How the laws are misused to criminalise romantic love

 [First published in Women’s Web]

In a recent case in Telangana, an 18 year old woman was kidnapped by four men who grabbed her and bundled her into a car while she was walking to a temple with her father. The incident was captured on CCTV, based on which the police were able to identify the perpetrators. In a bizarre twist, however, within a few hours of the abduction, the alleged victim released a short video where she clarified that she had colluded with her lover to stage her own kidnapping to escape being forcibly married to someone else. 

Apparently, the couple had been in a relationship for 4 years, but her family disapproved of the match because he belonged to an oppressed caste. They had tried to get married 10 months earlier too, but since she was still a minor at that time, her family had registered a case under POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012) against him, and after due counselling she had been handed back to her parents. On majority, she staged her own abduction, got married to her lover in a temple and even sought the protection of the police to ensure that her family did not try to forcibly take her back home.

This was one of the rare cases where a minor was able to evade the efforts of her parents to get her married off to a man of their choice till she turned 18 and could legally marry her lover. In most cases, however, parents use a combination of legal threats, physical violence and emotional blackmail to break up relationships they disapprove of. The laws that set the legal age of marriage, and the age of consent were enacted to protect women, but the same laws are often misused to rob women of their agency.

In 1978, the minimum age of marriage for women was set at 18 years, yet it is estimated that nearly 30% of women in India were married before legal age. What this translates into in reality is that when a family wants to marry their daughter before the legal age, they do so with full social sanction, but if an underage woman wants to marry a man of her choice, the parents use the law to break up the union. Anecdotally, we hear of many cases where families get their minor daughters married off immediately on finding out about a relationship that they deem unsuitable. The law against child marriage is, therefore, used to target intercaste, interfaith and other relationships deemed unsuitable.

In the aftermath of the protests following the Nirbhaya case, the age of consent for both genders was raised from 16 to 18 years, and even consensual sexual relationships are deemed to be a criminal offence under POCSO. When the family of a minor comes to know of her relationship with a man deemed unsuitable for her, they threaten to register a case under POCSO against her lover, even if he too is of the same or similar age as her. This is a powerful threat, because the punishment for non-consensual sex can extend upto 10 years particularly if the man is an adult. The sexual autonomy of adolescents is therefore taken away from them by criminalising consensual sex involving minors.

On analysing all the registered cases of rape in Delhi in 2014, a study found that of the 40 % of them were actually cases of consensual sex, where the parents of the woman disapproved of the man and charged him with rape. Though, eventually, these cases do not result in conviction, the accused goes through a lot of emotional and financial stress, and often gets falsely branded as a criminal. This parental criminalisation of consensual sexual relationships is a gross misuse of a law that was brought in for a very different purpose.

In India, where adolescent sexuality is frowned upon and inter-caste, inter-faith and inter-community relationships are strongly discouraged, these laws serve as weapons in the hands of parents who want to control the romantic relationships of their children. The same parents who are willing to violate the law to get their daughters married to a man of their choice before she turns 18, use the same laws to accuse the man their daughter loves of statutory rape. The law, unfortunately, does not recognise the difference between a consensual and a non-consensual relationship.

This was brought to the forefront in a case brought before the Madras High Court in 2019 after a lower court had convicted a 19 year old man of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 17 year old woman, despite her testimony that it was a consensual relationship. After reviewing her testimony and noting both the lack of evidence and the family’s intent to conduct an arranged marriage, in a landmark ruling, the High Court overruled the decision of the lower court. The judges also opined that given the fact that the age from 16 to 18 years is one of peak adolescent sexuality, the age of consent should be lowered to 16 to decriminalise adolescents in a consensual relationship.

In light of the fact that the laws that are meant to protect young women are actually used to deny her sexual and romantic autonomy, there is a need to take a relook at the laws and to ensure that they do not end up denying young people their rights.

How Manosphere is Radicalizing Young Men

[First published in Women’s Web as Why Andrew Tate’s unprovoked attack on Greta Thunberg shows growing insecurity in men]

Two days after Christmas, former Kickboxing World Champion and ‘manosphere’ influencer, Andrew Tate decided to take a random dig at environmental activist , Greta Thunberg on Twitter-

“Hello Greta Thunberg. I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”, he tweeted to his 3.4 million followers.

Twenty four hours later, when the unprovoked post started going viral with over 182K likes and 23.8K retweets, Greta Thunberg gave a fitting reply -

“yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com”.

Though both posts had roughly the same number of views, Thunberg’s putdown garnered over 2.5M likes and 500 K retweets, with people calling it the greatest burn of all times.

