Gender-neutral Rape Laws in India. Are men neglected completely in the fight of gender equality?

Lately there has been a lot of attention towards gender equality in the media and among the youth. While I am very glad that it is happening, on the other hand I am a little worried too. The reason is simple, in our virtue of gender “equality” are we putting down one gender in order to bring the females on the same level.

I will touch one aspect of this and let the readers decide the rest. I am of course talking about gender-neutral rape laws in India. Let us first start with the definition of rape according to the Indian Penal Code (although many before me have already mentioned this, but I’d like you all to take a look at it anyway).

“A man is said to commit “rape” if he—

 (a) penetrates his penis, to any extent, into the vagina, mouth, urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or

(b) inserts, to any extent, any object or a part of the body, not being the penis, into the vagina, the urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or

(c) manipulates any part of the body of a woman so as to cause penetration into the vagina, urethra, anus or any part of body of such woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or

(d) applies his mouth to the vagina, anus, urethra of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person,

under the circumstances falling under any of the following 7 descriptions:--

First - Against her will.

Secondly - Without her consent.

Thirdly - With her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested, in fear of death or of hurt.

Fourthly - With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married.

Fifthly - With her consent when, at the time of giving such consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent.

Sixthly - With or without her consent, when she is under eighteen years of age.

Seventhly - When she is unable to communicate consent. ”

Next step is understanding what is gender equality. The definition goes like this:
“Gender equality, also known as sex equality, gender egalitarianism, sexual equality or equality of the genders, refers to the view that men and women should receive equal treatment, and should not be discriminated against based on gender, unless there is a sound biological reason for different treatment.”

Now coming to Male-on-Male rape case. Section 377 of IPC states:

“Unnatural offences: Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine. Explanation: Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offense described in this section.”

Meaning, only anal penetration and oral sex of same gender is considered criminal, while there is nothing on rape on men.
Thus only male-on-female rape is acknowledged in India and no other form of rape. That includes female on female, female-on-male too.

Let us focus on some arguments given by feminists against gender-neutral laws.

"To presume that women can rape men is rather outrageous. While women can sexually harass men, they can't sexually assault them. There have been no such cases anywhere."

- Flavia Agnes in The Times of India

“It is physically impossible for a woman to rape a man. Arousal implies consent.”

- Dr. Anand Kumar, Department of Reproductive Biology, AIIMS

So the base of their argument is that arousal means consent. In order for a female to rape a man, i.e. penile-vaginal insertion, the male has to be aroused and hence that is considered as consent.

BUT, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that arousal does not imply consent in men.

“Sarrel and Masters (1982) conducted case studies on 11 men who had been sexually assaulted by women. The men went through humiliation, anxiety, fear, anger and terror and yet responded sexually. They had erections; several even reported ejaculation. Physical response even took place at the threat of castration.”

“Levin and van Berlo (2003) study a number of sources to arrive at the conclusion that the “the induction of arousal and orgasm does not indicate that the subjects consented to the stimulation. A perpetrator’s defense simply built upon the fact that evidence of genital arousal or orgasm proves consent has no intrinsic validity and should be disregarded.” ”

“A lab experiment finds that in subjects who were shown an erotic movie, the ones threatened with an electric shock tended to respond with increased penile size as compared with the subjects that were not threatened with electric shocks. The authors conclude that anxiety increases sexual arousal (Barlow, Sakheim and Beck, 1983).”

“Further, as Msaki (2011) notes, the slightest degree of penetration of the vagina by the penis is enough to establish rape, and hence male arousal is not an absolutely necessary condition for rape.”

Hence two things are clear from this.

1.) Arousal doesn’t imply consent.
2.) The slightest degree of penetration of vagina by the penis is enough to establish rape, and hence arousal is not an absolute compulsory condition for rape.

And so it is quite possible for a woman to rape a man.

Currently law in India does identify other kinds of penetration as rape. Since the definition is not limited to penile-vaginal penetration, it can be said that woman can rape men.

