The issue of rape and sexual abuse

This is one of the most serious things I ever wrote on, or will write about. It will be long, but I plead everyone to read this to the end. This article has made me pack my DDP work for a while to write on the issue:
http://tehelka.com/what-are-we-doing-to-our-kids-2/?singlepage=1
There is a strong movement in social media now against this issue. I strongly believe that the people who are involved in speaking up on the issue are missing a fundamental point- The strong exploit the weak. Rape and sexual abuse is just one manifestation of that. While we sit in our rooms condemning rapes and men in general for this attitude towards women, millions are dying out of hunger. We say all men (and women) are born equal, but they're not. Some are born strong, some are born weak. Circumstances decide that. A European is in general stronger than an African, simply because the former has better facilities than the latter.

Before I write further, I have an appeal to make. I believe that a lot of people who read my blog  disagree with my views, but not based on logic and reason. People do not want to think that I, just another student, can understand things better than themselves. They want to believe that I am not better than them, and hence disagree with me without even caring to think about whatever I write. Some agree with me simply because they think that I am a reasonable guy and hence whatever I write must have some merit. I urge whoever's reading this to think clearly, on the merit of the reasoning, and not based on who's writing this.

Coming to the issue at hand- sexual abuse against women and children. It is not just sex, it is about the strong exploiting the weak. It happens everywhere, with countries attacking others, with economic classes, with social classes, with bullies in school, with intellectually strong people stealing jobs from intellectually weak ones. It is a fact of nature, a rule of life. This issue of rape blames men for their conduct. That is just senseless. It is just about the strong trying to exploit the weak. If the women were stronger than men, they'd do something else to exploit men.

Throughout history, strong tribes have annihilated weak ones. Women are weak. I'm no male chauvinist, I'm just stating a fact. Women are physically weak. And men will look to exploit them, forever. Unless women can show that they are not weak. The only reason that women, as a species, are not extinct is that men had realized that women are needed to entertain their sexual desires and to perpetuate their race. The whole equal rights to women, job opportunities to women or anything else you see is just a way to pacify them, to give them an illusion that there's a chance for them to not be exploited. And this is all a simple result of the fact that men are, in general, physically stronger. Physical strength was the important thing when civilizations started. Men have defined the rules of the game, the constructs of society. If women had pioneered the rise of our species, we would be living in an entirely different world.

This can be seen in other situations too- whenever the economically strong are threatened by the economically weak, they pacify them by making populist policies, promising better living conditions, offering some hope. When the socially lower classes threatened the upper classes, the upper classes gave them some social rights. All of that is just a way for the stronger ones to survive by pacifying the weak ones.

This is all just a rule of life. All of us want to dominate others, we want to be better than others, we want to have more cash, more fame, more happiness than the others. That's the reason we play sports- to win and hence show our domination over others. We want that we are better than most of the people. We have the top 10% of the people having way more cash/power than the other 90%. But what would happen if the 90% revolted against the 10%? It is too scary for the 10%, so they devise ways to pacify the 90%.

Would stronger laws change anything? No. Read the article I first referred to. Its not just the law, its a failure of the system. There are laws. But what good are they if no case ever gets to the court? First, the victims don't dare to speak about sexual assaults against them. Even if they do, they are humiliated. Their families threaten them to be silent. They cover things up. If the family dares to file a case, the police won't accept it so easily. The society threatens or even banishes the family. If the police do register the case and it finally comes to the court, the victim must then go through even more humiliation. And even after all that, there is no guarantee that the case would stick.

And then, what about an average citizen who doesn't have the means to go through a case? Not everyone has the support of activists or NGOs. Or a child who doesn't even know what to do? How would a law help any of it? Who will save a child from being molested by her own father? And even the law has certain standards. What about groping or molestation or teasing? Can a law take care of all that?

The only solution to this, or any other such problem, is for the weak to get stronger. We hear about 5-6 guys gang-raping a girl, but have you ever heard of 1 guy raping 5-6 women? Its not possible, 5-6 women would easily overpower a single man. That is what must happen, more women must be present in offices, in buses, on the streets. That will discourage any man who sees a woman to be weak.

