Chapter 2

Trigger Warning: The content of this chapter deals with sexual abuse, sexual violence, exploitation, blood and injury.

Gay Child Molesters

“That was when my 6th-grade final exams were over, and the two months long summer vacation started. I was 11 years old by then. Rama, my cousin who was 21 and was about to graduate at that time, was the unpaid babysitter that my parents had appointed to take care of me. He used to drop me at and pick me up from school, take me to the hairdresser, accompany me to Parent-Teacher Meetings at school as a proxy for my parents, and was at the helm of taking care of me. I liked him a lot and used to be with him most of the time. He was almost six feet tall with a thick and lustrous beard and moustache that most men would love to have. His friends said that girls used to go crazy about him, and he was that playboy kind of a guy. He used to workout daily, had a well chiselled body, and a fair complexion which most of the bareskin-lovers would go nuts about. He knew that his body, his skin tone, his beard and his grooming skills were all his assets, and he knew how to show them off.”

“Are you going to keep on praising your cousin?” I asked.

“Once it so happened that Mano, who was his 18-year old sibling, was eating some powder thing. I asked him what that powder was for. ‘It helps build muscles,’ he said. Another friend of his who was also sharing that powder with him smiled as if mocking me for my innocence and said that it wasn’t for building any muscles, but it was to increase testosterone levels. I wonder how that guy could have imagined me to know about testosterone at that age. I was curious to know about it, not from these guys, but from Rama, because I thought Rama was a mature guy and was nice to me, whereas these guys were not so good.”

“Wasn’t Rama a good guy?” I interrupted.

Agil shrugged.

“Perhaps children’s greatest risk for sexual abuse is at the hands of someone they know and trust. When I asked Rama about it, he told me that it was a testosterone booster for adult men. ‘But, what is testosterone?’ I grew excited. ‘Do you know how babies are formed?’ he questioned me, though he very well knew that I’d give the wrong answer. I said that God puts a seed in a woman’s womb, and that grows to become a child. I was confident that I was right. ‘You dumb-ass! I’ll elaborate it to you in the evening. I am going to the gym now,’ he said and went to the gym to boost his testosterone for the event that was to happen in the evening.”

Agil stood up and went to drink some water.

“Something nasty was crawling in his mind, huh?”

I could make out what he was going to say next. I could clearly make out water flowing through his pharynx. Once he drank enough, he started….

“In the evening, as he had said, he lectured me about impregnating a woman. ‘When a man’s dick gets into the pussy of a woman and releases a fluid, it will cause pregnancy in a woman.’ I was petrified by the sheer vulgarity of the words he spoke - ‘dick’ and ‘pussy’ - which aren’t used other than to scold someone, but I didn’t want to believe him. ‘You’re lying. How will an organ, which is used to pee, impregnate a person?’ I kept walking towards my home before he could further utter a word. But he wasn’t ready to leave me alone. He stopped me, took his mobile phone out of his pocket, and instantly played a pornographic movie. ‘You see, kid? When a man and a woman have sex like this, they’ll get a baby.’ I had no other option than to run away, ‘For heaven’s sake, leave me alone.’ And, I went back to my home.”

“Thank God nothing else happened. I thought he’d’ve done something more mischievous than this,” I said.

But, Agil was still disturbed by some thought, and I knew that it didn’t stop there as I had expected.

“I’ll be lying if I say that the blue film Rama showed didn’t cause any curiosity in me. But, what happened the very next day was unanticipated and sordid. I went to the fields to play with him without expecting any peril from him. He took advantage of our being alone in the field. He kissed me on my left cheek at first. It was as normal as a brother kissing his younger one out of affection. But, he caught hold of me tightly so that I couldn’t move away from him, and now he locked his lips with mine. I could feel his hot and slimy tongue pushing into my mouth. I pushed him away and shouted, ‘Are you mad? I’ll tell my mum about this.’ He held me tighter than he earlier did and said that if I said it to my mum, she would beat me up.”

Agil sat near me.

I interrupted his flow abruptly, “What? For that reason, you did not tell your mum about it?”

At first, I thought that there was no bonding between Agil and his parents which would have created a natural interest in ensuring his well being.

