Striptease

Big business and real estate

Tells the silent sage

Flyovers, malls and nuclear bombs

Are more beautiful

Than his small home

In the woods

By the silent stream.

The loudspeaker blares

The happy hour announcement

Striptease in an hour.

The Prostitution Industry: Breaking Its Back!

Over the last few years I have come across arguments supporting the legalization of prostitution industry. The arguments could be about making the trade safer or it could be about bringing some social respectability and acceptance to sex workers.

I have quite the opposite view (I give my reasons below). I believe we should outright make it one of our law and order system's central agenda to break the prostitution industry's back, to shut down each and every brothel in the country and to treat prostitution as much of a crime as dealing drugs. (This will of course require us to rapidly create alternate livelihood opportunities for women who are rescued from prostitution as well as single mothers who are grappling with severe poverty. I give some suggestions below.)

I have two reasons to hold this view:

1. The prostitution industry uses human trafficking for sexual exploitation as a feeder. Children as well as grown men and women are kidnapped, sold and exploited in bondage and captivity in very very large numbers all across the world. A simple google search will shed light on how serious this problem is. And this will continue till the prostitution industry itself is allowed to continue. People will be forcibly sold for sexual exploitation till there is a market and demand for it. We need to shut down the market itself.

2. One can then ask: What about women who want to willingly engage in sex work as a profession? To answer this, I ask myself a simple question: "Would I ever feel morally ok if my son or daughter visited sex workers?". The answer is a clear no. It is my hope that most of the society around me feels the same way. And if that is the case, I don't think we should go down the road of giving legal sanction to what we are not morally ok with. Because the minute we give something legal sanction in society, that very moment we give the same activity our moral sanction also.

[And what kind of a woman allows a thousand men to undress and grope her for a few pieces of silver and gold? Far more beautiful are those women who, with their self respect and dignity intact, clean and mop floors for a living! And in the absence of even that opportunity at times, simply stretch their hands out for some help from fellow human beings! Far far more beautiful are they! Far far more beautiful!]

Shutting down the prostitution industry of course would require us to rapidly create alternate livelihood opportunities for women who are rescued from prostitution as well as single mothers who are grappling with severe poverty. I thought through the issue and tried to come up with a proposal that can address the economic as well as integration in society aspects.

Here's what I propose:

Let every state government commit to opening the following two institutions in every city:

1) A completely free residential "subjects + skills" school (all expenses covered: stay + clothes and food + medical care) where those rescued from the sex trade, single mothers grappling with severe poverty, and their children, receive quality education till 12th grade along with being taught a range of skills such as plumbing, electric works, driving, tailoring, making cottage industry items, etc.

2) A services and cottage industries business establishment where those trained as above are given meaningful employment on a nominal government salary (say Rs. 20,000/- per month) for a period of say five years. This period can give the required buffer and stability for a transition to independent living.

For those helped as above who wish to study further and obtain college education alongside Point 2 above, let them get it free of cost at government colleges / universities.

Let the above primarily be done by every state government in each state but if there is a need for more funds, let the central government also pitch in to some extent.

If we can do the above, along with incessant crackdowns on every known brothel or hub for sex trade and each and every lead that the police gets, I think we will break the very back of pimps, traffickers and those amongst us who would exploit the poor and helpless in such a manner.

I believe that the plan I have proposed above would be in the best interests of society at large as well as those sex workers who are in the trade because of poverty or helplessness or being trafficked but would rather not be in the profession.

As for those who are in the profession not because of any helplessness but just for quick money, as I have said above: Let us treat them no different from drug dealers and let law take its course.

PS: I don't care how other countries might think about this issue. I would rather we think through things ourselves and do what we feel is right by our conscience.

Leave Abusive Relationships / Marriages

There is absolutely no glory in staying on in abusive relationships / marriages. This holds for either gender.

If you are feeling manipulated, emotionally exploited or abused, or are being physically abused, in your relationship / marriage, and your instinct is telling you to step out of the relationship / marriage, then have the courage to take that step.

Yes, this might bring challenges : specially if you have children. Figure a way out to deal with your challenges.

And if you are worried about what people in the society around you (or maybe your own relatives) will say, just forget about it. Those who actually care about you will be there for you. And those who don't, well, they can very well take a walk. Good for you that you figured out who your real friends are.

[PS: And if *you* manipulate people around you, emotionally exploit them, or are physically abusive : Change. It's possible to change for the better and I don't see why you should not be the best human being you can be. Everyone deserves this opportunity.]

Education and Career: Avoid Unnecessary Constraints.

I sometimes come across notions such as:

1) One should go to a college "near home" (particularly women!) so that one stays close to one's folks even if one needs to compromise on pursuing one's interests or the quality of education.

2) One should seek career opportunities "near parents" so that they don't have to relocate even if one has to compromise on working in a field of interest or be in a work environment that doesn't allow you to express your talents fully or exploits / frustrates you.

All this is nonsensical flubber!

Schooling near home is (generally) sensible but college education, regardless of gender, firmly needs to be about studying what you want to study and in the best possible institute you can.

And when it's time to pursue your career, unless your parents are unable to get a visa during old age and/or a serious extended illness, please, please, do what you are passionate about and find yourself the best possible work environment you can. If this means that your parents need to relocate, then that's fine. No one gains anything if you waste your talents and pursue a listless mediocre career.

