21:33IST

Room with a table fan, Inderpuri

New Delhi, India Crappy day crappy day. Why do I bother? Puked in the dirty office loo. Too much LIIT last night, plus some crappy wrap. Did not suit the digestive organs. Must not do this again. The puke was quite disgusting, as puke is supposed to be. It was a mildly yellow, almost off-white, the yellowness of grilled paneer perhaps? Might as well be. Had a load of those milk-made cubes.It was mixed with bits of dark-green straw like things. Must be some leaves I ate with the paneer wrap. Crap. There was no wiper or napkin in the loo. And I had puked all over the basin. Some bits could be seen stuck on the mirror above the basin. I held my breath, stuck out my index finger and tried twirling the ugly mess inside the little drain-hole of the basin. Round and round merry-go-round, the finger made tiny circular motions. It was rhythmic. Could hear Jose Gonzalez in my head "How low....are you willing to go....."

Anyhoo came home early and slept and lazed and slept and lazed and felt miserable about life in general. Read up an article talking about an apparently brand new insight into rapes. It said poverty is a cause for rapes. Wasn't sure if I agreed. Will try to understand that in the next few lines: Rape. In my basic understanding, rape is an action word. It can be used either as a verb or a noun. 'She was raped' 'A rape happened'. The word denotes an act. The act of having a sexual intercourse by force, without the permission of one of the members participating in the act. It essentially means - I say no and you still do it. You force your genitals into mine, without my consent. That's wrong. Invading private space without permission is just wrong. Hence rape becomes a crime in the eyes of law. Law of nation. Not law of the universe. The universe doesn't care. It just is. Duh.
Now, news in our claustrophobic country talks a lot about rape. Incidents are reported dime-a-dozen, statistics are drawn, reasons are cited, insight is sought. A lot of ink and type has gone into discussing this carnal act. One question people seem unable to answer - why are rapes so common in India?
Lack of education, poverty, lack of inherent civic sense, no control over instinct - seem to be some reasons given by the thinking lot of the country. I don't know. Let's think. Rape is a sexual act. Penis in vulva. Penis in anus. Genital in genital. A FORCED act. But a sexual act. I say 'but' as if I'm trying to justify it. I hope not! Let's see.
Why do we have sex? We are living, sexual organisms designed to mate to produce more like us. Hence the sex. It is the first step toward procreation. So what's the big deal? Bonobos have sex all the time, all other species do. Why not us. We do. But we do it when we want to. And no one forces us to. So all animals do it because they want to? Isn't this an age thing? When you become of age, reach puberty, your sexual organs mature, you have these hormones that want you to do it more often than normal? That happens with all animals, don't it? So it is a sexual act, driven by hormones - not rational thought. So where is the 'when you want to aspect?' It is driven by instinct. Your instinct and perhaps you are driven by it.
OK, now that we have gained a bit of clarity on the purpose and process of the sexual act, we come to acting the act. An instinctive desire in a 'structure' a 'system', the 'society' aspect of it. Does it require curbing? 
If all men and women, when they reach of 'age' can have sex whenever they want with whoever they want, then? That isn't the case right now, is it? There are restrictions. Proper behaviour. We aren;t bonobos or salmon or fire flies. Coming of age has nothing to do with free-willed instinctive sex.

But we aren't talking about when can we have sex. We are talking about forced sex. Forcing to do it when we don't want to. The two aren't really related, are they? OK here's a reasoning. In my opinion, men because of their testosterone, like to assert a sense of power. It is a hormonal thing. A sexual intercourse, injecting the squiggly-wiggly sperm into a female body is the ultimate assertion of existence. It makes him feel powerful. A hormonal thing. Perhaps THAT is what he is trying to exercise, and perhaps that is what all living species do. An attempt to assert their existence. We know about it because we think. Other species don't.

As far as consent is concerned, on an instinctive level, that is not really a concern for the man. And by the way, I talk about men raping more than women raping (which also exists) simply because men raping is more common. Women also rape, but they might have different motivations - something led by a rationale, not necessarily instinct.
Explaining the act does not make it right. The uneducated, educated, rich and poor males - all feel that they the act is a stamp of their 'manhood'. They aid in pro-creation after all. Women probably don;t feel the same way because they have to carry the burden of the child. They have ONE egg. Men have squillions of sperms. They have a hose pipe that can be injected into any plug and get on with it. It is an urge. Of establishing their existence. Their one-upmanship.
So we probably understand why sex happens, and why rapes happen, and why men do it more than women? Now the next question is, why does it happen so rampantly in India? I'm not sure about the truth in the question. Sure, street-rapes are far more common here than anywhere else in the world - but domestic rapes occur a lot in the countries. The source of this info is two of my friends from different countries. Not entirely reliable, but then. Aaho. This is where education comes into play. Education helps us to think. To reason. It helps us understand our instincts. Why we behave the way we behave. Maybe education would help you understand that a woman is NOT a injectable-machine. That women DO NOT want to have sex with you all the time. That a consent is important. Strangers don't rape strangers, in the lands outside of India. Here, it doesn't matter so much. One attractive thing of beauty and all hell breaks lose. Maybe education, and the strugglesome living have a role to play - strictly for the 'desolate area being raped by strange men'. And maybe an utter, childhood disregard for females is also a reason. So maybe Rahul Bose and Cordelia Jenkins are kind of on the right track. Educate the young clinically and completely. Make them aware of sex and sexuality. Make them aware of the wonders of reason. Ignorance leads to impulsive acts. While I am all up for listening to impulse, when it comes at the cost of someone else, one needs to think. So the urge to indulge in sex is not wrong. If it is with the consent of the other member, it is not wrong. Rape is wrong. Even if a child is brought up in a harsh environment, lives in steepest poverty, he could still reason, respect women couldn't he? If he were told about it perhaps? This was long. Very long. I'm tired now. Sleep. Love. I'm not sure about the truth in the question. Sure, street-rapes are far more common here than anywhere else in the world - but domestic rapes occur a lot in the countries. The source of this info is two of my friends from different countries. Not entirely reliable, but then. Aaho.
This is where education comes into play. Education helps us to think. To reason. It helps us understand our instincts. Why we behave the way we behave. Maybe education would help you understand that a woman is NOT a injectable-machine. That women DO NOT want to have sex with you all the time. That a consent is important. Strangers don't rape strangers, in the lands outside of India. Here, it doesn't matter so much. One attractive thing of beauty and all hell breaks lose. Maybe education, and the strugglesome living have a role to play - strictly for the 'desolate area being raped by strange men'. And maybe an utter, childhood disregard for females is also a reason. So maybe Rahul Bose and Cordelia Jenkins are kind of on the right track. Educate the young clinically and completely. Make them aware of sex and sexuality. Make them aware of the wonders of reason. Ignorance leads to impulsive acts. While I am all up for listening to impulse, when it comes at the cost of someone else, one needs to think.

So the urge to indulge in sex is not wrong. If it is with the consent of the other member, it is not wrong. Rape is wrong. Even if a child is brought up in a harsh environment, lives in steepest poverty, he could still reason, respect women couldn't he? If he were told about it perhaps? This was long. Very long. I'm tired now. Sleep. Love.