Whores are not 'normal,' mainstream or 'straight' but third gender or 'gay'

Excerpts from the Wikibooks article: Relationships/ Hormones

Women's interest in sex varies in character and intensity over their menstrual cycles, during pregnancy and nursing, and during menopause. Women's sex drives can be as strong or stronger than men's, but only at specific times.

Female mammals will have sex only in certain places. E.g., female elephant seals select a beach with minimal danger from predators. Female red deer select a meadow with abundant food to support fawns. Many human females like familiar surroundings, moderate temperature, etc.

Female primates prefer to mate with specific males. Whether a male physically dominated other males (e.g., gorillas), or built a social network (e.g., baboons), or is one's life partner (e.g., gibbons), rejecting inappropriate males is central to female sexuality.

The cosmic glass ceiling jail

Hindustan Times, July 07, 2006
Sagarika Ghose

July 7, 2006

Not one but two women have created a storm of protest by claiming that they have entered the shrine of Sabarimala. The Sabarimala shrine, where women between the ages of 10 and 55 are strictly prohibited, is a shrine to male celibacy. Lord Ayappan is said to be the god of the brahmachari. If women are allowed into Sabarimala, says the thantri or priest, the entire edifice of the temple will collapse and the very reason for the arduous pilgrimage will be nullified.

An ancient monastic pilgrimage will be demolished for the sake of contemporary notions of gender justice. A sanctified tradition that exists precisely because of its transcendental distance from the 21st century will be brought into the dull ambit of everyday political correctness. Are the voices calling for the entry of women into Sabarimala guilty of forcing a lumpen modernism into the stern austere place where the god’s traditions have been kept alive for hundreds of years?

According to Sanal Edamaruku of the India Rationalist Association, Sabarimala might originally have been a Buddhist site, where men came as monks to a monastery. So while Sabarimala’s restrictions on women may not be consonant with modern notions of gender equality, its traditions are Buddhist and monastic, where celibacy is the philosophical undertow. Rahul Easwar, the long-haired, English-speaking grandson of the thantri, says Sabarimala is about a certain ‘psychological space’, the space for the brahmachari ideal. If that ideal is lost, an important distinctive cult will be ironed into the uniformity of ‘modern acceptability’.

To call for Sabarimala to be open for women is like saying that women should be allowed to enter monasteries, or men should be allowed inside nunneries. It’s like saying that the orders of the Jesuits and the Benedictines should admit women, or that the Loreto order of nuns should admit men.

A deeper question arises from the Sabarimala controversy. Are religions hostile to women? The writer Polly Toynbee believes many of them are. Eve, forever the reason for Adam’s lust, must always be subjugated. Sex pollutes god and sex invariably means women. Thus religion is pure and women are dirty. Women must, therefore, be shaved, bathed, purified, placed in a convent or isolated behind purdah, and unclean menstruating woman must be kept out of holy rituals. The perverted hatred of a woman’s body, Toynbee believes, places religions on a collision course with modernity, and unless religions reform themselves, societies will never change.

The Catholic Church’s ban on abortion and contraception has long placed it in opposition to feminists worldwide. Many have suggested that the reason why Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is so successful is that it revives an old heresy within the Catholic Church, the heresy of a female apostle. After all, if Mary Magdalene was so close to Jesus, is it not possible that she too could have been one of the carriers of the word of God, just like Luke, John and Peter?

By contrast, women in Hinduism seem nowhere near as subjugated as they appear in the Catholic tradition. The mother goddess, the Shakti cults, the naked, rampaging Kali, the avenging Durga, and the hundreds of little traditions of Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati and Santoshi Mata are all evidence of a plethora of female goddesses. On the face of it, there are no strictures against birth control; women participate in worship as equally as men, pilgrimages are undertaken as couples, and whether it’s a ganga snan, an evening arti, temple entry or Amarnath yatra, men and women are relatively equal in the holy realm.

But gaze a little closer at the practice of Hinduism today and you’ll find that women, for whatever reason (because of the dominance of the Brahmin male or because women have perhaps never needed to assert themselves in a tradition that is seemingly open), have not played as vital a role as they could have given the role models in the form of goddesses.

Every student of history learns about the debate between Yajnavalkya and Gargi in the Brihadarnyaka Upanishad. Gargi Vachaknavi was the ancient Upanishadic scholar, who was seen to challenge the men of an elite Brahmin academy when she asked Yajnavalkya, the leading scholar of the time, to participate in a debate with her. But all Gargi did, we learn to our disappointment, was simply ask two questions of Yajnavalkya about space, at the end of which he shut her up with the firm retort: “Do not question beyond this. You may go crazy.” So much for Gargi.

