Khushwant Singh on Women, Sex, Love and Lust

by Khushwant Singh

  It is the usual kind of thing American writers of erotica churn out; pretending that it is the outcome of years of research into what turns men on and off in their relationships with women. For example, what percentage of men are attracted by eyes, short noses, bosoms, hourglass figures, large behinds, shapely legs or feet… and so on.

  I compared Grice’s conclusions to the ladies I have known in my younger days. They came in all shapes and sizes, snow-white to ebony black, big-bosomed and flat-chested, elephant-bottomed and boyishly small-bottomed. What turned me on was their responsiveness. What kept the relationships going were common interests, witty conversation, and cheerfulness. What shortened the tenure of our association were sulks. What ended them from my side were explosions of temper or halitosis (bad breath). If a woman lost her temper with me even once, I wrote her off for ever. I have no forgiveness in me. Full stop. Nor am I tolerant towards women whose mouths smell like cesspools.

  The sexual lives of eminent people reveal a wide variety of appetites. Creative writers, poets, painters, composers make fascinating reading. Colin Wilson in his The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders catalogued some of them.

  Victor Hugo in his seventies had a long affair with a 27-year-old laundrywoman while he was carrying on with two well-known stage actresses. At the age of 83, six weeks before he died, he recorded in his diary sexual encounters with different women.

  The sanctimonious Leo Tolstoy, who preached celibacy as a release from the ‘degrading madness’ of sexual desire, made passionate love to his wife when he was 79. He achieved his moksha from his libido only in the last year of his life.

  Philosopher and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell married four times, the last marriage being when he was 80. Aldous Huxley in his novel Genius and the Goddess lampooned him as an old satyr whose young wife took on a secret younger lover to keep her genius husband’s sexual morale high.

  Somerset Maugham, after many affairs with women, turned gay in his seventies and had a male lover 41 years old. They continued having a sexual relationship till Maugham’s death at 84.

  Pablo Picasso, despite having children through his mistress, cheated on her with other women in his eighties. He regarded sexual adventurism as a stimulus to his creativity as an artist.

  Moral:

  Lives of great men all remind us

  We too can make our lives sublime

  And leave behind us bastards

  On the sands of time.

  19

  Acharya Rajneesh and Sex

  There are many ways of attaining godhood, say teachers of religion. Acharya Rajneesh disagreed and said that there was only one way, and sexual intercourse was the first step towards it.

  I went along with Rajneesh on most things he said, including sex. People who suppress their sexual instinct by taking vows of celibacy soon develop an obsession with it by transferring it from their groins to their heads. Being more preoccupied rather than occupied with it they became mentally sick, intolerant, vengeful, stubborn and uncharitable towards others.

  ‘All forms of repression can be traced back to two fundamental fears: the fear of death and the fear of sex,’ said Acharya Rajneesh. From these anxieties rise feelings such as anger, jealousy, envy, lust and fear. His prescription for overcoming the fear of death was to give direct exposure of near-death experiences to patients. Members were exhorted to spend their repressed aggression by letting off steam by abusing each other and even fighting in specially built, padded rooms where no physical injury could be done to anyone. For sex repression, he advocated tantric techniques. Groups of about 20 indulged in whatever form of sexual expression they had harboured in their fantasies but had to repress owing to feelings of guilt imposed by parents, society or religious norms. They were not, as many people imagined, group orgies of the sort one sees portrayed in magazines like Playboy where everyone is seen to be mightily enjoying themselves. On the contrary, pictures of Rajneesh’s tantric session seemed more like scenes from a torture chamber with girls screaming in agony (perhaps ecstasy) and every other participant as grim-faced as the angel of death.

  But why bring God and religion into something which seems to be entirely a technique of psychiatric treatment? The Acharya answered it in his own words. ‘Nothing exists except God’, he maintained, and continued, ‘man has never been accepted in his totality … The West has chosen only the body and forgotten the soul … it is the culture of the without. The Eastern culture is the culture of the within. The East tries to live only as a soul and the West tries to live only as a body … I am teaching people to live a simple life … I am a materialist-spiritualist.’

