Um So We Have A Group Assignment And A Person I Already Hold Bias Against (despite Being A Friend *sigh*

songs and their stories

Did you feel the way I did, when Leith Ross said, ‘oh, what a wonderful feeling, to own and operate your life; oh, what a terrible burden, all my decisions are mine’? Like an eighteen year old child, a twenty one year old toddler; forever young; like a duckling imprinting on the first person it sees; like a sea turtle – just knowing your home is the sea, knowing you’ll be hunted the moment you break free; like wandering into a brand new city, like learning how to swim for the first time – a sudden shove, a lightning fast pull, static; like the taste of freedom, once sweet, turning into ash the more you realize accountability is yours, and yours only; like the world is too big, and at your feet; like a carousal – the feeling of wind rushing making you want to spin spin spin spin- ignoring the nausea rising; like wanting to dance in the rain, but unwilling to leave the warmth of the hearth keeping you cozy.  

Did it make you think the way it made me, when James Bay said, ‘tell me how to be in this world; tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt; tell me how could I believe in something’, and John Legend said, ‘I try to do the things, I say that I believe’? Like swimming upstream; like rolling the stone till you reach the peak, only to meet another hill; like wanting to change the world one droplet at a time, knowing life is too short for you see it become an ocean; like having faith in the flutter of tiny wings, if the butterfly effect is simply a myth, your existence would lose all meaning; like you’re watching the world from the sofa, popcorn shamefully at your feet when you need a break from the bloody, gory documentary; like knowing too much, wishing you were little; like a throat sore from screaming, hoping you could make someone else see; like falling falling falling, not knowing if there is an upwards from the rock bottom beneath your feet; like breathing in icy cold air, existence akin to slow ruin; like the sweat from holding onto someone’s hand for far too long - clammy, icky, safety.

 -kpm ©

I laugh at how redundant people sound when they whine about how youth nowadays get offended by everything and anything. Don’t get me wrong, laughter isn’t the only things it arouses, it also boils my blood to no end.

Youth nowadays don’t get offended over everything and anything, they get angry over things that matter- things that were once brushed away and ignored, things that ought to be taken into consideration, things that are considered deviant from the “norm” and hence not acknowledged or spoken about. Of course people would become angry if you preached about loving your family no matter what, despite what they say to you or despite how they treat you, when there are kids being verbally, physically and emotionally abused by their family members. Of course people would become angry if you automatically assumed everyone in your class was cissexual and heterosexual when being queer isn’t a hidden fact. Of course people would become angry if you spoke about sin and religion in a subjective manner, thereby erasing and refusing to validate non-believers; if your faith is important to you, then their faith is important to them. Of course people would become angry if you joked about and used terms which were used and is still being used to oppress and perpetuate prejudice against marginalized groups/communities.

It’s not about being “politically correct”, it’s about understanding that different people come from different backgrounds, different social groups and different statuses with different experiences and different histories. It’s about acknowledging the fact that language has been used as a tool to oppress, demean and discriminate against people for years and years. It’s about knowing that “normal” doesn’t exist and speaking only about what is considered a societal “norm” would obviously ignite backlash and anger.  

You may call it being sensitive, you may call it being a social justice warrior, you may call it being a buzzkill (keeping the last one for later), but what I don’t understand is why you use those terms in a pejorative manner. What’s so wrong with being sensitive to other people’s hardships and feelings? What’s so wrong in wanting to fight for social justice? What’s so wrong in not laughing at something that’s not supposed to be funny in the first place?

You call it being a buzzkill, I call it having a good sense of humor.

 Why are you so offended when someone calls you out? Why do you take it as personal offense/attack when someone tells you your joke wasn’t funny, but bigoted? Why do you get riled up when someone calls you discriminatory? Who’s the snowflake here?

It was always offensive, now people just have the confidence to call out your bullshit and a support system to back them up when they do so.  

Function and Mechanism of Patriarchy in the Play

Before beginning my essay, I would like to add a warning, since it talks about matters that might be triggering to some - such as sexual harassment and rape.