“Is it a problem [in] society that women are going around raping men?” (Polanki 2013)

- Kavita Krishnan, Firstpost

“There are no instances of women raping men.” (TNN, 2012)

- Vrinda Grover, Times of India

So the second argument is that even if women can rape men, they do no do it! Yes you read it right.
Or even if they do, it is rare to call it a freak incident. So if some act is indeed a crime, if it is rare it should not be addressed. That is what the essence of these arguments are.

According to a survey in the US in 2010, 1 in every 71 men, have been raped atleast once in their life (1.4%), but I should also mention that the same thing in women was found to be 20%. While the number of cases of women is much higher, but the number of men being raped in no way is negligible.

Since, there is a lack of male rape stats in India, there was a survey conducted among 222 men. The number was deliberately kept short. The results are as shown bellow:

1

    1.)    On being asked, whether women can rape men or not?

Ans. 79.30% men of the 222 believe women can rape men. About 11% of them said women cannot rape men and rest said that they do not know.

2  2.)    On being asked, whether they have been coerced into sex as adult by women?

Ans.  16.10% said that they were forced into sex by women as adult.

   3.)    On being asked, whether they have been coerced into sex as adult by men?

Ans. 2.10% said that they were forced into sex by another male as an adult.

   4.)    On being asked, whether they know any man who has been forced into sex by a woman?

Ans. 20.7% of them know someone who has been forced into sex by a woman.

Coming to a more shocking POV of a feminist, Flavia Agnes of TOI.

“The consequences of rape for a woman are far-reaching. She has to battle social stigma, social mindset. While fixing marriages, nobody asks a man if he is a virgin.”

While what she said is a tad bit correct that no one asks a man while fixing marriages that he is a virgin or not, BUT that doesn't mean that a man who goes through rape suffers any less.
In fact in today’s society if a man gets raped, he won’t even be able to come out about it.
Survey also suggests that no cases were reported of men being raped because of certain factors of course. First I shall name some factors and then we will see what sort of trauma do men have after they are raped.

-          “Maja hi aaya hoga” (He must have enjoyed it)

-          “Aisa thodi na hota hai” (This is not even possible)

-          “Chhod na, kamse kam sex to kiya” (Leave it, at least you had sex)

Now where will the man go? To the police? His friends? Family? Girlfriend? There is practically nobody he can go and say that I have been raped, because if he does he will be made fun of. But what really does a man who has been raped goes through? Lets take a look:

Masters (1986) finds that men who have been raped by women face sexual dysfunction and disorder and are unable to respond physically to a female partner of choice even two years after the attack. The men had lost their “sense of personal dignity and confidence in [their] masculinity.”

Walker, Archer and Davies (2005) interviewed 40 male victims of rape and found that the long term effect of rape for men included anxiety, depression, increased feelings of anger and vulnerability, loss of self-image, emotional distancing, self-blame, and self-harming behaviours.

Frazier (1993) studied 74 male and 1,380 female rape victims and found that male victims were more depressed and hostile immediately post rape than female victims.

Carpenter (2009, citing Mezey, 1987) finds that the “male coping strategy characterised by denial and control renders them more prone to later psychiatric problems and reduces the likelihood of seeking help.”

Perhaps rape does not affect men and women in identical ways; it does, however, affect men adversely.

There are few more aspects when it comes to men being raped, but that will push the article way too long.
I hope the readers get an essence of what I am trying to say here. We have stats, proofs, tests, everything, and yet men being raped is fiction to some, joke to some, and unbelievable fantasy to some. Most of whom are today’s feminists. I am not taking a derogatory remark on the feminists. I am merely trying to point out one aspect of “gender equality” which goes unnoticed. Gender equality means equal laws for men and women both. Is our country, our society or to go further the world, ready to acknowledge on simple aspect, that men get raped too, by females and males.
I urge the readers to once think of the position the male is in after he gets raped. After going through a traumatic experience, if there is no one to talk to, it leaves a permanent mark.

So the question I raise is this. Is our society leading toward gender equality? Or merely boosting only the female aspects of equality and totally ignoring what the other gender goes through?
Penny for the thought.

P.S. This doesn't imply I am a chauvinist. I am as much up for gender equality as probably Emma Watson is.

Haider : Movie Review

I usually don't write movie reviews, but then Haider is an unusual movie.

