Less clichés, please!

Many of you must have read the news story about the mother of an openly gay man in Mumbai placing a matrimonial add for a suitable groom for her son.

I happen to personally know the son, Harish Iyer, who also happens to be a fellow blogger at The Pregnant Thought. He is very well known as a gay rights advocate. But he is probably even better known as a victim of childhood sexual abuse by his uncle. Although he sometimes comes across as an outspoken individual with a borderline narcissistic personality, his work in the LGBT rights scene is admirable.

Although I haven’t interacted in person with the mother Mrs. Padma Iyer, I have seen on several occasions such as Gay Bombay Parent’s Meets, Pride marches, and of course on television. Again, she deserves to be applauded for her undevoted support to her son’s activism.

So when I heard about the story first, I honestly thought it was a publicity stunt. Why? Because I had just learned that a Brahmin woman put a newspaper advertisement to find a Brahmin groom for her son.

To put things in perspective, gay marriage is not legal in India. In fact, being gay and having a same-sex physical relationship is considered illegal alongside other forms of non-vaginal intercourse. So, honestly, it sounded like a thunderous slap on the faces of the Hindutva brigade.

So I was happy. Why not, I thought? After all, such a story will push LGBT rights issue further into the mainstream and enable dinner conversations about sexual orientation in conservative families.

Of course, I had to grapple with the dichotomy because of the forced conformism aspect—this was an ad for forging a modern/liberal relationship but playing by the rules of the traditional/conservative arranged marriage. Is this not conceding to the perceived fallacies of modern liberated relationships and accepting to the so-called advantages of arranged marriages, which seems to only survive because of the societal/peer pressure?

But then again, this was a joke, wasn’t it? So everything is cool.

Apparently not, thanks to this article.

I did not react well to this.

I did cringe at all the Tam-Bram stereotype references. Harish Iyer finds a suitable boy, and it all just ads up http://t.co/NlNtZihLiF

— Krishna Kumar V. (@krishna_kumar_v) June 18, 2015

Let me make my stance clear. I am okay with marriage/civil parternships between any two adult individuals as long as the ceremony consolidates an already established friendship/relationship. I have recently come across a research paper stating that marriages are successful after two to four years of friendship. That seems just about right.

I also think that screening of potential partners by the mutual knowledge likes/dislikes, shared interests/hobbies, and pure physical attributes as inclusion criteria is also fine. But when you add religion/race/caste as exclusion criteria because your family is not okay, it is retrogressive.

This article, however, gives us the impression that not only were Harish and his mom serious about the ad, the entire affair is going to be a copy-paste of the straight Tam-Bram arranged marriage situation. I sincerely hope that this is just the journalist’s hyperbole of the associated clichés.

In the background, however, I hope that this works out of Harish and his groom/partner.

(Photo: from The Hindu)

Two articles on gay marriage

So this article by Ross Douthat was first published in the New York Times . It's an article about the recently judge's decision to allow gay marriages in California. When I read it, I felt okay. Especially this part about why straight marriages are supposed to offer more:

"The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support."

I also liked this part about the necessity of accepting gay marriages:

"If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary. The lifelong commitment of a gay couple is more impressive than the serial monogamy of straights. And a culture in which weddings are optional celebrations of romantic love, only tangentially connected to procreation, has no business discriminating against the love of homosexuals."

Then a friend of mine linked me up to Andrew Sullivan's reply on the Atlantic. It was even more interesting and took down most of the arguments that Ross had.

"Sex for me has long been an intimation of the divine. Yes, we know that there are many ways human beings experience pleasure and transcendence - try magic mushrooms or a great Bordeaux or a rip-roaringly funny conversation or a quiet walk on a summer's afternoon. I see all these things, as Ross does, I think, as part of the glories of divine creation (okay, maybe not the shrooms in his case). But the extreme, compelling, irresistible nature of the orgasmic pleasure - I know of nothing more sublime or self-losing - and the linkage to creating new life does make it special."

And this sealed it. Along with the picture of the cutest of two bears (one being Andrew Sullivan himself) about to embrace.

