The Indian Male Sexual Position Explained

What can I write when a stereo on a floor above goes thump, thump with lyrics such as:

"Yeh dooriyan, yeh fasle, yeh darmiyan, yeh xxxxxx,
Shakria mein, Shakira mein, Shakira mein, essen naruwe,”

(I am not good at Hindi lyrics so please fill me in.)

Some such nonsense goes on over, and over, and over…. Obviously, a young man is trying to catch sleep before he takes the vehicle to his call centre job. And he is testosterone-charging himself with Shakira’s naked body’s convolutions as shown in her latest music video.

It resonates in the mind and believe me it isn’t pleasant at all. It leaves a real bad taste in the mind, and populates the imagination with weird emotions; I need not go into here. Shakira is the latest sex symbol, the latest commodity of the “sex-is-what-sells-albums” brigade. And the youth above fully subscribes to that and so does our Bollywood film industry.

How does male and female sexuality differ? Alankrita made a point about my this post.

she wants to know why I have double standards when I can be sympathetic to Annie Zaidi's post on Number Plates.

I confess here that I am an average Indian male who ogles at women and like other members of my tribe am turned on when I see an exposed midriff or a sexy ass or boob. Believe me man is known from centuries to be easily sexually awakened, which fact women do not know. In the office women come and stand very close to a man without knowing that she is sending his pulse and heart rate racing.

Ergo, a man only needs revealing clothes, proximity, or, whiff of a perfume to be totally sexually awakened. Therefore if you dress in the latest low-waist jeans, mini-skirt or whatever, he suddenly jumps to conclusion that you are doing so because you are also in the awakened mood, and are therefore available.

Secondly women use their sexuality these days for a variety of reason. After having broken the shackles of housework, they are now venturing into the wide world and they have been told to be bold and blithe in whatever they do. In fact they have been told to be the “New Woman.” I appreciate this coming of age of the "New Woman" and full subscribe to the ideology. But do not take totally confrontational attitude towards men, which could give them a complex, if they already don't have one.

The entire advertising, marketing fraternity has taken this “New Woman” concept to heart and have “used” women to sell their products. (Now, what do feminists have to say to that?) They have used it shamelessly to sell “fairness creams (promising fairness in a week)”, “skin conditioners”, “exfoliators”, “shampoos”, “nail polishes”, “skimpy designer dresses”, “jewellery”, etc. Just look at their ads where models or the “New Woman” has been shown in the most revealing of clothes.

Now this whole revolutionary concept of the “New Woman” has got transferred to the skimpily clad models who have been “exploited” to sell all kinds of misleading beauty products. It is this transference that is the cause of a lot many “New Women” dressing boldly just to make the point that they are the “New Women.” How can the “New Woman” tolerate the exploitation of the female body (For proof ask anybody who has worked in an ad agency about what goes on inside their hallowed portals.) to sell products to them? How can a vanity beauty industry buttressed by falsehoods survive except with the assistance of the "New Woman" who also wants to see herself as the "perfect woman."

I for one believe that women do not need skimpy dresses, make-up, creams to enhance their beauty. A woman is beautiful just as she is. But, of course, if she wishes to enhance her looks let her use a minimum of beauty products. But please do not dress in outrageously revealing clothes touted by the fashionistas because as I said a man needs only a glimpse, a form, a whiff to set his heart racing. If desire builds up in him and he can't get what he sees around him, he becomes an animal, a predator.

SADLY, THE ABOVE FACT OF MALE SEXUALITY IS NOT AT ALL UNDERSTOOD BY MOST WOMEN.

Men follow a code of dressing that would immediately invite censure if they transgress the fine line. Why, I wore a sleeveless sweater to office on a cold winter morning and drew disapproving stares. “Kya, style marta hai kya?” they seemed to ask. However, when a woman dresses unconventionally, other women seem to encourage her, and praise her. But if she wears a low-waist jeans that stop a millimetre short of her pubic hair (yes I saw it recently), she is sure to have driven thousands of living-away-from-their-wives, sexually-hungry, sexually-deprived, easily-excitable men into sexual fantasies which find outlets as atrocities against women.

A good friend once wrote, “Portrayal of women in media (I include advertisements also in this category) is directly responsible for atrocities against women.” Therefore I think women need to fight against the portrayal of women as objects of desire in the media rather than toe the line of “This is the new woman in me and I will wear what I like, and reveal what I like because it is my body.”

I am a none too macho average Indian male and this is my position. Hope I haven’t lost my very few female friends because of this post.