  I am not sure if these therapies did in fact deliver the goods. But an ever-increasing number of Rajneesh’s disciples vouched for its efficacy and I am willing to take their word for it. I only wish they looked a little more cheerful after their self-proclaimed liberation from fear. I also do not understand their saffron robes, the Rajneesh lockets round their necks and their outlandish names whereby Robert Birnbaum became Swami Prem Amitabh, Wendy Wyatt became Ma Prem Karma and my friend Saeed Sattar became Krishna Mohammed.

  There are many ways of attaining godhood, say teachers of religion. Acharya Rajneesh disagreed and said that there was only one way and sexual intercourse was the first step towards it. He maintained that religion as practiced, was false and its propagators agents of Satan. They degraded love and taught us the negation of life. The philosophy of religion has always been death-oriented instead of being life-oriented. He went on to add: ‘I call religion the art of living. Religion is not a way to undermine life; it is a medium for delving deeply into the mysteries of existence. Religion is not turning one’s back on life, it is facing life squarely. Religion is not escaping from life; religion is embracing life fully. Religion is the total realization of Life.’

  Since love is the essence of all religions and sex the essence of love, you cannot side-step it to proceed on your voyage of discovery. Rajneesh wrote: ‘Sex is the beginning of the journey to love. The origin, the Gangotri of the Ganges of Love, is sex, passion – and everybody behaves like its enemy. Every culture, every religion, every guru, every seer has attacked this Gangotri, this source, and the river has remained bottled up. The hue and cry has always been, “Sex is sin. Sex is irreligious. Sex is poison”, but we never seem to realize that ultimately it is the sex energy itself that travels to and reaches the inner ocean of love. Love is the transformation of sex energy.’

  Because sex has been condemned and suppressed, ‘it has become an obsession, a disease, a perversion,’ said the Acharya, and advised us to ‘accept sex with joy. Acknowledge its sacredness … When a man approaches his wife he should have a sacred feeling, as if he were going to a temple. And when a wife goes to her husband she should be full of reverence one has nearing God. In the moments of sex, lovers pass through coitus, and that stage is very near to the temple of God, to where he is manifest in creative formlessness.’ He conjectured that man had his first glimpse of samadhi during sexual intercourse culminating in a climax when the mind becomes empty of thoughts. Thus vishyanand (bliss of coitus) and brahmanand (bliss of union with God) are much the same; one is ephemeral, the other eternal.

  Not all sexual intercourse is experience of divinity. For that you have to first get rid of your ego –‘Unless I dissolve myself, how can the other unite with me?’ he asked. Love always gives, the ego is ever the grabber; love is motiveless, the ego always motivated; the ego only understands the language of taking, the language of giving is love. The second condition to be fulfilled is the feeling of timelessness. ‘In orgasm, the sense of time is nonexistent. There is no past, no future, there is only the present moment.’

  The Acharya had some practical suggestions to overcome an unhealthy obsession with sexuality. Children should be allowed to remain nude as much as possible in the home so that they do not develop prurient curiosity in private organs. They should also be taught to meditate (on what, he did not say) in silence for
at least one hour every day. They should be taught what sex is all about before they are old enough to engage in it. He wrote: ‘Sex is the most mysterious, most profound, most precious and, at the same time, the most accursed subject; and we are in total darkness about it. We never pay our attention to this important phenomenon. A man goes through the routine of coitus throughout his life, but he does not know what it is.’