Everything, from the clothes we wear to the work we do is gendered; the way we talk, the way we sit, what we study, what we don't study is all gendered. Gender roles and norms dictate our actions, define our personality and act as a moral rulebook for the society. All this is supported and perpetuated by a system of oppression, widely common and sadly normalised by all of us. Patriarchy, to put simply, is - "a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it"; it ranges from sexist microaggressions, such as jokes about how women belong in the kitchen and how women can't drive, to violent misogynistic acts such as female foeticide and honor killings.

Girls are taught to be quiet, to not talk until spoken to, to make their presence unknown and to shrink themselves to fit into society, so that they grow up to "wife material". The conditioning they undergo since childhood grooms them to be the "perfect wife" - obedient, subservient and aquiscent. But marriage is nothing but a patriarchal system created to benifit men and suppress women. Dowry deaths are far too common in our country, and even though it is supposedly illegal, people still demand for dowry. This becomes a reason for families to consider girl children a burden which results in female foeticide and infanticide. What is heartbreaking is the fact that women are made to believe that they're at fault for giving birth to a girl child, they're forced to believe that they themselves are a burden to their family and thus, their daughters are too.

Domestic abuse and marital rape are forms of violence that millions of women face daily after moving in with their husband. What is not surprising, but extremely disappointing is the fact that marital rape is still not recognised as a crime, as rape, by the Indian constitution. As if the possibility of women filing false cases against their husband has to be given more consideration than the torture women are forced to go through daily, as if men deserve more protection from false rape cases than the women who're survivors of marital rape. In olden times, what defined the status of a man, or what proved his masculinity was the control he held over his 'zan' (woman) and the 'zamin' (land), both which were considered his property. The same mindset has continued to the present times, in the sense that after marriage, women are considered property of their husband, she has no body autonomy, no right to consent, and since anything done to a person's own property isn't considered a crime, marital rape isn't considered a crime because wives are nothing but objects used to satisfy their husband's needs.

In 'Kamala', we see how angry Jaisingh gets when Sarita tells him to stop his sexual advances. He calls her derogatory terms because according to him, since she was his wife, it was her duty to have sex with him. Jaisingh doesn't consider his wife an equal, she is not treated with any respect, instead she's treated like a personal assistant, an unpaid personal assistance who exists only to obey and serve him. She is nothing more than a trophy wife, someone whom he shows off like a prize at parties and then treat like an object at home. For all his talk about exposing the sex trafficking industry and saving those women, he doesn't treat his wife much better than a slave. The hypocrisy is astounding.

Kakasaheb is no better. When Sarita talks to him about her plans to expose her husband because she can no longer stand to be treated that way, her uncle tells her that he's a man, and thus, it's normal for him to act that way - it's her responsibility to adjust, sacrifice and obey. He even proudly talks about how he ill-treated his own wife because of his male ego, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with how men treat their wives, but seeing something very wrong in the way Sarita wants to stand up for herself.

The way Jaisingh treats his maid, Kamalabhai is a different story, extremely disrespectful and cocky. When we talk about the patriarchy, it's impertinent that we talk about how the patriarchy oppresses women of different social standings differently. Kamala is oppressed in a certain way which is different from the way Kamalabhai is oppressed and different from the way Sarita is oppressed. The way domestic workers are treated in Indian households is shameful and disgusting. Nivedita Menon, in her book, 'Seeing Like A Feminist' states that, "The callousness of the Indian middle classes towards their ‘servants’ outdoes the worst excesses of feudalism. The polite term ‘domestic help’ that has replaced the word ‘servant’ in public usage is perniciously misleading. Make no mistake—these are servants. They are treated as less than human, less than pet animals. Apart from facing physical and sexual abuse—which is common—domestic workers perform heavy unrelenting toil, for they have no specific work hours if live-in; no days off or yearly vacations if part-time. Not to mention the routine humiliation that is their due. Several times now, I have noticed in Delhi restaurants the truly appalling sight of young women who are clearly maids in charge of toddlers, standing throughout the meal that their employers are consuming, ready to take charge of the baby at any point, and not being offered so much as a glass of water."

