out of the closet....

insights to life and learning can never be complete without an understanding and acceptance of the sexual urge....

my learnings in this space have been tough...have floundered, fallen flat....

the teen years were horrific...cyclones of lustful thoughts overpowering me....accompanied by guilt....i belong to a social generation in india which can be termed the "in-between"..I am honestly glad that issues of sexuality are more openly discussed these days in india....i almost felt it was "wrong" to feel those urges...i never understood where they originated....i only knew there was nothing i could do about it....i could not stop its emergence within and fear of social ostracization would not allow me any expression outside....it was as if you were a "criminal"....

i had lost my father when i was 14...and being a lone child....had no one to discuss these aspects...my mother came from a very "positional space" on such aspects...dont blame here..she had inherited her conditionings....i saw her judging and condemning scenes on television( not much to them in those days anyways...)........i was afraid of falling down in her eyes....and in the eyes of a very judgemental society....

the cyclones within only seemed to grow....in my learnings later, i realized the link of lust to guilt, suppression, boredom, meaninglessness....a catch 22....

lust is miserable..makes you vulnerable....awkward....embarassed....we make fools of ourselves more often than not ....face condemnation....add to this conventional religion and other spaces..even recently, someone told me they are "baser" instincts....while respect their pov, i wonder however...for me , everything can be sacred...

a lot of insights and learnings in this space....critical personal need to understand the same...

it took me a lot of personal breakthroughs in conditioned and fear spaces to be able to accept myself with "lust"....i saw myself as being thoroughly "capable" of using people under the influence of such a cyclone within....it has been "fear" of ostracization which prevented me, not any morality standards...

activities seem to get sanctified in india through institutionalization....in my explores through human spaces and in my capacity as an "informal counsellor"to innumerable fellow humans over the last 10-12 years, I have come across horrors in institutionalised spaces....unconscious use and abuses...."rape"; i perceive it as non-consensual and forced acts....is very common....in institutionalised spaces....basic civilities and courtesies seem thrown to the wind, under the influence of the cyclone of lust...

even in conservative india, i have come across horrific instances of fathers/uncles raping their daughters/neices....their suppressions are unmanageable and it is socially unacceptable for them to visit red-light facilities....they are "decent" folk....raping their daughters and forcing them into silence is a very convenient option....and more horrifically, when i have spoken to some mothers about this , they are silent co-conspirators....it is more important for them to protect their husband's images in society....

in another instance, i came across the wife of a diamond czar raun away..and feel ridiculously frightened....she came from a poor family....the czar had met her at a regular pick-up spot - a dance bar....was an elderly man and got obsessed... in a mutually beneficial transaction, they got married....but she was kept as a prisoner..she could not meet anyone..he was frightened....she was sexually unfulfilled....

the only way out, use her money to link up with her driver who used to stay in the servants quarters......until he started blackmailing her...

sounds like a movie....it happens more often in real time than one would imagine....only carefully camouflaged and suppressed....

sad , but true...

this happens in the land which gave the world a treatise on love-making, the kamasutra...

like any other activity, our perceptions and the attitude we bring in make all the difference..the space can be an abusive space, enhancing our vulnerablities or it can be sacred , sensitive space, helping us free ourselves....healing space....it can be an artform, spiritually elevating and nourishing....or it can take us into further abyss of vulnerability and misery...

denial is no solution.....and condemnation , in my opinion, is a pathetic social management mechanism....a brushing under the carpet syndrome, a temporary convenience...

it is critical to remain centred and be aware....of our vulnerabilities...else , we invite abuses stemming from our vulnerabilities...the same can make us insensitive and unconscious abusers too....freer functional spaces in the western cultures , in the absence of a dynamic awareness, have also led to so much chaos and confusion in this space.

mutual respect is the key in any interface.....it is important for partners to be friends...and an integral awareness of our real selves in the space....

to me, no activity is "right" or "wrong"; our valuations are purely contextual....any activity can be heightened to the greatest levels of spiritual fulfilment and joy, very liberating....or it can further push us into vulnerability, misery and suffering....our contexts are a matter of choices we make....nothing absolute about them....

let not standards of morality emerge and be implemented purely in an ambience of fear and enforced adherences.....let us tackle the fear....and let dynamic and spontaneous moralities evolve in our individual spaces...the way we chose it....

let love express itself as a nourishing, healing and enriching state of being in spaces we chose to share..love is not an activity or a pre-defined space of interface...it is a state of being, a fountainhead within ourselves, which manifests as a flood....in spaces we flow through....lust, the miserable, vulnerable aspect is absent in love spaces....creative , aesthetic mental, physical and spiritual interfaces happen....moments of liberation...