  The Acharya, who claimed to have had sexual fulfillment in his previous life which cleared his mind of sexuality for his incarnation and those to come, told us how to get the best out of coitus. Most of us are used to quickies which end in frustration and incite us to have more of the same thing. Coitus, he told us, must be prolonged as much as possible. In the way of techniques he suggested slowing down one’s breathing and focusing awareness to a point between the eyes, the seat of the agnichakra. If you can prolong intercourse to one hour, you need not think of sex for the rest of your life; if you can prolong to three hours, you will be liberated from sexuality for your lives to come. A third essential condition is that you should approach sex with reverence. ‘Give sex a sacred status in your life,’ he said. ‘At the time of coitus we are close to God.’

  The Acharya told us that the sculptors of erotica on the temples of Konark, Khajuraho and Puri had the right approach to sex. We should have such temples all over India. Tantriks were also on the right path; preachers of religious dogma suppressed them. He concluded: The journey to Kama is also the journey to Rama. ‘The journey to lust is also the journey to light. The tremendous attraction for sex is also the search for the sublime.’

  It is difficult to decide how seriously one can take Rajneesh today. But, as anything else he wrote, his From Sex to Super-Consciousness is extremely readable.

  20

  Sex Wars

  ‘Most men are unfaithful to their wives or mistresses’… they will play according to the rules of marriage ‘till they discover the unadulterated joys of adultery.’

  Shobhaa Dé has had the best of everything any Indian woman could wish for in her life.

  Daughter of a commissioner of police, ravishingly beautiful, two rich husbands with a French diplomat sandwiched between them, editor of three journals, author of many books each making the bestseller list at the time of its publication. And now, living in considerable splendour in a large apartment in Mumbai with her second husband and six children – his, hers and theirs.

  Shobhaa is not the kind of sour-puss you think would spew venom in a long, bitchy thesis on why all men are bastards. But this is precisely what she did in Surviving Men: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Staying on Top.

  It was her first non-fiction book and became a runaway bestseller because its theme, which, like the themes of her novels, was sex – oodles of sex – with obscene, four-letter words strewn liberally across every page. She also made the most outrageous statements on male chauvinism that I have read.

  I would have dismissed it as frothy rubbish. I did not, because it was also irritatingly thought-provoking and highly readable.

  Let us examine some of Dé’s assertions: ‘Sex appeal lies in the wallet of her beholder,’ she wrote. There may be some truth in that. We have always been told that money makes the mare go. But it appeals equally to men and women. If a fat, rich man is more attractive to a woman than a handsome pauper, so is a matron loaded with diamonds more attractive to men than a pretty Cinderella in tattered rags.

  Shobhaa asserted that men should pay more attention to their teeth and oral hygiene – bad breath kills romance. ‘Couples who floss together stay together,’ she wrote. I go along with that. But I am not so sure about the veracity of her statement that ‘men worry excessively about their genitals; women don’t.’ Or that ‘men have a penis fixation’ and ‘scratching their privates is a form of meditation.’

  She may be right about men being unsure of their potency in middle age. But so are women, beset with fears of losing their looks after menopause.

  Are men more mean than women? Or have less feeling than them? Shobhaa thinks so.

  According to her, men have as much feeling as dogs or earthworms. What draws them towards women is their smell – not the perfume they wear but their body odour which is like Chinese sweet-and-sour dishes. What men like about women is not their looks but their availability; the more willing a woman, the more are men drawn to her. She sums up the average woman’s role vis-à-vis men in three brief words: Khana, peena aur dena.

  ‘Most men are unfaithful to their wives or mistresses.’ She asserts that they will play according to the rules of marriage ‘till they discover the unadulterated joys of adultery.’

  How then can women love men? It is easier to love dogs and even plants. Men in love are tiresome.

  Another myth she seeks to explore is ‘couples who sleep together, stay together.’ She advises separate bedrooms, bathrooms, and vacations. Men’s attitude towards the nuptial bed is to treat it like a battlefield. They can’t be bothered with foreplay which rouses a woman, but are in a hurry to get on with the act. ‘Even during coitus, they are PPMA (Physically Present, Mentally Absent) and fantasizing about Sridevi or Madhuri Dixit. They can never function with a woman they respect. Consequently, women ‘find sex a bore and a chore.’