This movie is ingenious due to a myriad of reasons. First thing first, its a Hamlet adaptation. For those who are acquainted with Shakespeare's work will know that Hamlet is one of his boldest of plays. So much darkness was only matched by probably the Macbeth. 

But that is just the adaptation part. Rest what Mr. Bharadwaj did was ingenious.
He brought into notice that one aspect which has been the root cause of all the protests we have been witnessing in Kashmir, Manipur and few other north-eastern states. AFSPA - Armed forces Special Power Act of 1958. The end does not always justify the means, and neither does AFSPA. Torture, unwarranted encounters without any trial or conviction. The people of India were needed to be educated in these matters, and thanks to Mr. Bharadwaj, they did to some extent. I am big fan of the Indian defense, and I do to some extent advocate military actions in disturbed regions, but AFSPA started as something else, and was brought down to something else entirely. What changed? We will never know. Natives have a different version and so does the Army. Both are right in their own account, but the real truth is something else entirely.

And this was precisely what, in a very very subtle manner was depicted in the movie. The army has to do what it does to maintain order. But somewhere down the line it goes wrong, which the natives do not understand and pick weapons and get branded as the enemy of the state.

And it was this, which made me love this movie even more.

Coming to point number three. Acting. When there are stars like K K Menon, Tabu and Irfan Khan, nothing could have gone wrong, but then Shahid Kapoor's acting matched the brilliance of these living legends. Every single actor delivered what was expected of their character, and I mean everyone.

Point number four, of which I usually am a huge fan of - Cinematography. Everyone knows Kashmir is a beautiful place, and few know that it is also the valley of death. This movie has brilliantly shown us both the sides. I remember reading in a novel- "Where there is beauty, one finds death". How apt to put this in the case of Kashmir. One would never have imagined the problems of our jannat and our pride and honor, until now.
Haider shows us the reality, if one looks deeper.

Music and dialogues by Vishal Bharadwaj himself. The composer of our childhood favorite song "Jungle jungle pata chala hai" delivered a masterpiece. The most important song of the movie was "Bismil bismil" which holds a great significance, because even in the play, Hamlet creates what we call a rat-trap play, during which Claudius gets up and leaves the court, which tells Hamlet that Claudius indeed had his father killed.
So, this song was a very very important piece of the whole movie. The lyrics were beautifully written to encapsulate the hatred and of Haider.

This movie is a painting, an art which shall be preserved in the history of Bollywood till the end of time.
5/5. Because - Chutzpah

"Dil ki gar sunu, toh hai
Dimaag ki, to hai nahi.
Jaan lu ki jaan du?
Mai rahu ke mai nahi..."

To be..or not to be.

Era of mindless art

So I woke up a fine Saturday and logged in to Facebook and Twitter. And the trending news obviously caught my eye. It was the news of Chetan Bhagat’s new novel “Half Girlfriend” which is due to be released this October. The book is made available for pre-order and websites started to crash. That is the level of craziness people have for him in India. Not just that, we live in a era where, Sunny Leonne gets the most views in Youtube, Yo Yo Honey Singh (as he is called) is considered as a Rap guru, Salman Khan and his copied movies get over 200 cr within a week and where Chetan Bhagat becomes best-selling author. As my friend pointed out rightfully so, the Mayans predicted the end of the world two years early.

 

 

There was a time, when pioneers in music, film, and writing industry set precedent by delivering master-pieces one after the other, and set examples to inspire and innovate a larger crowd for something moral, and good. But now we have a circus of synchronized nut crackers who do not at any point are obliged to think and act. The only thing required is to sell. And they do not have a problem in doing so either, thanks to the target audience.

I am not stating that they should not do their business and neither am I anyone to point out their duties and responsibilities. I am just sharing an observation that the journey from the beginning of the entertainment industry up to this point today, we have experienced not evolution, but a massive stagnation and even set back in progress in respective areas. Where once we had great literature works, like War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, we have today literature works (if they are anything like it) like, Revolution 2020, One Night at the Call Center and Can Love Happen Twice.

The worst part is, despite having no class; such pieces have become a populist’s tool. People want to read them, watch them, and listen to them. The intellectual crowd is shrinking at an alarming rate and the clown car seems to be increasing every minute. What we watch on screen, read or listen to has a great impact on us as individuals, and this scenario here is in no way helping us create a better society; in fact it is obliterating it.

