(From ‘The Stories that need telling’ series from The Uncommon Box).
This brief article packs in a punch. Knowing oneself, accepting one’s own sexual orientation is one of the biggest personality shapers of the human psyche. Arpit Chhikara lays out his point of view on this much neglected aspect of human development and conveys one strong message- that we all need to know ourselves. That’s the key to a more safe and progressive society.
Desire is complicated and so is acting out on it.
You are a man and the rest are women. Some of you are growing and in future you will grow up to be men and women. That’s what we learn and that’s where the trouble begins.
Sigmund Freud, the world-famous authority on human psychology expounded that the human libido is inherently bisexual. What we see is the world around us is straight people walking around with polar desires. You sexually like the opposite sex because you’re of the ‘fill-in-the-blank’ sex, while you just humanly like the same sex because you are obviously straight. Desire is complicated and so is acting out on it. This polarity between gender forces people to stay confined to being men and women and their deepest sexual desires then get trapped.
‘Some things exist beyond the vanilla love making that a straight couple engages in.’
A few years back, a child was walking in park after his exercise routine was over. An old age man of the age of his grandfather asked him to sit along with him. Innocent he was, the 15 year old kid went to sit with that old man and they began talking about their interests, family and more. Then the hand of that old man began moving from the shoulder of the kid to his thigh. Then to his crotch. And before he could realise, the kid’s penis was almost in that man’s hand through his track pants. The kid then stood up and asked the old man to stay away or he would beat him up then and there. The little guy went home, meditated in total silence and didn’t see that man again in the park.
The guy is now grown up and writing this article. That ‘not so strange incident’ happened with me six years back. That was the first time I realised that there are desires among people which they fail to express. Paedophilia, bisexuality, foot fetish, pain infliction, cross dressing and other acts considered sexually deviant, clearly suggest some things that exist beyond the vanilla love making that a straight couple engages in.
‘Mixed feelings’
Since that incident, I’ve faced a number of such scenarios where men have tried their ways to woo me and have their desires thrown upon me. Every time it happened, it made me feel mesmerized and shocked. Mesmerized because it felt good to know that you are desirable. Shocked because it was not what I really wanted to happen.
‘The culture around us shames us for being who we are and we lose ourselves in the process of being unauthentic.’
We live and love in a world where being gay is a crime. Here you can’t say you had sex with somebody who willingly engaged in it. The culture around us shames us for being who we are and we lose ourselves in the process of being unauthentic. Transgender people didn’t even have their share in the population census of India a few years back. That’s when you feel your desire is bad and you are not a good person because of the things you naturally feel. That’s how the society and law makes you a criminal and leave no space for you to be yourself. And this desire-shaming eventually leads to failed marriages, closet homosexuality, child rapes and brutal punishments.
Stop shaming yourself and other people. Who you are is who you are and the more you hide it, the more you’ll be haunted by the truth. Accepting yourself and finding accepting people is the first step to expressing what you feel. That’s how change will occur and fewer people will be victims of sexual assault and everybody shall live happily.
About the author:
Arpit studies and roams around and does whatever there is in between. Other than writing, he plans for big things many of which stay in his fantasies. Some of them turn real. Either way, his plans leave him with a story to tell, be it of success or failure. Finishing off his graduation from Kirorimal College, he doesn’t want to be another cog in machine. The future longs for the bold and with time all shall be healed and dealt with. That’s what he wants to convey as his parting words of wisdom from a twenty one year old mind.
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