Students' Responses to the Gender and Human Rights course held at Open Space in May 2005
Discussion on May 10, 2005
(Day 2 of Workshop on Genders, Sexualities and Human Rights)
- by Rucha Kurtkoti
The first part of the session included a discussion with Bindu Madhav Khire (Founder, Samapathik Trust) on various aspects of sex and sexuality. We discussed the origin of patriarchy, of sex as a taboo in the religious and social contexts. Apparently, a lot of these ideas developed in the Victorian era, which defined an ‘ideal woman'. Many laws pertaining to these issues were based on the Victorian ideology. Indian laws were adopted from the British Penal Code and have not been amended much since 1860. How the concept of ‘homosexuality' came to be was also discussed. When heterosexuals were the only recognized and legitimate persons, there was no need for a contrasting term to define another sexuality at all.
We chronologically followed various events in the history of humanity which led to ‘sexual revolution'. We discussed male obsession with feminity and the insecurities of a patriarchal system.
The second part of the session was an exercise on sexual hierarchy. How the expression of certain sexualities in particular situations was given the preference of social acceptance over others. The most favourable of these seems to be a heterosexual relationship within a marriage.
The exercise was the formation of mock law-making bodies, who would rate various sexualities and sexual acts on a scale of -100 to +100. If any act got negative ratings, a punishment was also to be recommended. The limits to the acts or expressions of sexuality were that they had to be Adult, Consensual and Private. Through this exercise we discovered many of our own prejudices as the ‘liberal thinkers'. We also saw the role of state interference in highly personal issues like sexuality. |
