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...

Sikhism and Homosexuality

Firstly, I'm going to brandish my big, big stick and say that if there are any homophobes hoping to get lucky with this blog title: tough titties. VERY TOUGH, DRAGON-SCALY, LEATHERY-HIDE TITTIES.

Now that I'm done with that necessary introduction, here goes. I saw a post on Sikhism and homosexuality a few days ago on Pickled Politics, and the first comment on it made my blood not only boil but STEAM. It brought back in a flood all my rage and fury at the world, all my doubt of God that was born in my teens with the discovery that so-called Sikhs were really not the people they claimed to be.

My parents are a prime example of this. Vivid in my mind even now is the memory of my dad, in response to a BBC news item about paedophiles, spluttering 'Bloody gays and lesbians!'

Naturellement, my ears pricked (or rather, popped), I swivelled round on the computer chair and then got myself into one of those classic, thankless, arguments in which I can never win (I have since learnt to avoid these wherever possible). Instead of engaging with me as an adult is supposed to do, my father shouted at me for daring to contradict his painfully stupid and bigoted beliefs.

Here I am again, wading in where not wanted per se, delivering a Not In My Name. This shit is personal, muddafuckas. Were it not for the shocking bigotry of people like you, I might still believe in a God today. As it is, I can't rid myself of the trappings of Sikh culture just like that, especially not when it carries so many progressive and inspiring role-models and philosophy.

So yeah, homosexuality is NOT counter to Sikhism. There is NO condemnation of it, neither in the Guru Granth Sahib, nor in any of the accounts of the Gurus' lives.

However, there IS a stipulation at the very heart of Sikhi which states that Sikhs should stand up for the downtrodden and the oppressed. Linked to this, as far as I can tell, is Guru Gobind Singh Ji's notion of the ideal Sikh as a 'saint-soldier.' In Guru Teg Bahadur's time, this meant martyrdom to protect the Kashmiri pandits. In a story (which appears to be little known), Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism, was brought two pots of sweets by a devout Muslim (who had bowed to the star marking the arrival of a saint on Earth) when he was born, one from a Hindu sweetmaker and one from a Muslim sweetmaker. The Muslim wanted to see which religion the saint would favour. The baby Nanak smiled and simultaneously placed a hand on each covered pot. Maybe it will sound tragic to the militant athiests, but I remember reading that as a child and it gave me goosebumps even now, to remember the picture of the haloed child smiling with wordlessly eloquent love and serenity upon his delighted guest.

Now, I take this personally. Call it megalomania if you will, but I do feel responsible for helping others when I see the possibility arise, and for trying to treat others as I wish to be treated. Not to be confused with 'liberal guilt,' which I feel is intensely unhealthy (guilt generally tends to be, except for in a few instances, such as during mourning...). Which is why I've taken the job here of hammering home the message for the hypocrites and curious bystanders out there. I found this blog, which sums how I feel up:

Hollow Rituals Have No Value
Service to people is service to God.
Rituals, if hollow, value not.


There was a rather impressive bit of sophistry [/sarcasm] in that first comment, which I've also noticed subsequently noticed in followers of other faiths (notably with the idea that homosexuality can be 'cured'). It is a twist on the idea that homo (or bi) sexuality is a choice. What happens is that (hypocritically enough), intolerants lump together the idea that homo (or bi) sexuality is a 'choice' with the idea that it is some sort of perversion which the person can't really help. So, it's a choice because it's not natural, but it's a perversion because it's not normal. Like an illness, and of course, people can't help being ill, now, can they? Aahhh, I understand now.... (not).

How do you solve this knotty paradox when reality threatens to intervene? When people won't just shut up and become 'normal' and heterosexual even though you (and no doubt, to some extent, they) keep telling them to?

Easy. Align their sexual orientation with 'lust' and then tell them, opaquely, sanctimoniously and unhelpfully, that lust is a sin and that we should all try to 'overcome our desires' (near-exact paraphrase of a bit in that first comment!). What you really want to add, but don't, because it would derail your faux-compassion, is that: 'It's OK for people like me, because we have babies and you don't, so you're a waste of time. I mean, let's be honest here, this whole organised-religion business is just a giant popularity contest where we all want the most followers, and gay believers are a waste of time because they have no babies!'

(God, the way these people carry on about gay love. You'd think that all those gay people who want to be able to get married were having sex right in their faces, 24/7. I just love the way they can't seem to distinguish love and lust, mistaking the former for the latter. No doubt, vice-versa too - which sure explains their disgusting attitudes towards rape).

If 'lust' is really so dangerous, then imho, all those Catholic paedophile priests, as well as anyone who's ever abused their religious high position (I'm sure there are gianis and imams and rabbis and so many others who are nowhere near approaching saint level, to put it euphemistically) need to be dealt with fast. Give them electroshock/humiliation/flogging/social ostracisation therapy. Failing that, do as Lost in Showbiz commenters often wish upon celebrities, and have them fired into the Sun by rocket.

