Love, Sex, aur Dhokha: Sexual harassment on a bus journey between Mapusa and Panjim

Given that the past week or so in Goa has been of torrid sexual drama, it seemed appropriate that this column too jump into the fray. Most sexual stories get told from the male point of view, and this story will be no exception. Where this narration will differ however, is how this particular male gets treated. In this story, the narrator is victim, rather than the victor or voyeur.

My story begins onboard a Kadamba shuttle service between Mapusa and Panjim. Not left with much seating choice, I moved to the back of the bus where the 5 seater held three men. There was a young man in his mid-twenties on one side, a possible 10 – 12 grader boy dressed in shorts on the other. In the centre was a rather personable young man in his late twenties to early thirties. No sooner had I settled down, than he flashed me a charming smile, asking “newspaper?” Given that I was fortuitously carrying one in my bag I handed him the newspaper. He flashed me another broad grin while asking me where I was from; “Goa?” I rolled my eyes, and responded, rather aggressively, that I was from Goa “Why? Don’t I look Goan?”

Having thus beaten him to silence, I retreated into my own personal world as we bumped our way toward Panjim. A couple of seconds later he gamely slid away from me and slapped the seat space between the two of us. Since I had managed, in the process of seating myself, to get squashed between this charmer and the twenty-something young man, I thought that the ‘charmer’ was making more space for me. A few seconds later however, I realized that the charmer had slid over merely to create space for the huge bag that the boy, on the other side of the seat, was carrying on his lap. Trying to make the best of the situation, I decided a couple of minutes later to use the bag as an arm-rest. Imagine my horror when I saw, as I turned around, the use my newspaper was being put to! Our charmer has ensured that while his hand away from me was holding the newspaper, it was also resting on the bare thigh of the young boy. The other hand was using the newspaper to screen this circumstance from the rest of the bus should they choose to look back.

‘Ok buster’, I thought to myself narrowing my eyes ‘I know what you’re up to!’ The boy though seemed oblivious to the location of the Charmer’s hand and was babbling away breathlessly. Taking this for some kind of consent from the boy, I looked away and decided (I now think wrongly) to mind my own business. A couple of minutes later, the charmer was back by my side, another winning smile, returning my newspaper and making small talk. After some perfunctory small talk about the location of where one should store cell phones on one’s person, I dove into the newspaper shutting him out of my space.

Now you have to remember that all this while we continue to bump our way towards Panjim. In the course of this ride, as I struggle to keep my eyes on the newsprint, I am convinced that the charmer’s hand is grazing my wrist rather deliberately and insistently. Since I don’t want to jump to conclusions, I decide that it’s just a result of the journey and my now hyperactive imagination. This state of mind lasts until with the next bump when the charmer’s hand is lightly, but quite surely around my wrist!

“How does one respond to this situation”, I asked myself as I pretended to focus on the paper. First the whole situation is rather and obviously embarrassing, and secondly, while I didn’t appreciate the sexual attention, I didn’t want to be the guy who initiates a session of old-fashioned gay- bashing. Fortunately for me I managed resolved the situation by quickly and deftly lifting his hand off my wrist, placing it on the bag and continuing to read the paper. The charmer mumbled ‘I’m sorry’ (not that I believed he was) and I feigned a distracted nod indicating that it was nothing as I pretended to be immersed in the newspaper. We reached Panjim without further incident and none of those winning smiles from the charmer.

While the power dimensions between two men are somewhat different as that between a woman and a man, I was nevertheless able to estimate something of the position women are placed in when they encounter such unsolicited sexual advances. For starters, one asks oneself whether one has given any indication that we are open to these attentions. I knew enough in this case to say that indeed I did not. The second issue one has to deal with is how, does one fend this person off. Invariably in the case of men propositioning women, the issue is not really a desire for sexual relation as much as it is the desire for conquest. In societies like ours, where the ideal male is seen as a hunter, it is through conquest that the male becomes in fact a Man. For the woman to indicate displeasure, and not be backed up by a crowd therefore, is to perhaps invite renewed and redoubled advances. Like I indicated earlier, between men the power equation is rather different (though this really does not hold for the charmer’s interaction with the boy), but one is still placed in the delicate, and for most men unique, situation of having to resolve the issue. When the expected social role for men is to be the hunter, rather than the hunted, such unwelcome sexual advances are invariably responded to with violence. For the gender and politically sensitive however, this is not really an option. Such a route merely re-inscribes the dominant expectation of what it is to be a man, and perpetuates homophobia. To resolve this situation through public shaming without violence, is to court becoming the butt of public ridicule. After all it isn’t particularly manly to be seen as attractive to other men, even if you have not been sending out any signals. Besides, in using shame and not violence, one is not really using one’s male prerogative of violence, and displaying in this manner, one’s lack of masculinity and therefore culpability.