And here's some more nonsensical flubber that you'll hear from time to time:

3. Sons should be taking up the same profession as their fathers, women should follow their mothers' footsteps (and stay home!), etc . Worse, phrases like "our tradition", "Indian system", "sanskaar sanskriti" are used to justify such notions.

All this is utter rubbish. Absolute nonsense.

Each individual *must* pursue his or her own interests. If you want to be a mathematician you can't become a mechanical engineer just because your father is one, or your parents or some other relatives say so. This way you will neither become a good mathematician, nor a good mechanical engineer, nor be happy. Such notions only take the individual and society to mediocrity. And if you want to be a musician or a writer, it's best you don't allow anyone to force you to become a computer scientists.

Likewise for women: If you want to be a mechanical engineer and you take admission in a Home Science course because you are told that that's what women do, you're being a fool! The world has changed! You have as much of a right to be an engineer as any man.

[But yes, with independence comes responsibility! We have to take complete responsibility for our decisions and their consequences. We cannot want independence but hold others responsible for how our lives turn out. That would be hypocrisy.]

Here is a more detailed article that I wrote on this theme that I recommend reading: Strike a Pause: A Few Misplaced Notions (In My Opinion) On Culture And Sanskriti (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)

[I also invite you to read the following posts:

1. Strike a Pause: Your Blossoming Is As Important As Anything Else! (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)

2. Strike a Pause: Choosing A Career Path After 12th Grade (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)

3. Strike a Pause: On Changing Career Paths And Academic Directions (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)]

Is Implicit Respect Good?

I've often wondered about the reasons that lead to a reduced capacity for independent thinking and/or intellectual and emotional immaturity in people as they grow up. And I think the seeds for such problems get sown early in life.

Here's an example:

Instruction: Always respect your parents.

Well, that's an incorrect instruction. The correct instruction ought to be: Observe your parents, and respect them if they conduct themselves in a manner that deserves respect.

This has multiple implications:

1) Parents will have to earn their respect, as they ought to. I cannot accept the proposition that two people sleep together --> lady gets pregnant --> parenthood --> get respect. This means nothing. Parenting is much more than that. The mother and father are obliged to create a positive atmosphere at home, behave maturely, and bring up a child well!

2) Children will learn to observe and question honestly. They will think about what deserves respect and what doesn't. They will develop the courage to speak up when needed. I'm not encouraging misbehavior and arrogant disobedience. But a child always cowering in fear and servility cannot possibly grow up into an emotionally and intellectually healthy and mature individual.

3) Parents insisting on discipline is obviously a good thing (if they set a good example to start with!) and obedience upto a certain age certainly has a place. But at a certain stage (~ Class 10) parents need to sit down and ask their children what they want to do with their lives and help them pursue their aspirations. 70-80% parents I have met never ask their children what they want to do with their lives! It's just one long exercise in control and dominance - all the way even to what they study, the profession they choose, and who they marry! This is not parenting! Parenting means nurturing children and helping them blossom and flower into intellectually and emotionally mature adults who are capable of thinking and living independently.

Are you seeing what I'm saying? We have created value systems that encourage blind obedience and servility, and then we expect a society that is intellectually and emotionally mature and honest. It can't happen this way!

And then there's the politics of it!

You either have patriarchy, where the male species is adjudged to be the wiser guides of families and societies simply because they can physically overpower women. Just look at the utter lack of logic in that statement! And we have generations of children growing up in such twisted houses and communities and imbibing this distorted value system. Girl children who eventually accept being made to submit to a servile existence as their lot, or face a continuous threat of violence. And "boys of the family" who learn to bask in that sense of enlightenment bestowed on them simply by the chromosomes they carry. Now they have the first unquestioned unearned right to food, the first unquestioned unearned right to education, the first unquestioned unearned right to money, to independence. And when their time comes, they have to propagate this nonsense to the next generation. Their "family" will live where they want them to, how they want them to, they will be the "heads of their families" : just like that, simply by accident of birth in being born male.

Young children are innocent, they can see the nonsense of all this. Yet, they are to respect all of this till they get cast in the same rotten mold.

Or you have matriarchy, which, to me, is the same degraded imbalance in the other direction, the other side of the same dirty coin that no longer ought to have currency in any civilized society.

Why would children respect this either? Societal imbalance is fundamentally undeserving of respect.

I have tired myself asking couples this simple question: You live together, you sleep together, you are able to perceive each other in some depth, there is intimacy, all barriers have dropped, and you can't let go of this power play, this politics? What's the need for it? It's so ugly! Just trust each other, be equals in your relationship, raise your children with that sense of equality, bring about a balanced society that is free of all this oppression, all this violence, all this anguish.

It's specially strange to be having this conversation in India. In our tradition, the wife is referred to as Ardhaangini : literally, half the husband's being. And the man immediately becomes Ardhaang : half the wife's being. Perfect equality. Perfect balance. Nay! One step further! The two become one - period! No scope for disrespect from either side. No scope of oppression from either side. That's intimacy. That's a relationship. That's walking together on the journey of life as equals. As one.

That's the starting point. Step zero. Then comes sensible, conscious, parenting directed at raising children into intellectually and emotionally mature adults capable of engaging with the world with intelligence and empathy and thinking and living independently.

Be such parents, and you would have earned your right to be respected. Else, no.