Well? I'm waiting!


(Quick and fervent round of applause for faisal, who, ahem, reworked the bigoted comment as follows):

Bigot (referring to self as 'Mangles', I believe 'Mangled' would be more appropriate!):

Guest by my guest and find a faith that accommodates your principles instead of trying to hoodwinkle and tarnish the good name of the SIkh faith and our Great Gurus. A homosexual wanting to be a Sikh is like a Tory wanting to be a communist, no offence to either, but the two do not corrolate.

faisal (in response to Leon, post #16):

Leon by my guest and find a faith that accommodates your principles instead of trying to hoodwinkle and tarnish the good name of the Sith faith and our Sith Lords. A homosexual wanting to be a Sith is like a Rancor wanting to be an Ewok, no offence to either, but the two do not corrolate.

Comedic brilliance.

Bigotry and Suffering

So here I am, hiding out in my room upstairs, as all my family bar one sister and life-long family friends enjoy themselves downstairs. When they arrived, I actually made an effort to be sociable. We talked about university and work and my plans for next year, and I was (much to my surprise) encouraged to do a Master's and think about academia, because if you can stomach all the studying, it's a pretty comfortable life. I concurred based on what I know and paused resignedly every now and again as people talked over me, interrupted me, or rushed out before I could finish what I was saying.

(Story of my life, and now you know why I vent myself crazy on this here blog!).

I was delighted to speak to a fellow English student (well... former in her case), being as I was able to exclude my sister and brother for once. That sounds bad, but growing up in a house full of medically-oriented people has had the effect that nobody respects me at all, even though I don't exactly exaggerate the importance of what I do. My sisters, when they are both here together, talk pharmacy. My brother, trainee doc that he is, sometimes joins in and if my brother-in-law is here, they talk medicine too.

So, it was a pleasure to establish a connection of my OWN for once, and to talk about Forster, Lawrence and Huxley; to hold forth on The Trial. I don't do it to say 'Look at me, I'm so clever,' but I do enjoy talking about it because it impassions me and in this family where I am a solitary alien, I never get to enjoy that. Used as I am to being babied, bullied and bitched at, for me to be able to say what I THINK and talk about things that interest ME is a rare treat indeed.

However, as I observed in the first paragraph, even that scant moment of happiness does not remain unmitigated. It was positively annihilated, however, by what came next. We shifted rooms in order to sit in the 'back room' (the extension) and there was eating and general conversation. I groaned inwardly at the sight of all the calorific treats which are in the process of making me get fat and giving me more spots than I've ever had in my whole life. I know the latter to be true from looking at pictures of myself and also from the succession of comments from my mother and sisters. My mum in particular remarked upon it almost angrily, as though it were my fault. In her head, I'm sure it is, for some roundabout reason or another.

(One plus point of the day though - I was wearing a ribbon in my hair and for once my brother didn't call me 'Gyppo' as he usually does, but I think that was only because of the guests...).

I was focussing my energies, after consuming a suitably small amount of fried nonsense, on trying to work out the fiendishly elaborate 80s Bollywood film that my dad had on as background noise. There was a sequence where a baddie kept repeatedly being 'attacked' by a falcon which had previously stolen another man's handgun which amused me no end (more genius of the utterly WTF? category)! It didn't save me though, oh no. Not even this year would I get away without having my holidays ruined by the bigotry that is almost integral to these intimate family get-togethers.

Suddenly, before I could even get a handle on where it had sprung from, the subject of the Pakistan-India tensions caught the collective imagination. The mother of the family who are our family friends (the 'children' are my sisters' age, i.e. late 20s, so the two sisters get on with my sisters and their elder brother is just kind of there, like a pot plant) remarked on how she would love for India to simply bomb Pakistan out of existence. Her son spoke up to support her.

Then, the fun kicked off and we got into some good old-fashioned Muslim-bashing. My dad said, how could you associate with people like that when you knew that they were looking at you and deciding that you had to CONVERT in order to be their friends (um, a little exaggeration there, perhaps, Pater?). The son informed us all of how it was 'their mission' to convert the whole world to Islam. For no apparent reason, the 'girls' talked about how they had seen the roads in India lined with goats when they were there 'and we asked him why and he said because it was Eid'. Cue agitated fawning all around for the poor goats that were going to be killed!

(Just like the billions of cows that die worldwide to feed people every year, but I didn't hear any railing against that. Funny really, as this family are Hindus, I would've expected to... Perchance it was because those are not just eaten by Muslims?).

There was talk of how the Arab nations are 'uncivilised' and also of how they are 'dirty.' Bollocks! cried the ghost of GCSE history from the depths of my stomach. Absolute fucking bollocks! They were advanced in medicine long before the West got a clue, and they invented geometry! As usual, however, as one of the youngest in the room and the only person who has bothered to question any of these 'hand-me-down' opinions, I knew better than to open my mouth.