How can a mother save her child from being harassed by her husband? Physically overpowering him is rarely possible. Even if she does, what will she do without him if she is not financially secure? First thing for a woman is to be financially secure, she must not be dependent on a man for her basic needs. Being financially secure is not enough, she must be ready to end her marriage with any husband who does not respect her and her children's rights. All the women in a community must be ready to support each other whenever a man threatens any of them. They must be well connected socially.

This problem can't be tackled by just sitting and commenting on it. Women must take to the fight. Protests and debates achieve nothing, things have to change at the grass root level. All women must understand the threat and come out of their houses into a larger community. Remember how it was with the Indian freedom struggle? There were traitors within the country. Millions of Indians could not take on thousands of British (due to the modern weaponry of the British, each British soldier was stronger than a single Indian soldier, just like a single man is physically stronger than a single woman). The first revolutionaries were brutally killed. Even sympathizers with the cause were punished. But when it turned into a mass movement, the British had no option but to leave the country. This has happened through out history- the weak must rise in numbers if they are to defend themselves.

But then, this is no war, even the enemy is not clear. How can any woman say which man is an enemy? The only option is to have a sufficient number of women in every aspect of life to discourage any attempt to assault women. The families are what decide what children do, and families are still headed by men. Its not going to be easy for women to come out of their houses. Speeches are not enough, a mass movement is what is required.

Having said all this, am I willing to give up on my career and fight for the cause of women. No. I am not going to fight for it. Not because I don't believe in whatever I said, but simply because it is pointless. It is the women that must rise and fight. There are enough strong and secure women to take it up. I have my own demons and battles to fight.
Throughout the article, I maintain that women are weak. If someone thinks that I'm wrong and women are in fact stronger than men, then women must be plain stupid to have men exploit them for so long. Solving any problem is possible only by first accepting that there is a problem. Living in denial changes nothing.

Being nice

If in an exam most of the students score 70 out of 100, and some guy scores 95, then 95 is a very good score. But if everyone scores 95, then 95 is just an average score. By definition, most of the people are  average, ordinary, just like the others. Everyone cannot be special. If everyone is, then the word "special" makes no sense. But the ego of people makes them think that they are better than the others, that they're special. We like to be complimented by others, appreciated by others. Being praised makes us "happy".

Consider a guy, Mr. A. Lets say he tries something and does an average job of it. He asks Mr. B and Mr. C to judge his work. Mr. B gives an honest opinion, he says the work is mediocre, nothing great about it. Mr. C tries to be nice and says that the work is extraordinary, outstanding, wonderful, best ever and all that crap. Mr. A is happy with Mr. C and is offended by Mr. B. Being "happy" is said to be a wonderful thing, the ultimate goal of life. People think happiness is so important that "pursuit of happiness" was mentioned in the US declaration of independence.

In a society where most people are mediocre and yet expect others to appreciate their work, where happiness is one of the most important goals of life, is it better to be honest or to be nice? In the above example, it is very clear that Mr. B will make a lot of enemies just because he speaks the truth. That is what statistics say- too many mediocre people asking for opinions, and honest opinions are not appreciated. Another advantage of "being nice" is, from the above example, Mr. A will also "be nice" to Mr. C and praise Mr. C for his mediocre work later on, because Mr. C was nice to Mr. A. And so the world goes on, praising each other for their mediocre work.

I personally prefer being honest to being nice. That is one reason why I can't get along well with people unless they're good friends of mine. My friends know that I don't easily appreciate their work, but others do not know that about me. Every time I go to meet any of my relatives, my mom strictly warns me to "be nice". People who don't know me think that I am shy or arrogant or whatever else, but the thing is- I like to be peaceful. I don't want to get into arguments or offend anyone.

Whenever I talk, I piss people off because I prefer honesty to "being nice". Sometimes people say such stupid things that it becomes very hard for me not to point it out, and I just have to get away from there if I want to avoid offending or arguing with them. I don't mind a debate, I actually welcome one since it'd test my own reasoning. But the problem with these kind of arguments is that people get extremely personal and unreasonable. They go nuts, their statements contain no logic whatsoever. If you want to see what I mean, go to an acquaintance of yours and ask him/her why she believes in something (religion, some important ideal, favorite sportsman, etc..).

