| Saturday, December 23, 2006 |
| Judging a man who is too shocked by a threesome |
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This is a letter I wrote to Cary Tennis of Salon.com, who writes the column -- Since You Asked. Please do read the original column by clicking here before you read on.
Re: My boyfriend freaked out because I had a threesome
Dear Cary,
I have been a reader of Since You Asked for more than 7 years, and I have been provoked to reply to anything you or your predecessor wrote very rarely. Because, whether I agree with your final solution or not, there has always been a balance, and I think you lost that in your reply to the Threesome letter.
When I read "this guy is nuts" in the first line, I thought that it was a natural way to take the extreme view on one side, and then talk from the other side in the second part of your letter. However, there was no second part to it!
Let me tell you a bit about myself. I am in India, have moved from a little Christian-dominated village in India (yes, we have such villages here) to a Christian dominated town, then to a Hindu dominated town, then to Bombay where no religion matters, and then to Delhi where all religions and all cultures matter and all are at each other's throats in a sometimes threatening, sometimes cute, way. So at any time of my life, I have been variously accused of being too conservative, too liberal, too amoral, too moralistic, too Western, too Indian, and judgemental - the entire gamut. One thing I have learnt from all is that despite my own personal beliefs, and sometimes strong disapproval of what I see around me, I never judge the ones who are more liberal or more conservative than me in such harsh terms. I never say they are nuts. I just move away.
Looking at the responses to your advice in TableTalk, I suspect you live in a more or less uniform cultural environment. In that environment, what the majority believe is right. In many ways, from my experience, the tyranny of extreme libertarians is no different from the tyranny of extreme fundamentalists. I have seen both, and I believe the pressure both subject you to is the same. Yes, this guy thinks having a threesome is an unforgivable act. But all he has done is think like he belongs to 1950 AD. That is a sin only in the liberal theology. What if he belonged to 2050 AD's value systems and morals - and believed that sexual fidelity is a disease? Truth is, even 2006's values differ heavily depending on your peer group and location and cultural environment, and we are nobody to judge the values of the past or the future.
My stand on the topic: He is as right or wrong as she is when he freaks out over a threesome.
From her letter, it seems she thinks he has all these rights and wrongs. And I am sure she has her rights and wrongs too, and a threesome is a right. Who am I, or him, to question her on that? And who is she, or you, to question him on his beliefs? What you do when two people have incompatible beliefs is to understand the situation, see if you want to come to a compromise (if it is even possible) and if not, walk away holding your head high. His shock is only as big as her shock might be if he believes in ritual deflowering of teenage girls due to some obscure religion he might follow.
Yes, of course he has gone nuts in his reaction. That is what happens, and might happen, to anyone if they find that the person who chose to live with is too modern, or too conservative, or too cannibalistic, or too vegan, for your own tastes. People freaking out is no evil. Advise her to let him put his freak on, think about her situation carefully, and act on her decision. Let him live his life his way. After, who knows if tomorrow, the real Gods would come down and tell us that those who have not had an orgy do not qualify to commune with universe? Or that sex with a furry animal is necessary to wipe away the impurity of sex with humans?
PS. There is always the possibility that the guy is using it to emotionally gain an upper hand over his girlfriend. If that is the case, she has to leave him, just the same as if they come to the conclusion that he can't accept his girlfriend's past. In any case, a bit more understanding is called for, out of sympathy for a fast diminishing minority he represents. |
| posted by a correspondent @ 1:03 AM |
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