When Kakasaheb tells Jaisingh that he'll drink his tea along with Sarita so that Kamalabhai wouldn't have to do double the work, Jaisingh brushes it away and tells him that it's Kamalabhai's job to serve them - he has absolutely no concern for her wellbeing. He is a sexist, classist chauvinist who cares only about his name and his fame.

Partriachy doesn't just effect housewives and domestic workers, it effects working women too. The glass ceiling and the wage gap aren't myths, contrary to popular sexist claims. The percentage of women in STEM related subjects is very low, not because their brain is wired in a different way or because they're incapable of logical thinking, but because their entire life they've been made to believe that they are not good enough for the STEM field. Add onto it the discrimination they face by men in their workplace, and its no wonder many women who were toppers discontinue or not go for work at all. Sexual harassment at their workplace is another huge problem women face. Male employers many a time force female employees to do them "favors" for a promotion, threatening them with the possibility of getting fired if they don't listen. In the entertainment/film industry, the casting couch is a looming threat.

Apart from the discrimination they face at their workplace, women also face a lot of discrimination and set backs on their way - the 'mommy track' which Nivedita Menon talks about in her book, refers to when a woman sets apart the most productive years in her life to look after her children, which results in a slower career track upwards. The onus of looking after the children is put on the mother and the father plays absolutely no role. This is harmful not only to the women, but also to the men, since this is why in most divorce cases, the mother gets custody of the children, even if she's incompetent simply because she's a woman and looking after the children is considered her responsibility.

On the other side of the coin, this puts pressure on women to be mothers, it tells women that being a mother is all that you're good at, so that's what you must become, it is your duty, you get no choice. So even those who aren't fit to be mothers and those who don't want to be mothers, are forced to have children solely because they're women and its considered a women's job.

Kamala pities Jaisingh when Sarita tells her that she's unable to have children. She says that Jaisingh invested a lot in her, but he's not getting much in return. Her point of view is understandable since that was the kind of mindset she was exposed to her entire life. But unfortunately, today's urban society shares a similar mindset. If a couple can't have children, shame on the woman and oh, no, poor man.

Toxic masculinity is another aspect of the patriarchy and of the book. Men are expected to be brutes, they're expected to be insensitive, egotistical people who act as the head of household. Otherwise, they're considered incompetent husbands. Toxic masculinity takes a toll on men and women, mostly because the pressure it puts on men is taken out on the women. We see that in Jaisingh and Kakasaheb's treatment of their wives.

Rape culture being another. Rape culture doesn't refer to a culture in which a lot of rapes take place, but it refers to a culture which normalizes and sexual violence. Not considering marital rape rape is rape culture; catcalling and eve teasing women and girls is rape culture; blaming women for being sexually assaulted by telling them its wcause they were dressing provocatively is rape culture; the belief that men cannot be raped since they're stronger than women is rape culture, and the belief that if a man were to be sexually harassed, he must have enjoyed it since all men are considered to be sexual beings is rape culture; telling a gay person or an asexual person that they can be "turned straight" through violent sex is rape culture.

Patriarchy and Brahmanical Patriarchy go hand in glove. Sati was a practice introduced by Brahmans. Honor killing of women to protect her "purity" and "dignity" was also a practice introduced by Brahmanical patriarchy. Women who're SC, ST or OBC face a triad of oppression - for their caste and their gender, that is a result of Brahmanical patriarchy. For casteism to end, it's cardinal that so does Brahmanical patriarchy, which unfortunately isn't considered an actual issue by most mainstream, savarna feminists.

When we talk about patriarchy, it's all these major things and the microaggressions together. It's when brothers are given an extra fish and sisters are made to clean up after their brother, it's when "boys will be boys" is a scapegoat for men, but "you're a woman/girl, so act like one" puts unnecessary pressure on women to live up to a certain societally constructed standard, it's when heterosexuality is considered compulsory and normal for the purpose of passing on the family name and property and its when the honor of the family is placed on the shoulders of a young girl.