  Men make bad husbands, fathers and home-keepers. They are especially horny on holidays, and the first thing they do when they get into their room in a holiday resort is to shed their clothes. Shobhaa maintains that there is no such thing as a platonic relationship between men and women: ‘The only person ever to believe in platonic friendship was Plato.’ Money, and power, makes men irresistible to women. Rajiv Gandhi, despite his good looks and power, did not pass Dé’s test as he was ‘a softie with a spaniel’s eyes’.

  To evoke women’s admiration, a leader has to inspire fear. Gandhi failed to do that and hence lacked sex appeal. Jinnah, because he was stern, aroused women much more. Clinton passed Dé’s test with flying colours as he has good looks and power which he uses to bash up his adversaries.

  All men are, of course, mother-fixated. Shobhaa advises women never to take on their mother-in-law: they will always lose the battle. However, she grudgingly concedes that women need men. She advises her sisters to treat them like donkeys, with carrot and stick. All they want is food, booze, and sex – in that order. When he becomes too obstinate, say no and he will come round begging with his tail between his legs. And so on.

  That is Shobhaa Dé for you. You can’t do without her. You have to read whatever she writes. Then your hands itch to slap her fat bottom the same way K. P. S. Gill slapped Rupan Deol Bajaj’s posterior.

  21

  Whoring and the Law

  Those who have self-confidence seduce amateurs; those who have not, buy services of professionals. In this matter, men are no different from rats.

  What shopping is to the shrimati when she goes abroad, whoring is to the shriman as he steps out of his country: they are on the top of their list of priorities. Shopping abroad does not require any expertise as exotic merchandise is plentiful, attractively displayed and prices fixed. Whoring, on the other hand, needs nerve. There is the risk of being found out and losing respectability; there is the problem of communication and danger of catching venereal disease. Nevertheless, the Indian male is like Pavlov’s dog, which, as soon as a bone is suggested, begins to salivate in the mouth. No sooner does he have his passport, visa and air-ticket in his pocket, he feels stirrings in his middle. Since seduction requires time and sophistication, it is bordellos and streetwalkers he patronizes. I observed this phenomenon over the years I lived in England, France, the United States and Canada, and had to entertain visiting celebrities. What makes them compulsive whoremongers?

  A well-known psychoanalyst of London once explained the lure that a streetwalker has for men in high places as a form of escapism: ‘The greater the risk, the more attractive the activity. What these people are doing is escaping from tension and stress.’ Absolute boloney, say I. Stress and escapism have
little to do with men’s compulsive desire for variety in sex. For them, it is the spice of life. Those who have self-confidence, seduce amateurs, those who have not, buy services of professionals. In this matter, men are no different from rats. Rat-watchers have observed that a new female rat introduced to a male immediately enhances it sex potential and it goes at it like a randy bridegroom. So do men. After a honeymoon there is a sudden decline in their performance, it is restored when another female becomes accessible. It has been aptly described as the Columbus effect – the itch to discover. The more forbidden the fruit, the sweeter it tastes. If you have to maintain a facade of respectability, the itch to take risks and defy taboos imposed by social norms becomes unbearably hard. Hence, instead of ringing up girls who advertise themselves in telephone booths and sleazy tabloids, or asking the room bearer to send up a girl (hotels of all astral denominations provide this service), you go to a red-light area and expose yourself to the danger of being nabbed by the police.

  It is time we abrogated the law against prostitution. Prostitutes have fulfilled a necessary social function since time immemorial. You clear them out of red light districts and they move next door in the most select residential areas. The only obligation society has is to prevent unwilling, minor girls being sold into the trade and ensure regular medical check-ups to prevent the spread of venereal diseases. Our police must be prevented from harassing these unfortunate women, making money off them, wasting their time raiding brothels. They never seem to catch and punish the men who patronize them, only the call-girls and prostitutes.