A post from the Facebook page ‘MenSpeak’ turned up on my newsfeed yesterday. It was an interview of Priya Seth and her accomplices that had allegedly been taken down by Facebook earlier. Curious as to why an interview would be taken down, I stumbled upon articles about Priya Seth and her accomplices Dikshant Kamra and Lakshya Walia, who have been booked for the murder of a Jaipur-based businessman in May. I never did find out if and why the interview might have been taken down — I didn’t watch the interview either.
A Hindustan Times article reports that ‘Priya Seth, a college dropout and daughter of a college professor, allegedly got into flesh trade six years ago to make easy money and grew fond of an extravagant life.’ This case that till now has somehow evaded my radar is one in which a woman has been duping and exhorting men with a couple of accomplices. Of course, this could have been done by a person of any gender looking to make quick money. What we need to really consider in this case is why the hundreds of men allegedly duped by Priya did not come forward to file complaints, and why it was the murder of a man that finally had the police catch up with them.
While several answers could be speculated for this question, one of them that strikes me most plausible is that the duped men were embarrassed to pursue it with the legal system because they had met Priya on dating websites and apps. Simply put, they were looking for sex, got duped and were ashamed to talk about it.
The same ‘Shame about sex’ lens can be applied to the Kerala Church ‘sex for silence’ scandal that is getting national attention. A priest with the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church broke the confidentiality of the confession made by a parish member, and sexually exploited her in return for silence. Since an audio clip surfaced on social media it has come to light that nearly five priests are implicated in the matter that seems to have started in 1999. In this case, the shame surrounding sex is further complicated by religion, but the shame remains just the same.
Both these cases were on my mind as I drove back home during Monday’s night rainfall. I had just crossed a popular four-road junction when a woman dressed in black tried to hail down my car. It was pouring and I could just about make out her form. I almost didn’t stop in the fear of everything that could go wrong giving lifts to a stranger, but I slowed down enough to recognise the woman from having driven that road before.
She ran down the road to where I had stopped and peered in. I put the windows down to ask if I could drop her somewhere. She did not hide her disappointment on realising that it was a woman offering her a lift and not a man who could have been a potential client. She took me up on my offer nevertheless and I dropped her off where she needed to go. Her in the car, drenched entirely, shivering on the seat, and irritated that the rain had played devil on her trade for the night was a visual more graphic to me than the sight of the red umbrellas at the pride parade last weekend. Some people earn with their bodies, and as the quote goes, “if you think sex workers sell their bodies but coal miners do not, then your view of labour if clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality”.
One of the biggest battles in getting sex work recognised as work, in an effort to consider it as a part of the large informal economy, is changing the moralistic view we have about it to de-villainise and see it as labour that it gendered. But for that, we need to begin with talking about the shame that is associated with sex. In a sense, we need to change the way we think and talk about sex to be able to speak up against extortion and harassment or speak up for sex work — without shame.