Love, Sex and Dhokha: A Tale of Blackmail
When ever love is spoken of an imagery of tender feelings and personal vulnerability comes to mind. Poets and laureates across the globe have spilled enough ink in defining what love is. What ever the love may be it always has some foreseeable goal that has to be attained. If it is divine love then it is the merger with the divine is the end goal as mentioned in the sufi and bakti tradition. If it is mortal love then may be connubiality or constant support and understanding as in the case of platonic love.
If connubiality is the goal, then love as defined by the bollywood songs and melodramas works over time with hormones that are suppressed in the name of morality and illegitimacy. In transitioning economies along with gender roles gender expectations are fast changing but the gender ideals (read stereotypes) have failed to keep pace. The age at marriage has increased and so has gender comingling leading to more possibilities of meeting prospective marriage partners in non traditional settings. Even then in a society divided on the lines of caste, class, religion, creed, region, ethnicity, nationality etc., a couple has to cross all of these barriers and mind the raging hormones. If it were a woman then she has to even guard her own desires and temptations while proving her love to her beloved. The sexual innuendos of the folk songs that were cleaned by the pre colonial nationalist elite are re-inducted into the social psyche through electronic media. The sexual element or the act of sex itself in the relationship that was once subtle is no longer and is often manifested to claim modernity, acceptance into peers or to prove “the love.”
When love goes sour due to what ever reason it hurts and it hurts bad to the one who is more invested in the relationship. If the love that had sex in it goes bad then it hurts even more because this was not in the plan. The hurt is more and grievous to the party that placed more premiums on sexual integrity. Mindless sex in a professed love relationship is possible only for the people who have no intentions of honoring their words rather are sure to get away with no personal or social repercussions. It is an old and endless debate if sex on the pretext of a promise of marriage is enough to be termed as rape if the promise is broken. Often sex in a rather prospectively marital relationship enters on the false promise or understanding that marriage is the ultimate goal. Under such presumptive false pretexts if marriage were to be considered a contract then it was broken at the stage of retention. Can any damages be recovered without further harm to the reputation of the offended? If yes, then what could it be; monetary compensations or forced company of an untrustworthy person who is incapable of loving.
This whole equation takes another form when a person entices sex in the name of love and then pimps the poor beloved to others just for fun or monetary gains. Every now and then sex scandals and blackmail chains are exposed across the nation that involves middle class educated young women from well to do families. How do these women fall prey to these blackmailers? And more over how are these blackmailers able to continue their gruesome trade. The answer is as simple as that the word called “love” is pretty intoxicating making people let their guard down and our media glorifies hormone rush as love. These blackmailers are able to continue their evil designs because they know they can get away without any consequences as society will bash the victim for falling prey.
It could happen to any young woman you know. Kindly follow the links and empower yourself with information that can help someone.
A Desi Girl's Guide to Relationship Survival 
Desi Girl,
As you know I am a gori who lives in America and dates a desi man. I am comfortable with sexuality as is he. What I find upsetting is that other desi men are always calling gori women sluts with loose morals who are completely self absorbed but don’t find anything wrong with the hyper-sexuality of western men.
Its clear from the absolute onslaught of these kind of opinions that this is pushed through your culture. It hurts being told you are a slut over and over, while they simply make excuses for men.
I hope that some day we women, can be who we are with out the constant ridicule about our life choices and our bodies from others.
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@Jubee
I completely agree that it’s not just white girls that are called sluts, but Desi girls too. Any Desi girl that doesn’t fit the norm of what a “good Desi girl” should act like is called a “slut that no Indian man would want”.
I never agreed with the stereotype that white women were easy, but some Desi men accused me of being naive for not believing so.
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“These men are basically crying sour grapes.”
So true. In my personal observation, the biggest slut shamers are sexually insecure men or insecure women who feel threatened by the so called ‘sluts’.
As for white women getting branded sluts, there are a mix of factors at play. The average Indian man has very little social experience with women and most Indians in general have no social experience with white people. Top with with Bollywood stereotypes that white women are sleazy (item songs and unfaithful ‘gori wife’ are a recurring feature in Bolly hits) and you have the results. Also Indians, even the self-proclaimed ‘liberal’ ones are sexually very conservative and prudish, so they have a very low threshold of what is sexually acceptable behaviour and what is deviant.
To be fair, it isn’t like Indians are the only ones to be blamed for creating negative stereotypes. There are a lot of negative or unflattering stereotypes and prejudices against almost every non-WASP ethnic group/religion/race in United States. Where white women are sexually stereotyped in India, Mongoloid and Slavic women are sexually stereotyped in United States.
@Atheist Indian,
Sorry it took DG a long time to get to your comments been down with stuff. Yes, agree with you. Stereotyping of the “other” especially women is common across the globe they are a tool to establish self (community) aggrandizement; holier than thou.
Mail order brides are a big industry in the US. White men who don’t stand a chance with American women rush off shores.
Peace,
Desi Girl
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Its also about changed gender roles, we have women competing equally everywhere and going through the same stress, living alone in cities and yet its not ok for her to have let alone sex, just a partner of her choice. DG parents wouldn’t mind the girl getting divorced after marrying an incompatible guy of their choice, that will get explained away as fate. But if she dare choose a guy of her own, its a problem. I have always struggled with this double standard of independence. Women are expected to be independent in every way but suddenly when it comes to marriage, she becomes an idiot or less than equal and has no choice. Its a strange conundrum.
Also why is only a girl supposed to be a virgin, does she have the right to demand a virgin husband? I know I am probably taking this too far, but why should my character, my integrity be only judged by the fact that I haven’t ever even been touched by a man? Is there any hope for women who have followed their heart in our society or shall they always be condemned? It takes two to tango right?
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ITS NOT just WOMAN .. They do the same to MEN to these days … it works both way … I have seen it happen the other way round tooo.. so girls have made it a mission to bed as many men as possible before they settle ..
Its a pity that when a MAN does its gets flashed all over and not otherwise …
Human traffiking is becoming a big problem here also.. we see young girls and boys or hear about them so often.. it is a problem and a THRIVING business tooo.. but then its people amongst us , who are paying to have the pleasure.. there is so much demand .. what needs doing is stopping the deman.. the rest will all stop…
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I feel that the entire problem of “promise you’ll marry me before I agree to have sex with you” arises because of the great issues people have with sex in general.
I think too great a deal is made of sex which should be treated as just another expression of human nature. Broken hearts are common with young people who get over it in time.
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Desi Girl,
I feel most of the times girls know what are they heading into. If the word “love” puts girls off guard, the touch of a man tells whether it’s love or lust.
It is more of sincerety and as u say addiction to relationships that women sometimes fail to judge the person and fall prey to such worthless guys.
Btw, there is a programme on MTV, i think, Emotional Attyachar, wonder have u seen that?! Must see it!!
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“It is more of sincerity and as u say addiction to relationships that women sometimes fail to judge the person and fall prey to such worthless guys.”
Completely agree with you.
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Yes. From your post’s links, I surfed around to read about some scandals that happened in India. And, there was one thing common that the women’s family either didn’t support the woman; let alone supporting her, they added to her woes. All this… often without any fault of hers.
Shallow values of our society
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