I didn't give serious thought to this whole "being nice" thing until about a week ago. First it was our hostel night. I was there, it sucked. My friends say the food was tasty, but otherwise, it was no good. But that night, and for the days to follow, the hostel's facebook page is filled with posts like "awesome hostel night", "best hostel night ever", "No hostel night is as good as ours" and stuff like that.And I just kept wondering, "Really? Did I miss something? What was so great about it?". Of course, the rules by Dean made it impossible to have hostel nights on the lines of those that we had a few years back, but still, our hostel night wasn't so good.

Then, I was putting enthu for Lit-Soc dramatics. Pampa was going to perform a play. We adapted a movie, practiced some 10 times and then performed. On stage, we totally fucked up. I walk out of CLT (the hall where the play was performed), thinking "That was a disaster, we seriously fucked this up... " but the rest of the cast come out and congratulate each other. They were all thinking we did an awesome job, we owned the stage, we mesmerized the audience. And then we celebrated. Everyone started praising everyone else. They believed we were going to win, or atleast get one award (there were special awards for best actor, director and set).

Pampa doesn't have a great tradition in these stuff like other BTech hostels do. The hostel night needed quite a bit of effort from the organizers. For our play, we had only a little practice and most of us never performed in a play. But still, we could have done a lot better on stage, and our rehearsals were better than our on-stage performance. Some of us were just not good enough. We put in some effort, and under the circumstances, we pulled something off. That was a good thing. But it was in no way "the best ever" or "worth winning awards". No, we sucked. It took me a great deal of restraint to not say it out loud after our performance- they were all happy and celebrating, I didn't want to offend them there. I choose to remain silent, as I most often do.

 I do accept that it is good to "be nice" to others, it helps build better social relations. It keeps a positive spirit among people, it encourages them to go on. But at what cost? It seems that it is just too hard now for people to accept that they are not good, that they fucked up. People are so used to being nice and hearing good things that criticism is just unacceptable to them. If anyone ever offers an honest opinion, that person is labeled as rude and arrogant. I have just one thing to say here- If you are not open for honest criticism, don't ask for an opinion.

Every time people realize they screwed up, they just blame others or their circumstances for it. I once read an article on the notice board of a prof, about self-pity. How it could be the worst enemy of a man. Instead of accepting a mistake and trying to correct it, people just pity themselves for the situation that made them screw things up. If being happy is all you want in life, then self-pity and "being nice" are very appealing. But if you have a serious goal in mind, then this whole "being nice" business would do you no good. How can you ever know how much more you need to work if you are always told that you're awesome just the way you are?

How men see women

In almost 5 years of insti life, I have noticed that guys think girls are very arrogant. That the girls go to guys only when they need some help and then ditch the guys later. All around I hear stories about break-ups, friendzones, crushes, etc.. Girls have a different opinion- they think that guys are just sexual predators. The confessions page was full of this stuff. This way of thought is not limited to insti, it's the same story everywhere. Men are stereotyped as sexual predators, women are stereotyped as selfish bitches. These kinds of things interest me. I know for a fact that girls are in general not arrogant and selfish, and that sex is not the only thing in a guy's mind. So why this popular opinion?
The problem is mostly because of the way men see women. What I'm going to say next is my theory based on what I know about how men usually think. I know very little about how women think, so whatever little I write about that is just speculation. I only intend to explain the general mindset, exceptions are always present.

Before I say anything more, I must say that the bigger problem is that what people think and what they say are rarely the same. That is usually because of the fear of being judged by others. I'm sure that if a girl reads this post, she'll be like "Are all guys like this? That's really gross. Why can't you see a girl for what she is..." and all that crap. Some guys may deny that they think like this. My theory is based on the hours of discussions we guys usually have when we're joblessly having tea or gen fart about relationships, and a bit about how I think too. But then, I may be wrong or my theory applies only to the kind of people I know. Whatever it is, if you're not open to theories on such sensitive issues, I strongly recommend that you don't read the rest of the article. 

Quite often men become friends with women. That usually happens when they are involved in the same activity, like taking a common class, working together, being neighbors, etc.. I'm not talking about the kind of friendship where it doesn't really matter if the friend's a guy or a girl. What I talk about is when a guy gets "interested" in a girl without even talking to her. The interest is based on only her appearance. He may or may not know her.  Sometimes they're just acquaintances, and sometimes they're complete strangers. Whatever the case, when a guy's interested in a woman, he usually looks at her as one of these two things - 1) A potential sexual partner, 2) A transcendental beauty. How a particular guy looks at a particular girl depends on the guy.

