Sexual harassment and sexually active!

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I Avinash Meshram, welcome you to my blog, Shall We Live on Mars? I hope you like to read my blog. Smiley...

When someone, who has influence, in terms of power, position, money or anything else, tries to force someone else to indulge in a sexual activity, then it is called sexual harassment!

It is observed that in most cases, women are the victims of sexual harassment. There are many examples that have come into light in all these years. I think no field has been left without any case of sexual harassment. Even in educational field, where, teacher, a guru was once placed equivalent to GOD have been found accused of sexually harassing female students for good grades, or something like that. Bollywood seems like a hub of sexual harassment with the amount of stories I have heard till now. Passionate girls with high dreams fall into this trap every year. (at least that is what I have heard.)

Sexual harassment is a disease, which should be eradicated from it’s roots. We have laws against sexual harassment. But things like this can’t be controlled by just a law. In most cases of sexual harassment, women don’t find a courage in them to fight a legal battle for there respect. Not because they are afraid of battles (I believe, women are stronger than men, at least mentally). It happens because of our patriarchal society, which doesn’t give as much support as needed to women who go against such acts. Our society blames the woman and passes the judgment that the woman must have given some signals.

A woman who is a victim of sexual harassment has to fight one battle at the place where she had been through such an act against her. And she clearly is on a losing side as the man who has harassed her holds a strong position. That is why he could dare to try to do that.

Then she fights the second battle in her society where people start judging her and commenting on the choice of her cloths, way of communication, lifestyle, friends everything. She goes through a scrutiny of every eye that looks at her and every mouth that talks about her. And all she could do is listen to those painful words and try to forget what she had heard. Bear the pain of those penetrating eye and act like nothing has happened.

And then the third battle is fought in the court for the justice.

She needs to be strong on every front. No one stands with her. She self-motivates herself, self inspires herself, consoles herself, cries alone and wipes her tears as well. And then she finds courage to stand strong again. But that is completely wrong. She has a strength to do it all doesn’t mean we should let her do that. How can we expect a woman to fight all these battles at the same time by her own?

No one tries to see the perspective of a woman and always think that it is a woman’s fault for encouraging such an act. How could that be? A woman, being beautiful, fashionable, or anything else is her choice of life. Who are we to decide how should she lead her life? No one should have that right and no one has that right?

Sexual harassment should not be encouraged and should not be done by anyone. Just by saying that there is a law against it is not going to solve that problem. We, as a society need to interfere in it in the support of women. It is a responsibility of every man to respect a woman and never to even think about harassing her in any way. A woman comes to you for a job, help, favor does not mean that you get a right to assume that she is willing to sleep with you. In my case, I have a small business with seven employees working with me. Out of which, only one is a female (Not because I am gender biased. I am not. It is just a coincidence J). But that female has never felt uncomfortable in the herd of all men and just her!

That being said,

Sometimes it also happens that someone who has nothing to do with it gets carried in it. A few women tend to use the word “Sexual Harassment” like it is nothing. Taking such a word for granted can actually ruin someone’s life sometime. We need to be very careful while using words like this. And these words must not be used until it is extremely necessary to use them. I wish that no one ever need to use them.

Harassing someone sexually and being open about your sexual choices are two different things. They should not be mixed. Asexual, sapiosexuality, monogamy, non-monogamy etc. are all the choices that we have and it is up to us to choose what we want to hold on to.

As long as something we do is not a crime, we have the freedom to choose it. Being open about your sexual preferences and being sexually active is a personal choice and it must not be put in the same category as sexual harassment. Asking someone for sex and blackmailing someone for sex are two different things. Asking someone is letting him/her know that you are interested, whether it could be out of love or out of crush or just for fun, whatever. And it is fine. It is better to ask and move on, if you get NO as an answer than to live in a hope of SOMEDAY!

Life is short and dating life is shorter than that. So there really is not enough time to first wait to connect and then decide if we should move on to the phase of sex. Those who want to go slow is their choice but at the same time, those who don’t want to go slow is their choice as well. How can one choice should be seen as correct and one is not. Especially when we have nothing to do with the choice someone else is making. When our life is not getting affected by someone else’s choice of living his/her life that why should we be deciding if the choice made by that someone is right or wrong?

It is really not necessary that you can’t fall in love after you have sex with someone. One of my friends, had sex with a girl, just for fun. They both liked it and met again for the same thing… it continued… and before they could know, they were deeply in love with each other. They have such a good chemistry that it would remind you of “Monica and Chandler”. If you see the story of “Monica and Chandler” in friends, you would observe that it is actually a story of ONE NIGHT STAND converting into undying love!

The problem is of a perspective. It is us, who think that if he/she was ready to have sex before falling in love then he/she must not be worth loving. This is an outdated, ancient mentality which we need to leave behind. I personally believe that sex is an important part of a relationship. A good compatibility in sex between partners increases their emotional bond as well. And if the partners are not as satisfied in sex as they should be, then in the long run, it effects their love for each other and weakens the bond between them. So if someone chooses to check the sexual compatibility before falling in love, and the partner with whom he/she wants to try it agrees to it, then why should it be wrong?

Even if we consider the fact of not willing to get into a relationship… like for example, say, someone is very busy focusing on his/her career and feels that he/she do not have enough time to get into a relationship right now. But also want to enjoy the life in whatever little time he/she has. And hence chooses casual dating or one-night stand or no strings attached. Then also who are we to judge him/her. It is their choice and they have a freedom of choosing it, as long as the partner they want to do it with knows the reality and agrees to it.

Manipulating someone or Blackmailing someone for a gain of sex is sexual harassment and I am strongly against it, but we seriously need to understand the difference between sexual harassment and sexual need. It is about time when we need to understand to differentiate between willingness to have sex with mutual understanding and willingness to have sex with one person blackmailing the other. We need to open our minds and need to learn to accept the fact that being sexually active is purely a personal decision and it should not be judged or connected with terms like sexual harassment. Understand sexual harassment. Stand against it. Support the women who are victim of it and make sure that no woman ever feels uncomfortable around you because of the way you act around them. And also, stop judging people who want to choose to stay sexually active.

While driving my car today, I heard Kareena Kapoor Khan talking about breasts and various bra sizes on a national radio channel. Now, many might think that it is a topic that should only be discussed in a personal space. I ask, why not on a public platform? When a woman wears a saree, you can see her waist and when a woman wears a short top, you can still see her waist. They why should your mentality and perspective about the woman change with saree and top?

Social values are necessary. We need to hold on to them for the sake of humanity and our combined growth. We should not change our social values. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t update them. We update our mobile every month. Then we sure can update our social values as well!

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I Don’t Need Reasons. I Need You!