The ladies of the Hindu epics are truly feisty dames. Yet, at the same time, none of them seems to ever leave the wife/mother trap and play roles that show her acquiring any sort of direct relationship with divinity. Kunti refused to play adoring mother. Instead she floated her son down a river and had five other sons from five other fathers. But Kunti’s chief identity seems to be frozen as the errant mother of Karna, rather than as a woman with a complex relationship with divinity, as represented perhaps by the ‘Sun’, the ‘Wind’ or any of the ‘fathers’ of her sons. Aditi, according to a captivating play I had the privilege of seeing, was so determined to win the battle of egos with her sons that she buried one of them under the earth with an elephant for company!

But in the end her son triumphed over her too. Savitri stared down Yamaraj himself but only to rescue her husband Satyavan from untimely death. And Draupadi, bless her soul, was not only married to five husbands, but according to some accounts, even had Krishna for a lover. But again, the former fact remained her main identity. The sexuality of the Hindu woman is neither apologetic nor hidden, yet the Hindu woman’s path to God seems to always be through her family, her husband, her children or her lovers.

In a universe teeming with female goddesses, there are still very few women priests or religious scholars today. Most godwomen exist outside the ambit of formal religion. Tulsidas’s notorious phrase, Dhol, ganwar, shudra, pashu, nari, yeh sab taadan ke adhikari (lower castes, animals and women should be thrown away), is still recited.

One of the few goddesses of the big league, a woman who seems to have broken the cosmic glass ceiling, is Durga, who rules supreme in her corner of Bharat. But again Durga’s is hardly a mainstream Vedic cult and is located primarily in the folk traditions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

In north India, Karva Chauth and Raksha Bandhan are festivals centred around appeasing a male relative. As for Manu, the doughty law-giver, didn’t he roundly declare that a woman must be protected by her father, husband and son at different stages of life, as she is never fit for independence? Many Hindu traditions seem to clothe their exclusion of women under a shimmering veil of superficial freedom.

So Sabarimala may be a brahmachari shrine where women should not enter. Yet for all Hindu women who meekly accept their religion’s rituals and pieties, the Sabarimala shrine is also a symbol of a need to question why their ancestral faith tries to exclude them.

(The writer is Features Editor, CNN-IBN: sagarika.ghose@gmail.com)

Sabarimala:For Women's right to worship

By Raji Rajagopalan

16 July, 2004
Countercurrents.org

What is the relationship between religion and women's rights? Should we care about the treatment of women by religions of the world? Should we be bothered when we see, even in the twenty-first century, a woman being prohibited from doing certain things, like becoming ordained or entering a temple just because she is a woman?

I ask, why not? Why should we let society draw circles around us citing our gender as the only reason? If some women want to enter golf clubs where they are prohibited, wouldn't some women want to enter temples where they are prohibited?

Take my cousin, for instance. There is a temple in South India that my cousin desperately wants to visit. She is a devotee of the God housed there and would cherish her visit to His temple as a Muslim would cherish her Hajj. But, unfortunately, my cousin's 'Hajj' is not for at least another twenty years, for she is only thirty years old now, and women between the ages of ten and fifty are banned from the temple she wants to visit.

This temple is called "Sabarimala". It is situated atop a hill in Kerala and houses a bachelor God called Ayyappa. It is purported that around the 14th of January, every year, a celestial fire - a Jyothi with healing powers - glows in the sky near the Sabarimala shrine. My cousin, like a million other devotees, believes that seeing this celestial fire is her panacea. "But," the Temple board tells her, "you can’t have that panacea. You see, you are not a man."

But why does the Temple board tell her so? It gives a smorgasbord of reasons: The eight kilometer trek to the temple along dense woods is arduous for women; Ayyappa is a bachelor God and his bachelorhood will be broken if he sees a woman; the forty-one-day penance for the pilgrimage, where one must live as abstemiously as a saint, cannot be undertaken by women - they are too weak for that; men cohorts will be enticed to think bad thoughts if women joined them in their trek; letting women into the temple will disrupt law and order; women's menstrual blood will attract animals in the wild and jeopardize fellow travelers; menstruation is a no-no for God.

