I should have perhaps written about this sooner, but I have been waiting to collect, and sort out my thoughts.

A few weeks ago, all hell appeared to have broken loose in Pune, the city where I am from. Bar owner (Khodu Irani) (and other staff) of a modern-day Pune institution, High Spirits, were accused by a writer (Sheena Dabholkar) of sexual harassment. Fat-shaming. Male entitlement and objectification (High Spirits apparently gave out awards for “Best Breasts”). Buzzfeed India was on it, as was Being Indian – where I got into a comment…situation. Huffington Post. Dozens of women followed suit, adding their stories to Sheena’s. #MeToos. Emotional echoes. All these women, collectively reliving trauma.

High Spirits issued an official response to Buzzfeed India. But it is kind of bizarre.

This is full of contradictions. Contradictions that emphasize, to me, how little people get rape culture. And what happened at High Spirits is a perfect encapsulation of rape culture. Every single aspect of it. Right from the nature of the harassment, to the way High Spirits and other patrons/citizens (male and female) responded, and the whole nature of the discourse surrounding this issue.

This is how I read their response: “The world is dark and full of…asshole men, harassers, rapists, we get it. Out there, though, not in here. If you accuse us of harassment, we will shame you. Call you a liar, say you’re motivated by a personal vendetta. With impunity. But oh, we really care about our female patrons, FYI. Look at all these unrelated things we do for women. We have female bouncers! We take down license plate numbers for auto drivers to ensure our female patrons get home safe!”

Rape culture. Let’s think about it for a second, and how what happened at High Spirits is an almost perfect microcosm of a larger problem. We know patriarchy sucks, and find ourselves easily able to denounce many of its more egregious manifestations. When a woman Is brutally raped, and murdered, we take to the streets – women AND men – without an ounce of doubt in our heads, candles lit, chants and slogans at the ready. Rape is about power, we know this. Rape is awful. Women shouldn’t be raped – not by their Uber drivers. They shouldn’t be cat called by construction workers! They absolutely should not be groped by strangers on a crowded train – wtf why is this even up for debate?

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But casual, quotidian sexism – that’s fine. We have made room for that in our minds. What are you going to do about it dude? Just forget it, na! And when it comes to accusations about people we know… then things change a LOT. Then there is certainly room for debate.

Why should we automatically believe an accuser, just because she is a woman?

We deny the allegations, and denounce the whistleblower.

She is a liar.

Called out by other women.

She’s a weirdo. She has an agenda. It never happened to ME, she must be lying. She’s a slut.  When multiple women come out, we think they’re all latching on to the coattails of the first whistleblower. For their fifteen seconds of fame.

They must be lying, or they would have said something when it happened!

I get it. I don’t agree with these responses, but I understand them. It is visceral to defend someone you know. We know them, after all. And perhaps until that moment, we never had cause to believe otherwise. So, it can be thoroughly confusing. Human beings seldom believe un-savoury things about people they know or love. This acceptance takes a while coming. It’s about trust. We trust the people we love. It is the foundation of close relationships. And when the foundation is threatened, we feel destabilized. I really thought I knew them.

I really understand this defense of Khodu. The truth is that no one is automatically asking you to hang your friend over the accusations of a random person, or believe the worst things about them. That isn’t feminism, and it isn’t the feminist MO. But what is terribly problematic is the way we are shaming and vilifying the person making the allegations. It is wrong and harmful to make comments about the character of accusers/victims. Calling them sluts or liars has a huge effect on the way victims are treated. It makes it difficult for victims to open up about traumatic experiences – which is difficult enough as it is. It renders impossible any meaningful discourse on the topic of sexual harassment and assault. And it helps patriarchy deepen, for a rape culture to flourish. It is crippling. Bringing awareness to the pervasiveness of patriarchy, working towards solutions, protecting victims. THIS is feminism, the feminist MO.

But this is all easy to forget, and hard to put into practice. For everyone, including me.

When I was in the process of responding to all the various women’s comments on BeingIndian, I found myself fuming on the inside. My hands were shaking as I typed. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they were shaming the women who came out. Defend Khodu, ok, but why go out of your way to shame the victims and defame their character? How do we not understand why victims of abuse have such a hard time coming out? How do we ever have a meaningful discourse if WOMEN turn on other WOMEN? These intelligent, educated, women…are a part of the problem.

