/groups than others) are bad for EVERYONE. Seeing and admitting this is a shot of common sense that is desperately needed. Parents like mine – who are actually almost liberal in some ways, how else would I have got the way I am?! – encourage and support their daughters in going to university, only to gently remind them that marriage is ultimately going to be more important. Even if this reminder does not come verbally, it comes in the fact that more of your life will be spent in gearing you towards marriage than will be spent in encouraging you to get a job you want to, or in pursuing a degree you want to do.

I find that even in education, marriage just won't leave people alone. Women who do 'male' degrees (medicine, law, dentistry, finance etc.) or watered-down 'male'/acceptably-feminine degrees (biomedical sciences, pharmacy, teaching…) are more worthwhile investments than those in the arts. The same applies for men, more or less. However, the reason I find this more appalling with regards to women is because it shows how little things have really changed. Now, people don't just want a well-indentured servant, they want one who can pay her way too. Funny how the huge emotional sacrifices made by the bride (leaving her family and having to externalise them while ingratiating herself with a set of near-strangers) doesn't apply much in this regard. I do appreciate that men who 'deviate' educationally also have it hard, but the overall level of suffering is still notably lower for them. (It often seems to me that if you're a guy who does 'deviate' and it doesn't work out for you, your senior male relatives will often rally round and bail you out somehow, while if you're a girl, your senior female relatives will tell you you're reaping what you've sown, but it could just be the cynicism getting the better of me...).

Encouraging the men-folk to do whatever before suddenly dropping the nuptial bomb is disastrous as well. Shrieking harridan mothers-in-law and scheming bahus (daughters-in-law) have come to stereotypically define the power-struggles in Indian marriages, because there are some things that people just don't want to say. Like, if you let your son marry a woman and then make her life hell because he has someone already (or because he swings the other way…), you are not 'saving face.' You are NOT good parents. It will reflect back on you when the aggrieved party either fights back or leaves, when your son gets together properly with the 'somebody else' or when something bad happens to the wife.

I know that tradition is hard to let go of for many Indians, especially my parents' generation (those who are in their fifties and sixties now), but puh-lease. If you've come to a foreign country, you have to accept the fact that your children have the right to choose to follow 'other' influences – and why wouldn't they? There is so much more freedom available to them in many ways. Some will eventually turn their back on that, but many don't want to. Your tricking them into losing the adult years of their lives in a tacit concession to your ideals – shaadi – only shows you up as a load of spoilt children.

That isn't to say that marriage always inevitably fails. I take a very dim view of it, because I have seen how often people struggle to balance the sacrifice, the delusion and the harsh, harsh reality. I simply think that it needs to be said that the failure of marriage is NOT down to Western influences, emotional immaturity or anything that easily scapegoatable. I think deep down, we know that it's really down to the arrangement of power in the Indian family structure (if you're old, you're wise. If you're young, shut up), and the deeply unequal and voracious nature of marriage. Stop idealising the parivaar (family) and the shaadi! Most of the time, in a move harking back to the Middle flippin' Ages, marriage is about the advancement of two families. The Indian ethos par excellence, distilled into the symbolic form of the married couple: communities before individuals. It often becomes almost a political contract, an act enacted for the purposes of what-bloody-else? NETWORKING. 'Look at the relatives I have acquired.I have moved up in the world!' Very bloody ironic for Sikhs, since Sikhi is meant to be without caste, whereas many Punjabis are obsessed with going up a class (why?! why does having x number of doctor/lawyer relatives make you more of a person?!).

To finish, my mother often castigated us for not trying hard enough/failing to learn how to make adequately round chappatis. She told us we needed to learn it for our own sake, because 'otherwise, what will people say? What would your suss (mother-in-law) say? People will say that I didn't teach your properly' (i.e. that she had failed in her duty as a mother).

Yeah, because telling your daughter that she should learn something to your standards to please some far-off woman – which at the end turns out to be you, surprise surprise! – isn't selfish in the least. As Private Eye would say: trebles all round!