And - this is my main point - Ross' argument simply ignores the existence and dignity and lives and testimony of gay people. This is strange because the only reason this question has arisen at all is because the visibility of gay family members has become now so unmissable that it cannot be ignored. Yes, marriage equality was an idea some of us innovated. But it was not an idea plucked out of the sky. It was an attempt to adapt to an already big social change: the end of the homosexual stigma, the emergence of gay communities of great size and influence and diversity, and collapse of the closet. It came from a pressing need as a society to do something about this, rather than consign gay people to oblivion or marginalization or invisibility. More to the point, it emerged after we saw what can happen when human beings are provided no structure, no ideal, and no support for responsibility and fidelity and love."


What can I say. I think Andrew Sullivan nailed it!

The beauty of gay long-term relationships

In my everlasting search for a suitable man, sometimes, perhaps more frequently than I should for my own sake, I stumble on gay men who are in beautiful long-term relationships. Instead of feeling disappointed or jealous, I feel happy to have chanced upon what I consider as true, rare gems of the world -- well-adjusted relationships.

I have seen such relationships in the diverse colors and varieties that life has to offer -- inter-generational, inter-racial, inter-national, intra-generational, open relationships -- each and every one in a seemingly impossible state of equilibrium and negative entropy.

I usually end up meeting the older partner among the couple in these relationships. On almost all such occasions, I have been able to form a strong bond of friendship with them. They tell me stories about how they met their partner, sometimes decades back, how they have established a niche of a live-in relationship together, and how happy they are in their present state of affairs. Some are open relationships where the sexual drive has often died and yet the emotional component is as strong as ever.

I often wonder what is it that drives such people. If being gay is often considered synonymous to promiscuity, and ergo frivolous and incapable of relationship sustenance or emotional depth, how can such beautiful relationships exist? To answer this question, we must ask another question. Maybe I'm not digging deep enough or I'm over-generalizing -- but why are such relationships so rare in the straight world?

The reason probably lies in the disassociation of sex from being anchored to a deep-rooted emotional or procreative component, thereby freeing it to be an activity of pleasure and happiness. Remember, the institution of straight marriage has generally castigated non-procreative sex between two consenting adults. Marriage -- I must re-iterate, straight marriage -- has been promoted as a necessity for a successful social life.

Had love between any two individuals (above legal age) been encouraged instead of marriage, and had sex just been left to the discretion of two individuals who express love toward each other in a variety of durations -- some being transient like a one-night stand and some being transcendent, lasting many decades -- there would have been more instances of such harmonious relationships, don't you think?

One further step forward

This must have caught at least half of Mumbai by surprise. A friend of mine, who wasn't even in Mumbai, made it a point to remind me about its significance. Yes. An article about gay marriage. Gay marriage in India. On the front page. On TOI. On a Sunday.

Talk about India progressing. Read the article here.

(Courtesy Times of India.com)

Gay friendliness on the rise

This Sunday was a great day for gay rights activism in India. NDTV 24X7 aired three back to back gay-friendly programs in prime time. I did not catch any of these programs. In fact, I got to know about this on the GB mailing list where there were a lot of e-mails about this event. It's really heartening to see this. And it's relieving to note that it's not sporadic. Even Priyanka Chopra, one of the very few women in Bollywood that I like, claimed that she's more comfortable with dancing with gay people than straight ones!

More seriously though, the media attention that the movement is more tangible than ever. Here are instances that I found yesterday.

• Today TOI had an editorial article One for Ramadoss which strongly supported Health Minister Ramadoss's statements to decriminalize homosexuality.
  
• Today's Mid-Day also had an article 'One night at a gay gala' about how gay friendly the party scene is becoming citing the Salvation Star parties as events which the straight community were dying to participate in.
  
• Mid-Day's internet portal had a poll about legalizing gay marriage. I was totally surprised to see that the voting results (at the time that I voted) were in favor for it!
  
• Mutiny.in, a popular community blog went to print for the first time earlier this month. In the first edition itself, there were a couple of very good gay friendly articles written by my internet-acquaintance Sanjukta. Here is the link to the entire magazine. The two articles are titled 'Stand Up For Yourself' and 'Coming Out'.

Maybe we will win our rights this time around. Check them out and spread the message around. If anyone lives in Chennai, take a print out of these and send them over to my sisters. (I was kidding, of course!)