1) A potential sexual partner
I don't have to say much about this. Guys love to have sex. We tend to think of most girls as possible sexual partners. And we find some girls to be particularly seductive. That doesn't mean we want to force them into anything. It means that, in general, we try to make things move in that direction. It also doesn't mean that we talk to a girl only to have sex with her. Sex is not the only thing in our mind, but then it is also there in our mind. We see some girl who is particularly sexy, think it'd be nice to do it with her, and then get back to the more important things in life. Just like with anything else, there will be some guys who'll be obsessed with sex and have all of their life built around that, but that's a very small fraction of the population.
We are in general not subtle, and we are also quite loud. We talk about a lot of things- politics, movies, sports, sex, policies, philosophies. Some guy would indiscreetly talk about girls he finds sexy, among a lot of other things we talk about. Girls usually pick up that single sentence, which they find extremely offensive, and stereotype guys as sexual predators. Consider a guy and  a girl who know each other quite well- they could be friends, relatives, be in a relationship or are just neighbors. Sex would always be in a guy's mind, and at some point or the other, the girl may see that. That only adds to what girls think about guys- sex is the only thing guys think about.
The fact is, we think about a lot of other things but they are not of much interest to girls. The gen things we say are mundane, nothing special, and always go unnoticed. But sex, however low priority it may be, however rarely it is talked about, catches the attention of girls and hence the perception.

2) A transcendental beauty:
I say transcendental because, for a guy, nothing else compares to the beauty of a woman- not sceneries, not paintings, not the cute faces of kids, not majestic animals, .. nothing. Sometimes guys may find some moves in sports to be very beautiful, but those things come and go. The beauty of a lady, that is something that stays in a guy's mind for a long long time. When we see a girl and find that she's gorgeous, we usually stop thinking of her as a person. All of her qualities- good or bad, are totally forgotten. She could be the rudest and the dumbest girl ever, it doesn't matter. When she's there in front of us, we think only about her beauty. When we think of her, her beauty is all we notice.
Being beautiful is not just about the color of a girl's skin, its different for different guys. Sometimes its the way she conducts herself, the way she talks or smiles or laughs or walks, the look in her eyes, sometimes its her figure, sometimes the way she dresses. Whatever it is, that is the only thing that matters to a guy. The girl's beauty is held way above everything else, we crave to see her, meet her, talk to her. Guys do all kinds of things just to be noticed by the girl, so that if she notices the guy, she may want to spend time with him.
If a beautiful girl walks by, we can do nothing but admire the beauty, we can't take our eyes off her, the world stops. That's why a lot of times guys are found just staring at girls. The girl may find it offensive, but it is meant as a compliment. Against the backdrop of the few sexual comments on some girls, this admiration of a lady's beauty is almost always seen by girls as "checking them out".
We admire a beautiful lady for a long time, forget about everything else about her, do whatever she wants us to do just so that we get to spend a little time with her. The ladies are like goddesses, not to be judged, not to be bad-mouthed, not to be embarrassed, not to be denied any kind of service, but only to be admired and worshiped. But after sometime- days or weeks or months or even years, when the guy either takes her for granted, or when he's frustrated that he doesn't get to see her anymore, or she gets a boyfriend or gets married, or he talks to his friends about something or whatever else, that guy starts to look at the girl as a person. The dream world he built around her shatters to pieces, the lady he had seen as an object of perfection is now just another person with all kinds of defects, and its hard to make peace with that. Every quality in her that he does not like, starts to hurt the guy. All her mistakes are now magnified.
Once the guy starts seeing the girl as just another person, he would think about everything he did to woo her. Instead of accepting that it was him who decided to do all that stuff to win her over, he blames the girl for being arrogant and using him. He doesn't understand why the girl did not choose him over the others, he cannot think that he may not be good enough for her. He starts comparing himself with any guy she goes out with. His ego strongly confirms to him that the other guy is just a douchebag. Like the jackal that couldn't reach the grapes, the guy ends up believing that the girl's a bitch. This happens with a lot of guys and we end up stereotyping all girls as arrogant bitches who think very high of themselves.