Monthly Archives: March 2010

The curious case of the hypersexual homosexual

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Bullshit! Ya right! Liar,! funny, “so gay”, “inner beauty, alright”

That’s the typical reaction I get if I show people this quote.

Q:how did you first realize you were straight?
A:around the time I started recognizing my sexuality, I realized that I felt a deep emotional connection with the opposite sex. I discovered that I had a deep attraction towards their inner beauty.

Now, consider these:

…from what iv heard abt gays is that they are purely attracted towards men sex­u­ally and that seems to be the decid­ing fac­tor in them being gay

This comment comes from a well meaning friend with religion-based objections to homosexuality, and is a milder form of a widespread false about homosexuals, made clearer by these quotes:

“they can hardly have a spiritual life with a whole lot of craving in their head”

“you mean gay but otherwise asexual?”

Both the people quoted ultimately believe that homosexuals are characterized PURELY or mainly by sexual attraction, which is not, in essence, different from believing that they are hyper-sexual.

If the opening comment is fake, or unrealistic, does that make an average heterosexual purely interested in sex all the time? Or if it is “gay” does that not mean that you think “gay” means “emotional/soft-brained”

Is it not only fair, that the same standards that are used to evaluate and characterize heterosexuality be applied to homosexuality? Have you ever paused to think that?

If I realized I was heterosexual when i started noticing breasts, how is it hyper-sexual of my friend M to be attracted to cute (male) butts?

In case the comparison was not obvious, let me put it in a sentence. Heterosexuals are identified by sexual attraction, so are homosexuals. Therefore to infer from that alone that they are interested only in sex is logically inconsistent. Given that homosexuality is not a sexual aberration or disease.

I am going to be lenient here and say that perhaps many heterosexuals and conservatives have this false belief because it is never put in perspective, so this should clears all doubts.

Who am I fooling, there is one, deeper, reason why this belief is so wide spread. And that is that homosexuality is unnatural, and unless one is willing to admit that there exists such an underlying religious belief, no amount of explaining is going to help. Nevertheless, being a great believer in education, I asked some of my homosexual friends how important emotion was to their sexuality, here are some quotes.

Me: What do you expect in a partner?

He: ideal is a myth. but if there exists one with these… characters.. id give it a shot. kind, generous,animal lover, vegetarian, long faced, long —-, etc etc. lol.

if you’d take into consideration the straight man. .. he sees his friends get married to women, come to work, go home, have sex, make babies etc. such an example doesnt exist in homosexuals. rather it does exist, it is not brought to the fore. so we are labeled as unnatural and sex driven.

Me: Envision your perfect partner, how important is the sex appeal?

He: yes, sex appeal is important… but not “the” deciding factor.

follow http://twitter.com/hiyer if you want more detail!

and a good friend, in response to the comments on my earlier post

I want someone who’ll love me. I still dream of love, marriage and kids [twin girls :-) ]. I dream of a day when my parents will accept me and realize that I still am the same person. I dream of a small house with a little garden and a labrador named Phoebe. The only difference is that we’ll get ‘His and His’ towels for Christmas.

If you still have a small voice in your head saying, “but they are more interested in sex than us” I hope you have realized what the problem is; you have made up your minds and will not be confused by facts. Face it, you think “gays” are an aberration, and accept it openly, no shame in that, people are entitled to their opinion. Do yourself a favor, do not assail me with clams of being objective and scientific, and then hold on to your delusions.

In case you are wondering what this natural unnatural debate is, head here to see what I have written earlier. [link]

thanks to image by Jan Tonne

He is NOT a nice guy

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Update: 30/8/2010 : It was brought to my notice that my view on the abuse-perpetrator is a bit misleading. Not all people who abuse their partners have a substance abuse problem or stressor, more over they do not abuse BECAUSE of these stressors. Men behave the way they do because that’s how they’re socialized and because society condones their behavior. While the above might contribute in their violence, the act of violence is a behavioral problem, not primarily an environmental

Some time ago a friend of mine told me about a friend of hers who was in an abusive relationship. This girl’s boyfriend would smack her around even in front of her friends and humiliate her in public but the girl “refused to see light” and stuck to the guy. It might have been the horrified look on my face, of her continued vilification of a friend which made her hastily add “but he is actually a nice guy”.

Abuse in relationships is an underplayed reality. This is because most of the time there is a certain criminal-victim exchange happening, people dont talk about it directly, but the defensive ejaculation by my friend is a small evidence for it. She knows that the guy beats her friend, she has seen her humiliation and tears, in spite of which she thinks he is “nice”. To her credit, among all the abused girls friends, she is the only one who has had the courage to stand up to the guy and ask him to back off in such situations. Yet, even she is unsure of what to do and what to believe.