When feminists talk about "smashing the patriarchy", they're referring to dismantling the entire system so that none of these oppressive practices exist. So that we can live in a world where there is equity and justice, where there is no discrimination - a utopian world which unfortunately, cannot be reached anytime soon.

TW : PEDOPHILIA, INCEST, BEASTIALITY, NECROPHILIA (SEX) EROTICA/FANFICTION

wellll, you know how a lot of people read and write erotica about all that, including beastiality, necrophilia etc even when they know and say that it's obviously wrong in real life? Like, how come people read and write such things even when -

1. They agree it's wrong

2. They wouldn't do it nor would they like someone to do it to them

3. Wouldn't watch it

Not talking about survivors in this case, as in, not talking about it as a form of catharsis or something in this case.

And not just that. Like, there are asexual people who read and write and enjoy erotica. Ace people who're sexual acts repulsed in real life.

So this is basically a bigger vaala question - if people wouldn't do it in real life, what makes them enjoy it? I don't know if I'm phrasing it correctly, but yeah.

And how do people feel aroused while reading things like necrophilia erotica when it'll disgust them in real life?

So many questions.

And like, there are fanfiction where one person is a literal child and the other an adult and the author obviously puts a warning, but people read and enjoy that - so many people.

Is it something about the taboo factor that excites them?

And my friend said people who go search for child involving erotica/fanfiction must have mild pedophilic tendencies, so I asked - "But shouldn't that mean that people who go search for and purposely read beastiality, incest (one of the most common) and other taboo vaala erotica have mild those tendencies too? And asexual people who read erotica must have mild those tendencies too? 🤔

It's so confusing and I have so many questions. I'm not looking for a moral judgement, I'm looking for the psychology behind it btw.

how to tell your family you got a boob tattoo :

step #1 - don't.

WHEN IS IT GOJHN YO GET BETTER?! WHEN THE FUCK WILL IT GET BETTER

I can't handle this oh my gosh so much pain, I can't fucking handle this it hurts so so so so much I feel like I want to I want to die eventhough I'm not suicidal

Pleasepleaseplessepleasepleaee oh gosh it hurts so much fuck fu kfu K fuck

I feel so fucking lonely

mesh

I want the kind of love shared by Christina Yang and Meredith Grey; the kind of love shared by friends who’re soulmates; the kind of love where I will never feel like an outsider in my own relationship, no matter what kind it may be; the kind of love where no matter what stupid shit I spout, I will be met with fond exasperation and never scorn or judgement; I want the kind of love where anything problematic I say or do will be received with grace, a space for remorse, and reparation; the kind of love where my quiet, empty days will be accepted, and my boisterous ones appreciated; the kind of love with whom I can get drunk as fuck with without hesitation; the kind of love I feel safe sleeping on their shoulder with; the kind of love for whom I wouldn’t regret giving my all and more to; the kind of love who understands which love language I need to be communicated with on what day; the kind of love where there are no blips in communication; the kind of love where there is no fear of being too much or not enough; the kind of love where I feel I am the exact right amount of me; the kind of love who won’t attach sexual overtones to physical intimacy; the kind of love where my mind immediately hollers their name when I muse about whom to share my writings with because it knows they’d want to read it; the kind of love where we both feel safe and secure showing our most rotten parts to; the kind of love where we both feel safe and secure showing our best parts to; the kind of love that is not romantic and not platonic and not sexual; the kind of love where I can regress when I feel soft; the kind of love where I can rage when I feel small; the kind of love where you choose each other, where you stay decisively, love purposefully; the kind of love you are at home in.

 [p.s- wanting ≠ lacking]

 -kpm ©

it's about time people realised self dx means "I've done intensive research on this, read outsider perspectives and personal experiences with people who have so and so, which is why I genuinely feel like I have so and so" and NOT "I relate to this one symptom, I totally have so and so"

yes, I'm pro-self dx.

Trying so hard to be a person who accepts other people's (difference in) pov without feeling ehem, but don't think it's for me 😳🥺😖

But like always, Imma fake it till I make it or else I'll have no friends hahahahaha