A few tumultuous hours later, it dawned on me. These women aren’t the problem. They are the symptoms of an intensely pervasive rape culture. It has permeated so deep, that it has seeped into the hearts, minds, and bodies of women. They’ve bought into it. They propagate it. And this is what a rape culture looks like.

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How did we get here?

Through a steady brainwashing. Like hunks of clay, we are passed from sculptor to sculptor, continually shaped and reshaped. For us, who were molded by patriarchy, the shaping was imperceptible, but just as assiduous and very thorough. It began when we were old enough to have thoughts, emotions and beliefs. Our bodies were policed by women in school. We never had autonomy over our own bodies; we gave that control to someone else before we even knew what autonomy was. Bloomers checked, bras too. We were treated differently that our brothers. Our mothers had an even shorter stick than we did. We were deprived of opportunities to develop self-awareness, the ability to control our own selves, and to make our own choices. We define ourselves in relation to the people (read: men) in our lives. We are daughters and wives – at home, and formally, on our passports. Passed along from one man to the next. Always the clay, never the sculptors. That’s how we live.

And what did we learn?

Not much. We learned about our physical selves clinically. And about our political selves through clinical “civics” and “history” lessons. We didn’t learn about the politics of our bodies, and our rights over them. Everything seemed distant and inapplicable to us, even though it isn’t. The Indian education taught us about intercourse: biological, life-sustaining sexual intercourse. But not how to consent to it. Never sexuality. Not consent, which is such a key aspect of sex and sexuality – a glaring omission from our country’s sex education program. We never studied socially constructed gender. Never patriarchy.

We got all our lessons about sexuality, sex and love from T.V. – not Indian television shows, might I add. We were a generation that grew up on Friends, Gilmore Girls and How I Met Your Mother. And that’s where we got our “education”. We glamourized sex without fully understanding it. We developed unrealistic standards.

And so, we lost our virginities at 16, at 17 – not recognizing the power dynamics at play, not fully understanding why that isn’t really consent. We couldn’t tell our mothers – because I mean…come on.

And so, we encourage our drunk girlfriends to go home with that guy who seems like not-a- creep, even though she’s clearly in no position to consent to anything that happens.

We act as wing-women for our male friends, and encourage them to pick up hammered chicks. We ourselves have had sex with someone when we were too “wasted” to remember their names, let alone consent to it.

Not glamourous at all.

We learned what rape was, and strategies to protect ourselves from all the rapists “out there”. But we were never taught about the minutiae of harassment. How you are most likely to be sexually harassed or assaulted by someone you know. Your uncle at that family gathering, your parents’ family “friend”, your pal in college – the dude that gets “handsy” when he drinks too much. This is rape culture. But we didn’t learn what that even was. We never learned how to identify it. No one taught us how insidious it is, how pervasive. How suffocating. How you just cannot escape it.

And then there’s Indian pop culture. Bollywood, notably (and unsurprisingly) defined our perceptions of the world. Bollywood celebrates, encourages and profits off subjugating and degrading women. We grew up in the age of “Roadside Romeos” –  who are nothing but really creepy dudes, inspired by the quintessential Bollywood lover. Every “hero” we loved and idolized played some version of this horrific stalker – and we romanticized it. In fact, we glamourized sexual harassment and stalking (in particular), so much that we don’t even recognize it as “harassment”. Think of all those “no means yes” courtships that are all too familiar Bollywood tropes. “Yeh uska style hoinga, hoton pe na dil mein haan hoinga.”  All those movies where the male protagonist “wins” the heart of female love interest – by wearing her down. Criminally lurking, stalking, chasing, “eve-teasing”.

In the age of the internet, these Roadside Romeos have infiltrated our private spaces – they send unsolicited messages on Facebook, tell you how “saxy and buitful” you are in your Instagram. We laugh off “frandship requests”. And sure, sometimes the best (read: only) way to deal with this is laughing at it. But we can’t lose sight of the significance and broader implications and meanings of misogynistic behavior of this sort. It contributes to the entrenchment of a rape culture. A rape culture is in the small things.  