Pablo Picasso once said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls”.
Aristotle said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance”.

I don’t know what the current art is washing off our lives or what significance are they representing. I am confused and confounded. 

Creation of a new state or a step backwards to 1947?

565 princely states once integrated to make a country which would be noted down in the history as cultural, diversified and strong. A country whose power lies in its pool of scientists, doctors, engineers and the diversity within. Even for the unification of these princely states, there was a whole different front of politics which was being played on. Piece by piece, inch by inch the states came together in the hope of a glorified future.

67 years since the Independence, we have now 29 states, the last being the newly formed state of Telangana. For years there have been demand and loud protestations for a different state. It all triggered when Andhra Pradesh was carved out of the Madras region, and became the first state to be bifurcated on linguistic basis. And it was not just Telangana, along with that there are persisting demands from Widarbha region in Maharashtra, and a different Gorkhaland in Sikkhim.

The various reasons as to why these demands have come up include, difference in cultural values, development issues (which was the reason for the bifurcation of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, but a peaceful one), and aspiration of a better governance which would address the problems of the people more lucidly.

And whose fault is that? Is there anything wrong in aspiring for better development in ones own area, or is it wrong to hold such notion as a citizen of this country? If our leaders would have been more dedicated towards their actual work, would these matters go out of hand so much? One will be foolish to admit that the bifurcation was the only possibility.

A proper and lucid governance would have been the answer to all the problems instead of carving out another piece of land. But alas, there is a difference between the right way and the easy way and that it what they did. Took a shortcut in order to confirm on the 15 seats in Lok Sabha and unknowingly opened the gates for more protests in Maharashtra and Sikkhim.

We are gradually loosing that oneness and unity for which the great freedom fighters laid their lives. The independence for a different unified country for which we had to cut our arm off and now it is a hostile nation, and 67 years later, we still are fighting over linguistic and regional basis!

If it keeps going like this, a day might come when we will call this country as "Divided States of India" (D.S.I) and there can be no pride in that.

I just hope that the citizens of India put the interests of the country first and then their regional differences. These words have been overused far too many times but have been implemented not even once significantly.

United we stand. Divided we fall.

India: Democracy or Pseudo democracy?

India is the largest democracy in the world. A matter of pride for many of the citizens. But is this what democracy was meant to be? Did we as a nation forget or misunderstand what exactly democracy stands for?
65 years it has been and yet we are not in a democracy, we live in a pseudo democratic country, where we go to vote once in every 5 years and then our so called “elected representatives” govern the nation and forget all the promises in a flick of a second as soon as they take the oath.

What is Democracy? According to Oxford dictionary, democracy is defined as a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Now let us consider the scenario in India. The parties elect a representative which happens in closed door meetings and the “people” do not have a say in this. Yes we can contact the party heads, write letters and voice our thoughts, but the probability that our voice would be heard is as slim as the end of reservation system in India!

Now here comes the first problem and a deviation from the definition and essence of democracy, the elected representatives of the respective parties who will be contesting are NOT elected by the people, but by the parties. Hence any election henceforth is moot and has very less meaning whatsoever. Its like going to a battle with the weapons not of your choice but that which is imposed by the king.

The parties can ask for public opinion and make a candidate from the crowd itself. This way the people have the power, in literal sense the candidate will be “by the people.”

Okay, lets say that the candidates are acceptable to us, and they even win the election, now what? The promises made are forgotten, the manifesto is pushed back with all the un-necessary things and the elected representatives enjoy the power.

I do not say that exceptions are not there, but this is the reality in a broader perspective. We are being fooled by the term democracy and we, though reluctantly, but have adjusted ourselves with the scenario.

Democracy is “To the people, By the people and For the people.” But in India it is only “By” the people.
So, in short, the competing candidates are not among us, they don’t understand the problems and tensions of the area, and yet they contest for elections. They win, and yet they are not one of us, they are not the common man. They haven’t suffered pain and basic problems which a common man has, and yet they claim to solve our problems.

First step in solving any problem is, knowing that there is one. Is India really that big a democracy?
Is it finally time for us to retrospect on it?