The Pickle Post

by Isha Singh Sawhney on 28 Sep 2009

Words /Peaches
Recently, I indulged in some much needed closet cleaning. Along with umpteen love letters, forlorn valentine cards, preserved chocolate wrappers and dried flowers and tickets from god-alone-knows what movie/coffee date, I also stumbled upon a diary I had when I was thirteen. Flipping through the angst ridden, preteen musing encased within the pages, I was enveloped in fits of giggles when I came across reams and reams of scribbled notes, descriptions and poems about my then crush.

She (yes she), in all her alabaster white, tall and bony beauty. Her long ebony black poker straight hair, brown eyes and perfect figure seemed to have been the topic of a majority of the pages, and my imagination then.

My obsession, which supplemented itself in the form of quite a few letters, Peeping Tom-esque voyeurism, ferreting gifts away for her and embossing her name in whitener and markers alike, were, however the subject of much ridicule. Actually, let me rephrase. Being in an all-girls boarding school, despite the opposite sex presenting itself to us on and off, there were quite a few like me who harboured feelings such as these. ‘Girl crushes’ I believe is the term given to them.

Same Same but Different
Taking into consideration the intensity of my feelings at that point of time, many I know, had quite a few well-deserved doubts about my sexual preferences. And I, prompted on by my mischievous mind, coupled with reasonable amounts of boredom, would take to entertaining myself by “tricking” girls into kissing me on my lips.

Today, however with vociferous feelings for the opposite sex, and a slew of healthy (and unhealthy) heterosexual relationships, I have finally come to understand these bi-sexual tendencies that haunt most women. Many have spoken about it too. Sigmund Freud talked about such ‘crushes’, saying most people have bi tendencies at some point or the other of their lives. While urban legend has it that all women have bisexual tendencies, and some have even said that all women are three martinis away from a same-sex encounter.

I disagree.

Kiss and Don’t Tell
This kissing-on-lips act continues today too. Usually post the first two glasses of wine. But a lot of girls kiss each other on the lips – to which a lot of men call for encores. But it’s mostly because women are closer both emotionally and physically, more evolved in their comfort levels with each other, and this is also just an act of sisterly love, sans the muscle-baring, testosterone-infused affections of men.

Child psychologist, Nikhat Grewal says a lot of the capping on bisexuality is societal also. “For women it’s so much easier to fall into it. You’re both sleeping on the same bed, laughing fooling around. It’s so simple to kiss a girl on her lips. You love your best friend. For men it’s completely different. They’re way more repressed. In the midst of all their back slapping bonhomie, they find it difficult to even hug.”

But we’re not here to discuss sisterly love. We are here to talk about the ‘in-betweens’, people who have too many choices, people who can’t decide, who want to have their ‘cake and cream too’. In search of our sexual identity we have all experimented, like I did. While many bi-curious, act on their curiosity early in life, for most it’s just a sense of wonderment of the “other”. Having had sex all their lives with only the opposite sex, it’s more a what-if situation that plagues them.

Anurag Misra, the practising psychologist at Max Hospital remembers Freud at times like this. “Freud says we’re all constitutionally bisexual. It’s during the phase of development that we undergo the Oedipus complex and tend to favour one sex over the other.” However, India, says Anurag has always had homosexual and bi-relationships. “It’s the West that loves putting tags on these things. We don’t categorise on the basis of sexuality, but we do on the basis of caste. Things are changing here though and we’ve also adopted this very Western Oprah Winfrey-ish way of ‘letting it all hang out’”.

Flex for all you are worth
With all the complexities that have arisen, it’s socially acceptable for people in their search for self-identity to look for shades of grey. We are no longer measurable just by the Kinsley scale – that decided people’s homo/hetero/bi tendencies on a scale of one to six. Lines are more blurred and more ambiguous. Bi-sexuality, also known as pansexual, omnisexual, anthrosexual, and pomosexual is all about both sexes, and refers to an all/omni/pan attraction. Bis too however, must make a preference, and the latest to join the crop of ambivalence is hetero-flexibility.

Remember Ally Mc Beal and Lilly’s dilemma filled kiss. That is hetero-flexibility – a light hearted attempt to stick with heterosexual identification while still getting in on the fun of homosexual pleasures. In all its ambi-sexualness I think the word is beautiful, so opposite to the uncomfortably starched – hetero-rigid. The term is open to possibilities without committing to any of one bracket; hetero, homo or bi. In the Orange County, Marrisa Cooper moving past Ryan’s brawny arms to find comfort in Alex’s softer, skinnier ones, actually epitomises the ambivalence of hetero-sexuality.

Anurag puts it all down to penetration. “Sex is a power game. Same sex relationships between women are more on the surface than those amongst men, where there is penetration. It all lies in the question of who is penetrating who. So, it’s just easier for women to experiment with same sex relationships.”

Hetero-sexuality gives you the freedom to explore your choices, so characteristic of the 21st century. I know of two girls, now engaged, who started off in a free-for-all situation; boyfriends, women, men, et al. Slowly as time went by, they realised this was what they really wanted, and today they’re in a happy monogamous, gay relationship. Sometimes however, experiments don’t go all right. One girl who I know personally as being very ‘open’ decided to go the whole distance with a gay girlfriend. The incident left her so traumatised she cried herself to sleep, all night.

Do you swing?
It’s very simple for such complicated feelings to arise. Women appreciate other women, find them sexually attractive, and even sometimes fantasise about being with them. But when push comes to shove, it’s a whole different ball (ha) game. Neck down, the female body is very different from what a hetero-sexual woman is used to, and expects from a sexual encounter.

However, a slew of other encounters haven’t ended so badly. Some girlfriends experiment to break the monotony of their hetero relationships. Some men I know have actively had relationships with women, and occasionally experimented on the side with their guy friends. And some just like sex in general. A girl I know has 40 hits on her list – 25 male, 10 women and the rest, umm, we’ll just leave to your imagination.

Nikhat gets angry when she talks of the hypocrisy behind issues of sexuality. “While in rural areas promiscuity, both homosexual and heterosexual, is rampant, middle class morality has drawn such rigged boundaries we’ve lost touch with our sexuality. And it’s not just about sex.” “Liberal young people, like you and me” says Nikhat, “are scared. They’re scared to own or wear their sexuality.”

Hetero-flexibility is also another distinctive tag for celebrities. Elton John, Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, Marlon Brando, Gore Vidal, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and David Bowie. The list of bisexual chic (as they are known in industry jargon) reads like the who’s who of Hollywood and the music world. One must not forget the ubiquitous bi, the woman who occupies the fantasies of both men and women – Angelina Jolie.

Despite having Brad Pitt tucked away in her pantyhose, she still enjoys the ‘company of women’. In her words, “only a woman knows how to touch another woman”. While I semi-concur, my more enlightened self would say, when with women advance with caution.