Support for the complete eradication of Pakistan gathered around the room. 'Ethnic cleansing!' my sister proclaimed jauntily. In my already-twisting guts, I felt the amorphous horror of a face trying to force itself upwards, a scream trying to make itself heard. 'These are absolute dogs' the mother of the family kept repeating. All Muslims everywhere ever were blamed for the ills of the world. It was conceded by the eldest daughter that ha, now it was the whole world at their mercy. I believe the mother said something about how 50% of the population being born in India were Muslims.

Oh-so-patriotic anxiety was expressed over poor little India being surrounded, as my pater put it, by 'Bangladesh. Muslim. Pakistan. Muslim... and there's the Muslims in India!' (I managed to refrain from pointing out that Indian Muslims have themselves condemned the Mumbai attacks). Resentment was expressed about the fact that many Indian Muslims were originally, er, not Muslim (I restrained myself from mentioning that in some cases, as with the Dalits, people have voluntarily converted to Islam because they think it will improve their lives which are rigidly bound by the caste-system promoted by... errr, Hinduism and the conservative Indian culture. Also, if people are so cut up about the fact that their families 'used to be' whatever, why not convert back to that religion?).

Pakistan was roundly and repeatedly blamed and the census opinion was that nobody within its borders should live, they should all be bombed out of existence and then the world's troubles would cease! (How I itched to remark that this wouldn't really resolve the problem of the spread of the noxious Wahabbi ideology which originates from... *gasp* SAUDI ARABIA). The 'evil Muslims' seam was rich with satisfaction waiting to be mined by the roomful of my 'nearest and dearest' (ha!), as evidenced by the fact that when my sister came back in from making tea, she went 'Aww, has the Muslim-bashing stopped? Don't start again without me!' and laughed before exiting the room.

I feel depressed and terrified when this happens to me. It also makes me very, very aware of how alone I am. Often when I was younger, I would castigate myself for these feelings. While everyone else laughed blithely, content in the glow of their reductionist bigotry, I felt my innards interlacing, a near-rigor mortis of discomfort immobilising me against the wave of hate. Why did I have to be awkward? Why couldn't I just join in the anti-Muslim fun without feeling bad? Why did I see them as people and feel it almost as much as a slight against myself, when my family - people who I KNEW to be capable of moral character in other situations - had no problem with it?

The answer, ironically enough, was because I saw myself as a Sikh. Even though I am unsure about the existence of God these days, I still see myself as so bound by Sikh philosophy that even if I wanted to, I couldn't change. Yet clearly something was wrong because my family claimed to be Sikhs too. My dad is baptised and has the 5 Ks. My siblings have been much more active 'within the community' than I ever was. Yet I used to pray regularly and I still do try to treat people equally, taking the story of Bhai Kanhaiya Ji as an influence. The Gurus might have had a historical enmity with some of the Mughal rulers, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of Sikh history will be aware of the fact that this is by no means applicable to all the Mughal rulers, let alone all Muslims, plenty of whom were devotees of the Gurus! Even Guru Gobind Singh, who created the notion of the Khalsa, to which my parents cling in keeping with 'neo-Sikhism', was saved by Muslims! (Scroll down to the final paragraph to see what I'm talking about).

I'm no longer vegetarian, even though my hair remains uncut and my kara on, but I can't believe the hypocrisy of it all. This has disturbed me ever since I became aware of it, because it made me see the futility of truth before ritual. Even though, according to the BBC's 'Sikhism at a Glance,' I am a better Sikh than my family, the fact that they observe ritual more means that they have authority in the eyes of everyone else. Pathetic. As I wrote in a poem inspired by my experiences, '‘Twas the evil in my own home / to make me doubt the existence of a God.'

Yet part of me panics when I see this. Does this mean that loads and loads of people out there think like this? How alone am I? Can the world really be full of people who are ignorant and tribalist and hateful? Whenever I used to show little signs of subversion, when I was younger, my parents always disarmed me with the warning that I should 'stick to my own kind' and when I admitted to agnosticism, one of the main weapons my mother used against me was the recommendation that I should be 'part of a group' because it's 'safer' and that way you can fight against other groups. Er... isn't that the sort of mentality that's led to the apparently ever-worsening gang-related violence on our streets?

Now, in a convoluted way, my mother has a point because Sikhism is about fighting for the rights of the downtrodden and standing up for the oppressed - but I don't see what reason Sikhs have to be playing the 'victim' card as my parents so often like to do. Average Muslims could if they wanted to, but a lot of them just want to get on with their lives. I can't let that go unsaid, because I refuse to stop seeing the fact of people's humanity in favour of other categories. Does that make me a fool? And still the question circulates in my mind: who's the real Sikh here?