An enraged Tate then went ballistic. He first responded with “How dare you”, then tried an extremely puerile-

Beyond the smooth comeback, Greta Thunberg maintained a dignified silence, but Tate continued interacting with his fans indicated that Thunberg needed to be f***ed by Tate, and he saying that she wasn’t ready for him yet. All round it was a pathetic display of immature taunting, insecure boasting and gross male entitlement. That the unprovoked taunting and the subsequent meltdowns took place so publicly also opens up a debate on the corrosive influence that such ‘manosphere’ influencers might have on adolescents and young men who are struggling to find their place in the world and articulate their views on gender.

Tate is probably the best known voice in ‘manosphere’, a virtual space where men allegedly talk about “men’s issues” like fitness, dating, relationships, finance, and father’s rights. While all these are important topics and men certainly need a supportive ecosystem where they can discuss them, ‘manosphere’ doesn’t stop at offering guidance and support. The ‘manosphere’ actively promotes an anti-woman and anti-feminist ideology, where establishing the inherent superiority of men seems more important than helping young men negotiate a world which is striving towards gender equity.

Tate, for instance, describes himself as “absolutely a sexist” and “absolutely a misogynist,” and has gone on record saying that women “belong in the home” and that they are “given to the man and belong to the man.” He promotes a lifestyle that promotes the traditional form of masculinity which describes the male as protector, provider and patriarch, and restricts the role of woman to property which exists only to serve the man. He has, in the past, been removed from a reality show after a video surfaced of him hitting a woman, and he was recently de-platformed from many social media platforms for his extreme misogynistic views. Parents and educators are concerned about the growing popularity of ‘manosphere’ influencers like Andrew Tate, and have expressed their fear that by endorsing male superiority, they are radicalizing young men and challenging the struggle towards gender equity.

With more women asserting their right to greater gender parity at home and in the workplace, men are starting to feel that they are in danger of losing their social status and privilege. The demand for equality challenges privilege, and instead of embracing a more equitable world, many young men are starting to believe that feminism is a part of a global assault on masculinity. ‘Manosphere’ influencers like Andrew Tate work on the insecurities of these men and convince them that feminism will ensure they are emasculated, disposable, disrespected, discarded or even forgotten. They then radicalise the men with their clarion call towards reclaiming their “lost” masculinity and reasserting masculine sexual, physical and emotional authority over women.

This is an extremely worrying phenomenon, because in the guise of empowering them, ‘manosphere’ influencers like Tate are actually radicalising young men. Young men are being taught that it is weak to express emotions, that they are failures unless they have a subservient girlfriend, and that ‘real men’ have the right to exercise coercive control and inflict sexual and physical abuse on women. These radicalised young men feel threatened when women (and men) speak of gender equity, and perceive women’s empowerment as an erosion of their masculine superiority. For them, feminists are the enemy and feminism is ideology to be fought. Their belief of male dominance and female subservience is at odds with the quest for gender parity.

The ‘manosphere’ ideology can only be countered by a two-pronged approach.

Social media platforms should actively prevent the dissemination of problematic views expressed by Tate and other ‘manosphere’ influencers like him. While one can argue that censoring certain kind of content goes against the premise of free speech, it must be realised that freedom of expression cannot extend to hate speech, and extreme misogyny is a form of hate speech. Routine offenders like Tate should be de-platformed, and the reach of their old videos should be restricted.

In the long term, however, the only counter is through behaviour change communications. It is not sufficient that girls and women are empowered, it is equally important to enable boys and men to find their place in a society moving towards greater gender equity.

In a gender just world, men and women are the natural allies of each other. Young men should be empowered to understand that while it may appear that their privileges are being taken away, in reality, equity will enable people of all genders to be themselves instead of being forced to confirm to gender demarcated roles.

While Twitterati largely swooned over Greta Thunberg and the befitting response she gave Andrew Tate when he launched an unprovoked attack on her, his core group of followers still enjoyed how he “put her in her place”. This radicalisation of young men is not healthy, and needs to be recognised and countered.

“Thank you for confirming via your email address that you have a small penis. The world was curious. And I do agree you should get a life”, while also releasing a video of himself smoking a cigar and describing Thunberg as “a slave to the Matrix”

Sexual Curiosity Is ‘Normal’ In Teens So Let’s Discuss The Real ‘Issue’ Here!

 [First published in Women's Web.]

When schools in Bangalore conducted surprise checks of the bags of students to see if they were bringing cell phones to school, they were in for a nasty surprise.

As this report in the Deccan Herald says, “In addition to cell phones, they found condoms, oral contraceptives, cigarettes, lighters and whiteners in the bags of students of grades 8, 9 and 10. To their credit, the school authorities handled the situation with maturity- instead of suspending the students, they informed the parents and/ or guardians and advised them to seek counselling for their wards.”

Schools, parents and society is shocked, but what is the real issue here?

