■ Your advice to the mother from last week’s column (November 15, 2008) not to let her grown-up son touch sexually her was bold and morally sound. Considering that this was such sane advice, I am tempted to ask you what counsel you have for her son.
The sex urge is very strong at his age and there probably was no other way to let off steam. The mother should have known that there is more lust than love in young boys. Given such liberties, an exasperated youth will not stop short of raping. There are many associations that cry themselves hoarse about the rights and privileges of sexual perverts like gays, lesbians and transgenders, whereas there is no one to speak for these normal healthy unfortunates. Sex is an obsession for them. Condemning the boy is easy to do, but unfortunately the culprit is also a sufferer. I am not advocating sexual anarchy, but these were some of the thoughts that flashed through my mind on reading your column.
— Speaking For The Victim
Are you out of your ever-loving mind? First of all, I don’t know very many queer men, women, or transgender individuals who sexually assault their mothers. The desire for consensual sex is very sane.
The desire to jerk off while “clenching” your mother’s breasts is very insane. I find your insistence that males (particularly teenagers) are simply incapable of controlling their sexual urges very troubling.
It’s this same misconception about male sexuality that allows people to excuse rape. If you read my advice, you would see that I did insist that the mother take responsibility for her behaviour.
I also agree with you that vilifying the kid for his sick behaviour is not very productive and that what he needs is some serious professional help. But let’s not forget that he is 17 years old and really should know better.
■ Your advice to the 52-year-old man who is in a sexless marriage was entertaining reading (November 8th, 2008), but your answer to “look elsewhere” was not in good taste. You, as a columnist and advisor should not suggest that. I am 54 years old. I got married at 38 and had all the fun of married life for two months, but since then I have been alone. I had an aged and bed-ridden mother who expired last year and an unmarried sister at home. I have been content to look after them and although I had all the emotion and needs of a normal human being, I never ventured out to see women “elsewhere”. Looking “elsewhere” is not part of our culture.
Sex is a part of who we are, but it is not the only thing that defines us. Please stick to our culture’s one man/one woman policy and continue your good work.
— Defending Our Culture
I’m very happy that you’ve managed to go so many years without seeking some fun and frolic. But in the advice I gave, I told the letter-writer to talk with his wife before making any moves. It’s entirely possible that she would be supportive of him seeking sexual partners outside the marriage.
Whatever your moral opinions about this may be, someone cheating when he or she is stuck in a sexless relationship is an eventuality that everyone is just going to have to get realistic about. As for this whole issue about “our culture”, you complain that so-called Indian culture does not condone certain kinds of sexual behaviour, but culture is not a discrete entity that can be easily defined by a set of strict parameters.
No matter what the received wisdom may be about the cultural behaviour and values of a given community, most members of that community violate, defy, or abandon those expectations every day of week and twice on Sundays. You may say that Indian culture dictates that one man and one woman should partner off earlier, only have sex for the purpose of making babies, and stay faithful to each other forever, but since so few Indians actually follow those precepts, can those values really be considered definitive of “Indian culture” anymore?
— Padma Govindan is a researcher and founding member of the Shakti Center gender collective in Chennai. Unedited archives of this column are available at www.queeries.wordpress.com . Have a question?
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