No bisexuals in humans

That is, more or less, the crux of a post written by Sukumar which again is inspired by another post by Dumaketu. I appreciate Sukumar’s guts to write about such topic (although I didn’t understand his post one bit), but OH MY GOD what a faulty presumption. I can’t even begin to write about it.

 

I come across people like him and only tear my hairs thinking how would one ever bridge this gap between these two worlds…the hetero-normative world being oblivious to the other world which knows no labelling.

 

 

There is no such thing as hetero, homo, bi, transgender, transsexual. What we need to learn is we cannot classify human sexuality in any square boxed categories and we cannot and should not label them. The minute you label a behaviour it implies all other behaviour not fitting that label are non existent and therefore unacceptable. Labelling is the first step towards demanding conformity and it gives out a massage that, “thou shall be ostracized if thou don’t conform.”

 

 

At different time and place over the history of world society have labelled and accorded acceptance to various sexual behaviour. But we have also ostracized those who didn’t ‘fit in’ even at that time and place to that particular behaviour.

 

 

Thus, many of us who know about them, have given some kinda acceptance to the traditional prostitutes belonging to the bedia tribes but we surely consider it a taboo when we see some one amongst us taking up prostitution. What is ok for bedias, cause they are tribes, is not ok for us because of our superior class, caste and background.

 

 

There are many things that makes my life worth-full one of them is my proud association with Sexuality and Rights Institute which bridged this sad gap for me. That explains why it disturbs me so much to see the hetero-normative youth not having a fucking clue about sex and gender. I am more troubled than others. Because all my friends in SRI were comrades from the civil society working towards the attainment of various human rights including the right to chose one’s own sexuality. They live a life surrounded by such other comrades all sensitive towards each other’s causes.

 

 

But I was from a different world altogether. I have worked in corporates. I have seen traditional girls and guys who don’t even know how babies happen. Some of them are a bit better, with an intellectual bent of mind, they read write and talk about Modi, Cricket, Bush and Oil and show respect to ‘homosexuality’ but none of them, NONE have a damn clue about the ‘others’ those who are just like us in all other aspects but don’t conform to what we think is normal and natural. (one needs to read the article, How natural is normal by Prof Nivedita Menon btw)

 

 

Just to give a quick rough idea, you see just because I was born with a vagina doesn’t mean I have to be a woman. Again what is being man and woman is disputed. Point is sex is a natural phenomenon while gender is a social construct. They are not the same thing. The reproductive organs do not determine our behaviour, how we talk, walk, think, dream, dress etc. they are determined by what society expects from us and what role and responsibilities it imposes upon.

 

 

Anyways, I can write page after page on this, but won’t write all at once. Wonder why I waited 10 long months to share my experience at SRI.

 

 

While I write more on sex and gender, interested people, for a start might want to read about Alfred Kinsey’s life and work. He was the first American to do a scientific research on human sexuality and was the founder of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. The extremely controversial and tabooed research works were initially funded by The Rockefellar University but later the funds were pulled due to protests from conservative groups.

 

 

I didn’t want to break the chronology of the Durga Puja related posts (at least one more was in pipe line) but this was too important a topic to wait.