Business or Pleasure? Why Tamil Women Are Having Bad Sex
The ordinariness of my Tamil household was not something I doubted. My daily adolescent life did not make room for curiosity about the schedules, habits, or conditions of which I grew up. While the house fell into minor hysterics sometimes, it was for the most part unremarkable to me. So my mother being basically partnerless never struck me as abnormal. Sex and intimacy, while a precipitous thought in my head, didn’t feel like a necessary part of life. And if sex was ever a conversation at home, it was about a brokered marriage that proved to be miserable.
The bride would encounter sex for the first time at her wedding’s consummation and it would be treated a massive coronary event like her marriage, precedent to her child rearing age. As far as I knew, sex functioned as a way to situate time. The bride’s first time is her induction as a wife, when she learns to satisfy her husband and then rolls over to her side of the bed. Her second time is for her to carry their children. Her pleasure is no aspect.
I was 18 years old when I had sex for the first time. I was surprised to find that I didn’t feel “changed” in any special way and it didn’t demarcate time for me. I did not begin to acknowledge a pre-sex and post-sex self. But I did feel somewhat guilty for what I had done. A part of me was disappointed that I could no longer preserve an infantile perception of myself, even if no one knew what happened. I fixated on a child-like purity that I wasn’t prepared to let go of. Sex may not have broken up my timeline in such exaggerated terms but it had emphasized childhood. A good woman is clueless, demure, obedient, and eager to please upon her First Time, guided by her heavy-handed husband. I was taught inexperience was attractive.
“A good woman is clueless, demure, obedient, and eager to please upon her First Time, guided by her heavy-handed husband.”
The First Time is usually awkward and fumbling, mutual astonishment at something new that four hands try to make sense of. However, the prolonged astonishment women perform in hook-ups afterwards are only meant to persuade their partner that they don’t do this often and are still “worthy” of respect — disregarding this brief moment of weakness. But, we should remember, performances are always non-reciprocal. The actor labours to entertain the man who purchased a ticket and expects a show.
A few years ago, on a morning when my mother was driving me to a class, she blurted out, “your father never touches me.” While no one likes to imagine their parents as sexual, an angsty teenager certainly doesn’t. Instead of acknowledging what she said, I pretended I hadn’t heard her, even though it was obvious she was looking for comfort. I guess she hadn’t expected me to respond, so she carried on, “He doesn’t make me feel desired.” I have had many friends tell me that their mothers have divulged some variation of this to them too.
It seemed that many Tamil marriages were only political partnerships; they handled the finances together and raised children together, but at dinner parties sat 6 feet apart. I came to the striking realization that many Tamil men must suffer from a severe Madonna-Whore complex, perceiving their wives as chaste angels who would be spoiled if they took care of their sexual arousal.
Because ‘purity’ for many Tamil women is the centrepiece of their eligibility. I remember relatives crying over their niece getting a boyfriend. She was pitied for compromising her future, where she could have married a sensible man with a well-paying job. Even if they broke up, she was somehow different. There was no way to be casual or normal about having sex.
From what I understood, if I wanted to embrace my sexuality I had remove myself from ‘Tamil logic’ altogether. If I lent myself too much to my community, then I would be treated as its ambassador. I would be held responsible for maintaining values inconsistent with mine and detrimental to my growth. However, as time passes, it becomes clear that I cannot embrace anything if I deny my Tamilness.
I am sure that many Tamil women, if they decided to share their sexual experiences, would recognize themselves in each other but are afraid to say it out loud because they do not want to be perceived as vulgar by their friends. In my mother’s defence, she never pointedly refused conversations about sex with me, but recently confided, dislikes talking about sex even with her friends. I do not imagine what she could have told me when I was most curious would have been constructive either. It took me some time to realize that what I was responsible for, is bearing witness to her process and braving mine.