People are, understandably shocked to find out that adolescents in the age group 12 to 15 years are potentially indulging in sexual intercourse. People largely fall into four camps–

• Those that say that today’s youth are morally degenerate, and call for lesser freedom and greater policing
• Those that recognise that if adolescents are indulging in sexual intercourse, it is good that they are using contraceptives which protect against both pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases
• Those that say that neither school authorities nor parents (and/ or guardians) have the right to check the contents of school bags, and that it constitutes a gross invasion of privacy
• But the largest camp is of parents of teenagers and pre-teenagers who are shaken up to find that adolescents of the same age as their own children are sexually active. Most of the people who fall into the earlier three camps are not themselves parents (or are parents of grown up children and so not directly affected), and therefore can take an intellectual/ moral stand.

Is my child also sexually active without me even suspecting it? This is the time for children to study- how do I prevent it from happening in my home? What can I do differently to ensure that my child confides in me? Are just some of the questions that they are plagued with.

We prefer to moralise and brush issues under the carpet

The main issue here is not one of morals- biology dictates that after attaining puberty, the body is ready to perform its reproductive functions. Sexual attraction to the same or opposite sex, curiosity about the sexual act, and the desire to experiment are all built into humans, and it is only social norms around virginity and fidelity that assigns moral values to sexual curiosity and sexual chastity. The larger issue, therefore, is the lack of formal sex education in schools and an environment where one can have healthy discussions about safe and unsafe sex at home.

As a nation, we like to pretend that if we ignore an issue, it will go away. Nowhere is that more evident than in case of matters pertaining to sex and relationships. We look away when children complain of being sexually abused by relatives and friends. We ignore the sexual, physical and mental abuse inflicted on women by their partners. We think that if we do not discuss sex, our children will remain ignorant of it. Nothing could be further from the truth, and children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults pay the price for this head in the sand approach.

We fail to teach our children about “good touch” and “bad touch” because we think they are too young to understand. Yet, children as young as three are victims of sexual abuse. The probability of preventing child sexual abuse, or at least nipping it before it goes too far, is increased if we provide the appropriate vocabulary to our children and create a non-judgmental space for them to articulate their concerns.

Women are forced to continue in abusive relationships, because of lack of support from families, friends and the larger community.

Formal sex education is such a necessity!

But perhaps the worst affected by this silence are the adolescents. At a time when they are naturally curious, there is great reluctance on the part of parents and teachers to discuss sex. Even the chapters on reproductive biology in text books are quicky glossed over, with no time given over to answering questions. In the absence of formal sex education, adolescents often turn to pornography or log onto online forums to seek answers to the questions they want to ask. This not only leaves them with incomplete information on contraception and safe sex, it occasionally compromises their safety and puts them in extremely vulnerable positions.

Formal sex education will, additionally, discuss consent. Bollywood movies glorify stalking behaviour and have heros who persist in “wooing” the heroine despite several rejections. An adolescent who learns about relationships through Bollywood movies cannot be blamed for thinking that “no” merely means “try harder next time”. However, once sex education is brought into the classroom, after screening videos like the ‘consent is like tea’ one there can be discussions on the nuances of consent. Adolescents of all genders will learn to draw lines and to respect the lines drawn by their partners. This cannot happen if sex is relegated to a dark and shameful corner of the room- the atmosphere in school and at home should be non-judgemental for adolescents to talk about the issues that they are perplexed by.

We need solution oriented thinking to make it safer and less traumatic to sex curious youngsters

Apart from knowing about consent and contraceptives, there is a third reason why it is critical to have honest and non-judgemental discussions with adolescents- the legal framework where even consensual sex with a minor can be treated as a criminal offence. The POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act, 2012 which was introduced to protect children from sexual abuse clearly defines a child as anyone below the age of 18, and clearly fixes the age of consent as 18 years. According to the provisions of the Act, anyone under the age of 18 cannot give consent, and therefore any act of sexual intercourse with or among adolescents is treated on par with rape.

This law is often misused by parents of minors to break up relationships by bringing a false charge of rape against the person with whom their daughter is in a consensual sexual relationship. Though these cases have been challenged in the court and the rate of acquittal is high it is still an extremely traumatic situation for both partners. The minor girl is branded as the victim of rape, and has to go through the trauma of repeated cross questioning. The male partner is branded a criminal, is often kept in police custody for a short or long period of time, and goes through a harrowing experience till acquittal.

In the absence of an environment where adolescents can freely discuss sexual relationships with non-judgemental adults, it is unlikely that they learn about the legal framework which criminalizes even consensual relationships.

It has to be recognised that older adolescents are curious about sex, and have the right to explore consensual sexual relationships. If the age of consent remains 18, not only is the sexual relationship being criminalised, the young woman will struggle to find access to support in case of an unwanted pregnancy. The only long term solution to this is to press for legal reform, so the age of consent is reduced from 18 to 16, so the POCSO act serves the purpose for which it was created- to protect minors, instead of enabling their criminalisation.

This incident has thrown up a number of issues that need to be discussed, and one hopes that instead of taking firm stands, the various stakeholders talk about themselves, and do what is best for adolescents.