Lurking, and stalking are crimes under the Indian Penal Code. But when we are at the receiving end of this type of behavior, we shrug it off as “part of being a woman”. We don’t really feel as though our bodies, our sacred spaces, are violated by transgressions such as these. And even if we do, we don’t pursue them further/use legal remedies for these types of offences. Some part of this is because our legal system moves at a glacial pace, at best. And so, it isn’t worth the time, effort, or money. But for the most part, because we fear other things. “Society” things.  That they’ll blame us. They’ll say we lied. That we should have spoken up earlier…That the cops won’t take us seriously if we report these crimes. Casual misogyny and cat-calling are, of course, “petty things” that are “bound to happen.” This is rape culture. This is how sexual assault is normalized. 

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We let these “petty things” slide, because we know that the whole system is skewed against us. And we wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that, honestly. Want to know what rape culture looks like when it becomes the norm? It can literally become the law. And that is just…terrifying. Take for example, the recent Delhi High Court ruling in the Farooqui case. Recent court decisions (and this case is no exception) haven’t inspired any confidence in their understanding of key concepts that are used to protect the less powerful (in this case, women) in cases of assault, and even rape. Consent is one of these protective cornerstones. Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui was accused of rape by an American postgraduate student, when she was visiting his house in Delhi. In overturning the trial court’s decision, the Delhi High court turned the concept of consent on its head.

Along with some light victim-blaming (the victim is “academically proficient”, so the rules are different for her), the court said that a feeble no may mean yes. This is bizarre, at best. At worst (and in actuality), it is a glaring example of rape culture – an absolute misunderstanding of what consent means.

Legally, consent has to be unequivocal. The Indian Penal Code, defines consent as “an unequivocal voluntary agreement when the woman by words, gestures or any form of verbal or non-verbal communication, communicates willingness to participate in the specific sexual act.”

Consent cannot be obtained through coercion. It has to be given of one’s free will, and when they are fully capable of making the decision. This is why people who have had too much to drink are unable to “consent” to sexual behavior. Their judgment is impaired, and they may not understand the consequences of their actions.

Past consent is irrelevant. Just because a person has consented to sex once, it doesn’t mean they have unequivocally consented to all future sexual advances. This is not just true of actual sexual intercourse, but all acts of a sexual nature. Basically, consent cannot be presumed, in any circumstance. So, it follows that even marriage does not give rise to a presumption of consent for sex. Somehow, we just don’t seem to get that. Marriage = sex whenever, wherever! Marital rape seems like such an oxymoron that we don’t even have a discourse on it.

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All this is rape culture. A culture of dominating and controlling women – body and mind. It thrives on patriarchy – from which it grows, and on which it feeds. While in many cases in India, it can be shockingly egregious, it is especially dangerous when it is insidious. When it bubbles under the surface, like boiling hot molten lava. When your underwear is checked by the school establishment. That 15-year-old who followed you home when you were 13, asked your building watchman where you lived, and so you changed the route you took home. Those creepy messages in your social media inboxes. The rickshaw guy that can’t take his eyes off your cleavage in the rearview mirror of his auto. The terribly misogynistic jokes that spread like wildfire on Whatsapp. Judgmental gynecologists who shame us for wanting to take our sexual and reproductive health in our hands. A local establishment giving out awards for “best breasts”. Husbands we “chose” insisting on sex even if it hurts, or burns. Being denied the ability to work after we get married. From casual sexism and quotidian harassment to mammoth illogic perpetuated by our country’s justice system – we are all living a rape culture. We are buying into it, and perpetuating it. Each and every one of us.

Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s prime ourselves for recognizing the signs – no matter how small. And then let’s work on changing things that are in our control – starting with ourselves.

PS: And though consent can be complicated, here’s an awesome and super instructive video that may help clarify consent better. And an effective take down of the rubbish and illogical Farooqui judgment by the Quint.

PPS: Sheena Dabholkar has started #Sodonechilling to raise awareness about abuse and harassment, and promoting safe spaces. Follow them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sodonechilling/