And so the list of lame reasons grows. Don't think that no one has ever questioned the inanity of those reasons. Several Indian feminists have fought, and keep fighting, with the Temple board in favor of the women devotees. But the Temple board remains implacable. It is backed by enormous political clout, and poor Indian feminists, like feminists almost everywhere, must fend for themselves. It doesn't help that many Indian women are disinterested in any feminist struggle. They think that it is presumptuous for women to defy established customs. It is hard to rally them, especially when it involves flouting tradition or religion.

Nevertheless, many brave and, sometimes, distressed women, boldly try to go where no young woman has gone before. Times of India reports, "The distraught mother of two boys, one with kidney disease and the other mentally unsound...wanted to beseech Lord Ayyappa to save her family. But the law is hard and cold. The police arrested her before she reached the sanctum ..." Here is a report from a publication called Hinduism Today: "The ban was upheld by Kerala's high court in 1990, but the issue is now being raised by a 42-year old district collector, K.B. Valsala Kumari, who was ordered to coordinate pilgrim services at the shrine. A special court directive allowed her to perform her government duties at the shrine, but not to enter the sanctum sanctorum." In December 2002, Khaleej Times reported, "Women have made this year's Sabarimala pilgrim season controversial by entering the prohibited hill shrine...Kerala high court has ordered an inquiry to find out how a large number of women had reached the shrine in violation of court orders." Strange, isn't it, for the court to scribe such discriminatory orders?

I can understand if religious fundamentalists raise a wall in the path of women. After all, these people can't think straight, I tell myself. But if the court, a body comprised of intelligent individuals who are supposed to be epitomes of fairness, does it, I find it hard to digest. Why does an entity "by the people, for the people, and of the people" perpetrate such odious acts of discrimination? Isn't it deplorable that women can't enter an institution that a body elected by them funds and oversees?

Fifty-four years ago, when the Constitution of India was framed, "Untouchables" - the lower-caste Indians who were believed to be "impure" and hence objectionable to God - won the right to equality and broke open the gates of temples that were closed to them thus far. Article 25(2b) was instituted specifically for them; to ensure that they could pursue their religion unhampered. This article gives State the power to make laws for "the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus". Sabarimala IS a publicly funded temple: Article 290A of the Indian Constitution entails the State of Kerala to pay, yearly, 4.65 million rupees to Sabarimala's Temple board. Nevertheless, it has so far remained shut to one section of Indians - the young Indian women. And the State, instead of opening it for them, works to ensure that it remains shut to them.

It is ironic that this shrine, praised as "an unmatched instance of religious tolerance", a temple open to men of all castes and religions, doesn't tolerate most women. The society that has grown, at least outwardly, to breach "God's decree" to keep lower-caste men out of His vicinity, is still struggling to defy "His despise" for women. Especially, menstruating women.

Is it so because women are still regarded impure and detestable, at least during certain times? Is it because none in power is disposed to champion women's causes? Is it because women themselves are disinclined to unite against their discrimination? Is it because caste-discrimination is accepted to be viler than gender-discrimination? Is it because society is averse to disturbing the male-dominated hierarchy in India? Whatever it is, I think that this ban on women in Sabarimala, while it appears to be a religious issue, at its core, indicates an uglier problem - the oft-dismissed and court-sanctioned oppression of women in India.

Feminist's views on Sabarimala controversy

Sabarimala, women and the state

Published by Neha Viswanathan June 29th, 2006 in Gender, Culture Tags: feminism, gender, religion.

I am no expert on religion or the state.

However, when a temple goes all up in arms about women polluting their sanctum sanctorum - it pisses me off. No point in trying to force a revolution though. To me, the issue is simple. Does the state (centre or state) give any funds to Sabarimala temple or the board? Is the government a board member? Is the government providing security at the temple?

If they are - then it’s the taxpayer’s money that is going to support an institution that discriminates on the basis of sex. Against the constitution, isn’t it? Especially because it’s not a minorities institution. (I could be wrong here - but am venturing into murkier waters.) That, is not acceptable to me. Cut state funding. Make sure it becomes totally un-cool to go to a temple that is discriminatory. A private club has the right to deny admission. But if you receive state funding, you are no longer private.

In the end it’s simple. The more resources women control, the more difficult it will be for any institution to alienate them. Because women will merely find another avenue to give or to pray. Religion is flexible enough to allow for dissent. In the end - temples will have to be less discriminatory because of sheer economic and financial reasons.

Why does it matter you ask? Why don’t women just ignore religion? Because religion is inherited wealth as well. No way am I going to give up on any legacy that I have a right to. Women should be able to go Sabarimala or Timbuktoo not because they want to, but because they have a right to.

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