Virginity, Dignity, Opportunity and Publicity

The year before last, I saw a caption on a T-shirt, “Virginity is not dignity, but a lack of opportunity”. Last week, in the Kanpur Times supplement of The Times of India, a Bhojpuri artist has proudly remarked – “I have had many conquests”, referring to the relationships with the women in his life. The use of the word “conquest” was, in my opinion, in bad taste and therefore in this article, I present a chauvinistic male’s perspective on the issue.

I have been a voracious user of the internet and its various utilities including chat, email, voice and video conferencing. One of my hobbies is to observe people deeply and to classify various people into many categories. The list of categories of people has been increasing by leaps and bounds over the last 10 years, since I started interacting with people of the world outside my home. My initial registration on the internet initially was on the Microsoft Chat client on Windows 95, which allowed me to connect to a host of chat servers on the world. Initially, my registration as a male user evoked a poor response. People would rarely respond to this poor boy who found 10 minutes of time to sneak into the room with an internet connection and establish a link with the chat servers. I thus bumped into an idea of registering myself as a female. Females have been generally accused of having a poor sense of humour. I, however, could not resist showing off mine. As a result there were a large number of people sending private messages and asking for my telephone number. I gave it to them … of course a fake one.

I subsequently registered myself as a user of Yahoo! Mail. Surprisingly enough, my profile got registered as a female and I was surprised by a large number of males asking me to cyber with them while I was in the Yahoo! Chat rooms. I was not pretty sure what cybering meant that time and therefore said yes to one of them. The next 10 minutes were really unforgettable. He started doing all kinds of things to me … virtually of course! I had to finally say that I was a simple male with no such intentions.

The exuberance and curiosity of youth soon got the better of me, and I found myself chatting with “girls” (Considering the fact that I had previously posed as a female, the alleged girls could well have been males) on all sorts of topics. Some girls refused to comment, some agreed and some said I was too curious. Interestingly enough, people who said I was too curious belonged mostly to the western countries. The confirmation to my previous sentence can be found in American Pie – Part I wherein the story revolves around a group of teenage students desperately making attempts to get sexually involved before their prom. Today, in 2007, Indian girls have also started giving a similar response (cf. Priyanka Chopra’s interview on the Sunday supplement of the Times of India a few months ago).

In real life, I have encountered some girls who had openly talked about their status (in the context of lost virginity) with unabashed abandon to anybody and everybody. On deeper research, it was found that they were speaking the truth indeed but were under the treatment of a psychologist or suffered from personality related disorders; owing to the fact that their families had problems and that they felt rather ignored in their childhood. In this connection, I would also like to mention the name of Tara (name changed) who was ready to get involved with a middle aged man 15 years her senior and a friend of her father, for her father had nearly beaten-up her ex-boyfriend. On deeper questioning she said that her parents were rarely at home and they were rarely able to talk or dine together.

Talking of males of today, and especially the Bhojpuri singer whom I quoted in the first paragraph, represent a case of distorted mentality and pseudo-socialistic attitude. If the same thing happens to a member of their own family, they would even go to the extent of gang-rape of a female family member, murder or other heinous crimes, the examples of which can be found in abundance in some of the states in India. It is often found that people who become famous without much of effort cannot handle the fame with ease and either resort to sexual exploits, booze or drugs (the examples from the west include George Michael, Michael Jackson, Robby Williams, Dieogo Maradona, Mike Tyson, Mel Gibson et al.) Similar examples could easily be found in the Indian community although I would restrain myself from naming them.

However, let us come down to the common man: a closer example from an ex-resident in one of the halls in this institute. One fine morning, boasting around in the corridor with a loud voice about his transition. A closer study and observation on this friend of ours lead to the fact that he was craving for attention, and was being vociferous to let yours truly know about it, for he rarely talked to him. When I was working in a university, I had two female assistants as data entry operators, and I was questioned daily as to whom I was able to entice. A female friend of mine regularly faces queries regarding her male guests from her colleagues family living 30 -40 meters away from her home in her neighbourhood. If the reply is not satisfactory, the colleague is instrumental enough people cook up stories about her in the office premises. The colleague makes such efforts as my female friend turned away his advances once upon a time.

The typical Indian female, as I have observed, is generally expected to be shy, homely, fair, and intelligent and not have fantasies when on the other hand the typical Indian male spends precious time pleasing himself to the western graphic depictions of indulgent and exaggerated behaviour available for purchase/rent at many CD shops. The presence of a similar content, if traced at an IP which belongs to the female counterparts becomes the story of the day, the week or perhaps even months. Contemplation also begins as to how the fort maybe captured, whereas in real life, the person does not even have the courage to go ahead and talk.

We are walking in the midst of a conceptual change. The American thought process is getting into our blood which is the cause of more mentally imbalanced children. Single parenting, troubled marriages, divorces which start from the mere ego clashes of the proud male and the supposedly intelligent female, come down to the children who find solace in the arms of drugs and paedophiles. Lured into sexual relationships, these children can do nothing else but feel proud and boast about their lost virginity. It reminds me of the famous story of the fox, who lost his tail and then inspired others to cut their tails off.

Readers! Your status of virginity or your girlfriend is not my business. Keep it to yourself, be happy and let me be not so frustrated!