The Battlefield Of A Woman’s Body
Yesterday I heard a true story straight out of school. Just when we start to notice our own body, everyone else does too. Apparently, a pair of lovebirds coochie-cooing in the back benches of the classroom had everyone else hot and bothered. Eighth standard does seem rather young to be making out. But the hormonal teenage years are different for each of us. So different strokes for different folks, I guess (pun entirely unintended!).
A bunch of their classmates got together to ‘end this behaviour as it was making them uncomfortable’. The gossip doing the rounds was that the guy would french-kiss the girl and slide his hand up to places that other people didn’t feel comfortable talking about. What’s funny is that these obviously took place in secluded places. The classmates had no qualms about snooping on the couple and watching them do things that suddenly, curiously they were uncomfortable discussing.
More curiously, their idea to end this went so far as to approach the girl to tell her that her behaviour was not right. Correct me if I’m wrong but it takes two to make out (and several other things), doesn’t it?
It turned out that the girl took a dignified stance that it was no one else’s business (such self-containedness at that age!) but that if bothered people so much, she and her boyfriend would consider toning it down. She was not apologetic but rather proud of the fact that she had something special with another human being. Quite tragically, they broke up a year later when the guy cheated on her.
I wonder how her classmates must have reacted. Given their self-righteous (not to mention chauvinistic) stance earlier, might they not have thought it served her right? Something else that struck me was the girl’s belief that her heart and her body belonged to the love of her life. Adolescence brings out the worst of the dramatics in each of us. Yet, curiously enough, we never really hear a guy say those words of love in that way, do we?
Our bodies seem like nothing more than property for men to have territory disputes over. And the invasions start pretty damn early.
Do you think that the woman might have been approached because, she might be the more sensible amongst the two? or expected to be?. I agree its a gender bias, but somehow when it comes to relationships or even life for that matter, women are considered to take the thoughtful approach, and men a wild one.
@Rambler: Be that as it may, isn’t it unfair moral policing? Girls may mature faster than boys but that is a scientific theory observed over large numbers. At an individual level, it varies. Also, maturity may be in terms of physical development and some emotional ‘settling’ but is that difference really big enough to lay such a huge responsibility squarely on the girl’s shoulders? I don’t think so.
First Point is baseless but I’ll mention it, I am a Man and I can’t read negative thoughts of a women who always describes one side of a coin.
Second point is, accept the fact that Men and Women are made different, Women want Men to bend on their knees and stuff, they want Men to initiate on almost every occasion, be it the bed room or the bills.
I have been cheated on by a girl, cheating is not based on a gender.
may be The group of other students was more friends with the girl than the guy.
And Women’s body a property to men? Well…a couple has one Male and a Female. (property is the word you used)
I totally agree it’s a personal blog and you have a freedom of speech. I just commented which you have a total control on.
BTW I loved other post on the blog. 🙂
@Asif Ahmed: I’m truly sorry to hear about your experience. Cheating sucks, whoever does it. And yes, it’s possible that in the case I talked about the kids felt closer to the girl than the boy. However, the impression I got from my source was that they approached the girl more because they thought ‘it wasn’t the kind of thing that good girls should do’, meaning it was moral policing of the girl with no regard to the boy’s actions. Their double standard is what led to my title. See the last line for a reference.
And again, thank you for sharing your opinion. Like I said earlier, this is an open forum – my voice through my posts and yours through the comments. Keep them coming!
i dnt agree with you.
@Asif Ahmed: Do tell me on what points and exactly why. This is a personal blog but the comments space is open to discussion and differing points of view.
I think that if one treats one’s body and mind as sacred, this wouldn’t happen as much. “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” — Mahatma Gandhi. I’d think that it extends to the physical body as well. Of course, adolescence is a rocky time when hormones overrule sensibility… for most youngsters, possibly.
@Lakshmi: Hmm, I don’t have one firm stance on whether PDA is right or not and what the right age for it should be. Legal adulthood is a good direction to think in, as regards sex. But exploration, experimentation…the fact of the matter is that these are biologically driven and differ across individuals. My real issue is with the two-facedness of a society that attacks the female half of the couple only and lets the male half go scott-free with such thinking as ‘He’s just sowing his wild oats’, ‘Boys will be boys’ etc.
aha.. what a predictable behavior when someone gets cozy..
somehow although I dont like PDA going off to extremes, but external interference also is not a sign of a progressive society
@Arpan Kar: Exactly! And thank you for visiting The Idea-smithy!
Well im impressed ! Damn good. . . . Almost all ‘too early’ relationships end up this way. Am not generalizing it but yes most of them. What fascinates me is how girls manage to get dumped again and again and go through the same process repeatedly. Men can act real good, Yes! We do anything to survive or to get what we want. Thats how we evolved. But how do girls go for the wrong guys and complain later. Once again ‘Wrong’ is an ambiguous word. Let me give u an example : A girl gets dumped by a guy. Girl is single for some time later she falls for another dumper. A friend of mine warns her not to. She tells on my friend who is beaten up by her to be boyfriend. A few months later shes dumped again. TRUE STORY
@Pruthvi Krishna: Cheating is not gender-specific. I know some of those habitual victims that you refer to and they’re not all women. But this post wasn’t about cheating, anyway. I was focusing on how society treats women’s bodies and the disparate attitudes towards the genders when it comes to sex.