Its not the DRESS!!

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2783022.ece

What an amazing New Year gift for Indian women! A police chief and a Minister telling them that if they get harassed, molested or raped, it is actually their fault. We have heard this before on many occasions. But coming as it does just as the New Year dawns, it is a bit of a downer for all those who thought that perhaps our society would finally accept that women are equal citizens and that if they continue to be sexually assaulted, there is a sickness in our society that must be tackled. Not quite yet, it would seem.

According to media reports, the Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh was quoted as saying words to the effect that if women wore flimsy clothes, they provoked rape. These remarks were recorded on camera and telecast. And have been played out on the Internet on multiple sites. Hence, it is strange that police officers defending the DGP should suggest that the remarks have been taken out of context. They were made in response to a question about the incidence of rape in Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, a Karnataka Minister responsible for women's welfare, when asked what he thought of the Andhra DGP's views, was reported saying that while women were free to dress as they pleased, he was personally against them wearing ‘provocative' clothing and that they needed to be ‘dignified'. And to add further grist to the mill, the head of a panel dealing with sexual harassment in Bangalore University believes that only sarees with long sleeved blouses ensure that women are respected and that she is against women wearing ‘obscene' clothes.

The more things change

Public memory is notoriously short on most issues and people like the young man who has written, presuming he is young, are probably unaware of the long struggle waged by the women's movement in India against rape. He and others like him have probably never heard of Mathura, a 16-year-old tribal girl who was raped by two policemen in the Desai Ganj police station in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district in 1974. Mathura had gone to the police to register a complaint about her missing husband. Even as her relatives waited outside for her, she was assaulted and raped by the two men. Did this attack have anything to do with what she wore? Did she invite the rape? It was a question of power. The police had the power; Mathura did not.

Unfortunately, the courts let off the two policemen on the grounds that there were no injuries on Mathura to establish that she had resisted. Hence the court gave the benefit of the doubt to the policemen. It was this judgment that triggered a campaign to change the rape laws so that the victim was not victimised further. It also established rules about police conduct; women cannot be summoned to a police station after dark and when they are, women constables have to be present. In 1983, the provision in the criminal law dealing with rape was amended so that the victim did not have to prove that she was raped; her statement was sufficient. The onus of proving innocence was on the rapist. These changes were made in recognition of the fact that the criminal justice system was skewed against women who turned to the law when they were sexually assaulted.

Or take a more recent case, that of the rape and murder of 32-year-old Thangjam Manorama in Manipur in 2004, allegedly by the security forces. Did it matter what Manorama wore? Her rape and death triggered the iconic naked protest by a dozen elderly Manipuri women in Imphal, who stood before the headquarters of the Assam Rifles on July 15, 2004, with a banner stating “Indian Army Rape Us”. The “Imas” or mothers as they are called, have continued to protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and are the main support group behind that determined and brave woman, Irom Sharmila, whose indefinite fast against AFSPA will soon enter its 12 th year.

Its Impeccable

So, how is women's attire relevant when the subject is rape and sexual assault? When little girls are raped, can they be charged with being provocative? When old women are raped, can they be accused of wearing ‘obscene' clothes? When a woman is simply going about her daily routine, and she is sexually assaulted, can we turn around and tell her that she should be ‘dignified'? There is no dignity in being the target of violence for no other reason than that you are a woman — old, young, thin, fat, dark, fair, any caste, creed or class. To reduce the heinousness of this crime to such triviality, by bringing up women's attire, is a crime in itself. And for law enforcers and lawmakers to do so, is even worse.

The shrinking universe

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Vijay_Nagaswami/article2783036.ece?homepage=true

Open relationships

The first of these are what are usually referred to as ‘open relationships', wherein both partners are free to get emotionally and sexually involved with other people without needing the partner's consent every time. In other words, consent is a given. There is also no restriction on the degree of emotional or sexual closeness you can experience with the ‘paramour'. It is quite conceivable that you may end up having a committed relationship with the ‘ paramour' if this is indeed what you want to do, but then, you will have an open relationship with the ‘paramour' too, thereby permitting you to still maintain a relationship with your original partner. In other words, the element of exclusivity gets taken out of your open relationship, although commitment is still inherent.

This is different from ‘swinging' and ‘spouse-swapping' in which the focus is more on sexual rather than emotional intimacy. You're still married to your spouse, but both of you, by mutual consent, engage, from time to time, in sexual romps with other swinging couples. The idea here seems to be to provide both partners some sexual variety, but in a reasonably controlled situation, so that some degree of exclusivity is retained, and when both partners tire of sexual frolic, they retire to lives of companionable monogamy.

And in recent times, there is the new phenomenon called polyamory or simply, poly, sometimes described as ‘responsible non-monogamy'. While the definition of polyamory is not always absolutely clear, and can include open relationships as well in its ambit, it is distinguished from swinging, because it's seen as encompassing sexual, emotional, romantic and spiritual dimensions. The basic understanding here is that anyone is capable of having simultaneous, multiple, deep, intimate relationships, and that the ‘ distracting' elements of marriage, like jealousy, exclusivity, power imbalances etc., are squarely removed from the equation, thereby creating opportunities to grow as human beings.

However, jealousy does appear every now and again, and the successful poly is one who has been able to conquer this emotion and replace it with what is referred to as compersion (the opposite of jealousy, where you experience genuine happiness that your partner finds fulfilment or joy from somebody or something other than yourself). Fidelity, loyalty, honesty, equality, respect and transparency are big virtues among polys, for, no relationship takes place in the absence of consent and consensus. If ever consent is withheld, the reasons have to be substantial.

Polyamorists may engage in long-term relationships in triads, quads or networks. They would still tend to have a ‘primary' relationship and one or several ‘secondary relationships'. They are a growing movement in the United States (apparently there're about half a million polyamorists there) and also participate in Pride parades to highlight the legitimacy of their cause. Polyfidelity is a more controlled method of engaging in multiple relationships. The partners that one can choose from are limited to members of a group, network or commune. And fidelity to this group is demanded at all costs. Otherwise, the dynamics are similar to polyamorous relationships.

And finally, there is the old faithful — polygamy, which, in our country, was not uncommon in the past, but confined, since we live in a patriarchal environment, primarily to the male of the species (polyandry, which refers to a woman having multiple husbands, is too rare to even mention). Polygamy refers to having multiple socially, even if not legally, sanctioned spouses. This means that the polygamist takes responsibility for all of his wives and whatever children may be born of these liaisons. However, in the last few decades, polygamy, whether on account of inflation, recession or just an increasing belief in monogamy, is certainly on the decrease, even in religious denominations or sub-cultures where it used to be acceptable.

Viable alternative?

Some research into multiple marriages is under way in the west, but it's too early to tell whether it is a viable and sustainable alternative to monogamy. However, the fundamental issue is whether such multiple partner relationships could actually be considered to fall under the rubric of ‘marriage', which, by and large, has been a monogamous institution. The general clamour of my email interlocutors has been to expand the institution of marriage to cover multiple partner relationships as well. But, my question is, why? If one is comfortable with monogamy, one gets married. If one is not, one can opt for one of the ‘poly' alternatives. And then one can really understand whether more is actually merrier or whether three is indeed a crowd.