Sex and abuse

Boasting about sex is like talking with your mouth full, a friend’s mother once told me she only opened her mouth to change feet. Perhaps I indulge in a bit of both in my attempt to purge my sins but sixty lovers in thirty years must have some lessons inherent. And it’s this lesson I seek out over and over in every encounter with the opposite sex, some with awareness some bereft.

Why is god always present at all my most ecstatic climaxes? Some really divine phrases issue forth from my mouth during orgasm, ‘oh god! Fuck me’, would go down as blasphemous most places. But cuming from a country that offers in cultural reference the most sublime texts on the act of lovemaking, the Kamasutra, as another way of getting closer to god, I realized at some point this must be my trajectory as a soul. With references like that amongst others to be found freely in my beautifully accommodating country of many paths both spiritual and ritual, I could commune with god in any given time, space or situation. I was ecstatic; I thanked the forces that be to let me discover my spiritual roots in a nation of such multi layered social and philosophical streams of consciousness co-existing.

I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me for not being able to feel love for the gods. Mostly at that time my representations of god were an idol or image of either one of the Sikh gurus or any one of the pantheon of Hindu deities. Not that I had a very religiously inclined family but even the ultra modern of the time had a tendency to worship, while some were rediscovering it like my mother. I had a strange reaction when I entered holy spaces, I felt disconnected somehow, not welcome or wanted because I never had any holy thoughts while I was in there. I looked hard for signs I might be missing, when I went to a temple or gurudwara, I was desperate to make this connection I saw on the faces of a million pious people at various locales. I was taught to worship at an early age, like most, I was taught the respects due and protocols of ritual and religion. Luckily for me I got an exposure to more than just Hinduism and Sikhism, my family had Christian and Muslim friends as well, so I got my peek into the rituals and ideas of other faiths. In time however my interest in religion and faith faded into a disgust at the propagation methods and discrimination found in organized religion on a mass scale. A lady in a temple once told me that the holy water turns back if a woman with her periods enters the temple, I had not even begun my period at the time, but I felt the fear and shame anyhow.

I started out my life with a large dose of sexuality infused at an early age, for one I was an only child and left alone with servants a lot and for another I always looked older than my actual age (thankfully this process has recently reversed). While being left alone with servants or other kids may not be the problem in itself, a lack of much adult attention or guidance early on can set oneself up for some hard learning later. That this was my choice of earthly situation I can see or operate from today at thirty plus! But it took a fair amount of hits before I missed the point all together; there were hidden voices even as a child that mentioned such things to me.

Today I can allow the outrage to vent itself, for along with the all destructive rage is a deep desire to change this pattern of acceptance. For years I intellectualized the process and put a lid on my rage for fear of its outcome (for it is blinding this rage, it wants to kill, maim and destroy the perpetrators of such injustice). For years I sought to forgive and forget the heinous actions of the unaware, battered men I encountered, for years I swallowed the pain and covered it with a blanket of excuses for the perpetrators of sexual deviance, finding ways to forgive them, understanding that they too must have been battered in some way to seek such expression of their sexuality. Today I am the mother of a girl child and the very thought of something like that happening to her sends me into a deep outrage, if I ever found someone messing with my child he/she would have to die (yes that is the extent of my rage).

I thought it was extremely dangerous of Oliver Stone to have made ‘Natural Born Killers’ for it brought out this rage in full glare, it fueled that deep desire for revenge and justice in such an aggressive tone, I wanted to kill with the same randomness as Mickey and Mallory. I resonated with the rage expressed in that film to such a degree I was afraid of myself and proceeded to seek psychological help. At the time I felt it was irresponsible of a filmmaker to bring out such emotions, if I was subject to the outpouring of emotion at watching a film what was it going to do to millions who saw this film, without the strength to see their own destructive emotions, they would take the lives of their fathers and mothers in the same was Mallory did. In a world already steeped in pain and destruction what good will more do, even if it was a way of seeking justice.

That was in 1992, the same year I got in touch with organizations like RAHI and Sakshi, working to spread awareness about these very issues. Through RAHI, I was able to put in words the outrage I felt, I was given terms like CSA (child sexual abuse) and explained the patterns of such victims and suddenly my whole life made sense. I was absolved of my guilt and shame by being able to place blame but that didn’t get me out of victim mode, no it made me more of a victim of societies blundering cover ups. I am thirty one today and my family still seeks to forget and cover up the acts of yesteryears that made me what I am today. Expecting me to grow up and forgive my brothers, uncles and servants for the acts I was made to commit as a child. I learnt to take responsibility for my feelings and learnt to hide them well, recently having thought I had reached a place of forgiveness I even befriended my step brother again, in hope of healing a fractured relationship I longed for, in hope of finally having a brother in the truest sense of the word. Alas I found recently that in fact I had not been able to heal that relationship, I found other brothers and beautiful men who upheld with integrity their act of providing me brotherly love these were my brothers and friends, people I found later in life who reminded me there was such a thing as pure brotherly love. I thank them today for restoring my faith in humankind, in love and in friendship beyond ties of family and blood.

I read somewhere that sometimes our blood families are only our karmic lessons and part of our past to resolve, it has certainly been this way for me. For I have found love and acceptance not in my family and blood kin, but amongst the people that served my family, among the beggars on the street, among the villagers I stayed with when I traveled to the mountains, among the poor and needy of my beautiful country, that still uphold such values as love and caring. I learnt to love from them. From my maid Parvati who tirelessly brought up five children after the death of a husband who beat her when he was alive, but she would never say a word against him. She worked as a labourer in Calcutta for many years before finding a domestic job and eventually coming to Delhi and finding us many years later, she has been in our family for ten years now and I feel more connected to her than my own mother. From my sisters on the street who in spite of being battered, raped and struggling financially still find the values to teach their children, still believe in god and love.