What she means by “nice” is, when he is not beating up his girlfriend, he is pleasant, often doting towards her, works hard, is not beating up other people.

The had truth is, we believe that the girl deserved it. Else, why would a bunch of doctors who have witnessed a crime happening continue to hide behind the weak excuse of it being a “personal matter” and “she needs to help herself”.

I am willing to concede that ignorance about how to deal with the situation contributes to such beliefs and that most people have no idea how such relationships end or what harm they do to the people involved. Before I get into statistics, here is the basic thing to keep in mind :

The DEFINITION of a good person excludes someone who beats up his girlfriend/ wife. So think this, he is the enemy, the bad person, the criminal, He is NOT a nice g uy. Someone who runs a brothel and uses the profits to educate slum kids is TWICE a sinner, first for running the brothel and killing the souls within it and second for poisoning the children he feeds. He is NOT a nice guy.

Now, the Science and statistics.

Physical abuse has not just physical effects, it affects the woman’s mental emotional and social health also.

A significant portion of women who have been abused do not seek medical help for the injuries themselves, but those who do, present with non specific and chronic pain and bruises from having “bumped into something”. Women who suffer long term abuse, and are battered are found to have more injuries in the head, face, neck, thorax,  breasts, and abdomen when compared women injured in other ways. 1

Many women also have to put up with forced sex from intimate partners, which results in sexually-transmitted diseases, bleeding or infection, fibroids, genital irritation, pain on intercourse, and urinary-tract infection. Studies show that the odds of having gynecological problems is upto 3 times more in victims of physical abuse.

Mental effects of abuse are quiet profound too, some studies have shown that the risk of depression and post traumatic stress disorder was higher for abuse victims than even those who have had childhood sexual abuse.

  • Fractures
  • Miscarriage
  • Depression
  • Major Surgery
  • lacerations requiring stitches
  • Sexually transmitted infections including HIV
  • Loss of vision/hearing

These are some of the prominent outcomes of intimate partner violence that most studies find. 2

In more than half of the cases of abuse, children are witnesses to it. And in upto 5% cases even the children are abused by the partners.

A study from rural south India showed that thirty-four percent of the women surveyed reported having ever been hit, forced to have sex by their husbands or both. Women belonging to lower caste, poorer households, having greater economic autonomy, and whose husbands consumed alcohol were more likely to report violence. Women’s economic autonomy and husbands’ alcohol consumption were significantly associated with violence,independent of caste and economic status. 3

Why does she not realize, react and seek help?

This is typical of a situation in abusive relationship. The reasons are a complex mixture. Many times health care workers who are the first to see the results of intimate partner violence fail to identify it or do nothing about it. This and the social approval for domestic abuse ensures that she “normalizes” the abuse. She is deluded, as people around her that she deserves it, or that he is otherwise nice, or that there is nothing that can be done to help her.

We need to realize that at this stage, it is no longer a personal matter, it is public. We need to step in. Perhaps there is a stressor, maybe the guy is mentally unstable, or there might be substance abuse, or maybe he is just a jerk, whatever be, if we stand by looking, we are accomplices to the slow murder of usr friend, soul first then her body.

Does she deserve it?
Is there any excuse for beating up ones spouse/girlfriend? Suppose she did provoke him, does that mean she should be beaten up?

Let me tackle the “its their personal matter” excuse again

If you see a robber getting into the house next door, do you go back to sleep because it’s a personal matter?

There is absolutely no difference, abusing ones mate is a crime and cases can be registered under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005. Not just that, abuse, as you have seen above, has far reaching consequnces. If you know about it, you should react to it, you might be rejected or ridiculed or even shouted at but not doing anything is akin to abetting murder.

She cannot help herself, people like us who compose the society further make it difficult for her to come out, also she is probably lead to believe that it is her fate or that its ok.

He is not a nice guy.

photo by eyesonmephotography

References

1 Health consequences of intimate partner violence Jacquelyn C Campbell Lancet 20012; 359; 1331-36
2 Berrios DC, Grady D: Domestic violence-Risk factors and outcomes. West J Med 1991 Aug; 155:133-135
3 Krishnan, Suneeta(2005)'Gender, Caste, and Economic Inequalities and Marital Violence in Rural South
 India', Health Care for Women International,26:1,87 — 99