As the Pacheco story develops perhaps we will realize that there are deeper and more devious political games being played. However in the interim it would be worthwhile to contemplate the manner in which the sexual practices of our society, that is the manner in which sexuality, masculinity, femininity and power interact, are as responsible for this mess, as the personal actions of those involved.

(First published in the Gomantak Times, 16 June 2010)

Benedictus, Qui Venit: When a letter speaks to more than the immediate…

It seems rather appropriate that Pope Benedict XVI released his Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland on the feast day of St. Joseph, the Catholic model for fatherhood. The Letter is directed toward resolving the controversy around Child sexual abuse that has erupted in Ireland. Right at the very outset, at para 4 of the letter, the Pope indicates that the crisis has its roots in the “the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society” a transformation that he argues impacted on the religious no less than it did on the lay. Also, he argues, “The programme of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted” resulting in a certain laxity in following both tradition and canon law. This larger context was compounded by “inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person”.

In identifying the problem in this way, the Pope continues his critique of the problems that secularization, in the sense of a divorcing of spirituality from our lives, has brought to our world. In identifying the problem in this manner, without explicitly saying so, he sharply disagrees with secular critiques of the problem. He does not say that these cases of sexual abuse are the result of the requirement of celibacy by Catholic religious. The problem he argues is the result of spiritual and moral laxity. This logic seems to be in keeping with the larger position of the Church with regard to human sexuality; the human being is not only about physical desires. The human being is much more than his or her physical desires, and has to necessarily restrain oneself from what is known to be wrong.

There is another side to his analysis of the problem. The Pope rather appropriately points out, that “that the problem of child abuse is peculiar neither to Ireland nor to the Church”. However when saying this, he does not shy away from the fact that there has been something amiss within the Church. Where the tendency towards sexual abuse is open to all human beings, once it has occurred, the question is how we deal with it. The letter is clear that the problem lies in the manner in which these cases of child abuse have been dealt with. The letter is clear that the manner in which the local Church sought to deal with the testimonies of those abused, and with the guilty, was definitely gravely lacking.

It has been observed that given the rash of abuse controversies that seem to be hitting the Catholic Church, spreading from the initial and highly-publicized scandals in the US, this pastoral letter of the Pope will be read for direction and guidance all over the world. While this may be so, we may find that given the manner in which he has located the problem, the letter may be, and indeed, MUST be read by local Churches, for an insight into issues beyond sexual abuse.

The manner in which the testimonies of the abused in Ireland, and the guilty in those cases, were dealt with may sound familiar, in entirely different contexts, to those living in Goa. Time and again parishioners from various parts of the territory allege that when they wish to highlight the misdemeanors of errant priests, they are faced with a silent and sullen community, both religious AND lay. Appeals to the office of the Archbishop go unanswered. When responded to, it appears that the manner of the response, where one is confronted with a committee, rather than the paternal and pastoral figure of the Bishop, leaves complainants feeling let down. Where religious have been caught with their hands in the till, the response apparently is to transfer them to another post, rather than take strict, canonically sanctioned penal action against them. At times in the face of a clear violation of canon law, one is presented with the blithe response that a waiver for the operation of this particular aspect of the law has been sanctioned. This column does not wish to provide the stamp of truth to these allegations. Nevertheless, a personal experience leads me to believe that the Catholic Church in Goa; hierarchy, religious and laity, would do well, especially given our presence in the season of Lent, to reflect on this letter and engage in some serious soul searching.

Toward this end, let us redirect our attention once more on the extract already referred to above. “…inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person”.

This extract seems to ring particularly true in the context of the continuing accusations that the hierarchy and clergy of the Church (through errant members) have participated in the destruction of the Goan environment, and the embarrassment that was the official response of the Archbishopric to the Dogui Bodmas incident.

When speaking of our ‘misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal’ the Pope seems to suggest our attention in the direction of the image of the pilgrim church. The Church is a human institution struggling to follow in the footsteps of its founder. The hierarchy should not loose sight of this fact, and open itself to suffer scandal and ensuing persecution, especially if it is for the larger goal of safeguarding ‘the dignity of every person’. We should not forget that it is these persons, in the singular and the collective, who make up the body of the Church. The infringement of their dignity leaves the body of the Church itself, wounded.

For the Goan Catholic, as with Catholics across the world, the Big Boss has spoken. His letter while focused firmly on the sin of sexual abuse, speaks to contexts beyond sexual abuse. Do we hear it speaking to us?

(A version of this article was first published in the Gomantak Times, 24 March 2010)

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The title of this blog has been taken from the title of a post on the blog titled Whispers in the Loggia. The phrase is an extract from the larger Latin phrase 'Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini' that translates to 'Blessed who comes in the name of the Lord'.