“Perhaps what he said was true. I was beaten up by my parents for very absurd things, and why wouldn’t they have hit me for this?”

I was not convinced by this reason, but I was clear that both the offender and the victim had taken great pains to hide what happened between the two of them. Perhaps the offender himself was sure that sexually abusing a child is the most ignominious and stigmatizing of all forms of perversions. I felt that Agil’s parents wouldn’t’ve perceived that this issue was serious, had Agil told them about the same. Boys - who get sexually assaulted - rarely inform their parents about such assaults.

Agil continued, “I told that creep he was a bad boy. He didn’t seem to pay any heed to what I told him. He unzipped his pants, and took his dick in his hands before bringing it out to exhibit it to me. ‘Are you crazy? Why the hell are you doing this?’ I was at once horrified by the very look of that thing, possibly because of his pubic hair. ‘You are yet to see an important thing that I was talking about.’ I said that I did not want to see anything, but wanted to go home. ‘Wait for a minute. I’ll show it to you, after which I'll drop you in your home. Just a minute.’ I was relieved, as he was finally ready to leave me. He started stroking his genitals slowly and softly at first, and within seconds he increased the pace. And, he kept up his promise. He hardly took a minute to ejaculate his fluid.

“I was happy that he allowed me to go home. Even today, the frontal lobe of my brain remembers the stinking odour that my olfactory sensory neurons had transmitted to it. Especially when he brought his dickhead near my face, I gagged. I thought that I’d throw up by the odour of urine from his cock. He expected me to suck him, but I would not. Fortunately, that stinking scumbag did not force me to suck, as tears started flowing on my cheeks. He showed me his semen and said that this was the fluid responsible for causing pregnancy in women. But, that wasn’t the first time that I saw a person’s semen. I had already seen it, when for the first time I was abused. I was seven years old then. I was in my granny’s house when one of my Mum’s brothers kissed me on my lips. He was interested in touching my penis and wanted me to look at his. ‘I’ll show you mine and you show me yours,’ he said. He knew that this game was typical of young children. He fondled me after removing my pants and asked, ‘Do you wanna see me?’ He then kept his penis in between my thighs, as if my thighs formed an orifice, and rubbed his penis. The friction caused a lot of pain for me and he emitted.”

“It is unfortunate that kids are taught sex education by people like Rama in our country. Did he ever do that to you again?”

I thought that was the end of the story, but little did I expect that ‘t was only the beginning to the most grievous abuse.

“You know we were a joint family, so it was natural for us to only meet each other daily. What he did to me on that day was more of a nightmare for me. I’d always shy away from him, and every now and then he winked at me, teased me, pulled me towards him and forcefully kissed me on my lips. One fine day, I was with my friends of my age in our garden, eating guava that we plucked from one of the trees in our garden. There came the creep asking my friends to go to their houses. He told me that there were Russel’s vipers near the lake and asked me if I was willing to see them. I was obviously terrified, but he urged me to come with him to have a look at them. He bribed me by plucking a few guavas from the tree and pulled me to the lake with him.”

“I don’t think that he was intending to show you any viper there.”

“There was a godown we had near the lake. He said that those snakes were inside the godown. Once we both were inside the room, he shut the door though he didn’t lock it. He, instantly, removed his pants and shirt. ‘You’re as handsome as I am, boy.’ He slung his arm around my shoulders. I knew something wrong was going to happen, because I had already been in such a situation. The last time he abused me, I managed to escape without much physical contact, but this time, some part of my body said that it was certainly not gonna happen. He was in his boxer shorts and nothing else. He was bare-chested, probably he had shaved his chest and armpit hair very recently, but still I could see a fuzz around his genitalia. His ivory - toned skin was glowing and bespoke that he had just taken a bath. His shoulders were wide and body tapering to a tight waist. He took off his undies too and kept his phallus, which was constructing itself into a tower, on my palm, and said, ‘This is the viper that I was talking about.’ He then took his mobile phone and played a porn.”

“Was he luring you?”

I stood up to get a tin of Sprite from the fridge.

“I don’t know if he was trying to allure me. He was blackmailing me that if I didn’t watch it, he would tell my parents I had been watching porn and he caught me red handed.”

“You were once again threatened?”

I just could not understand why Agil was very nervous about his parents.

“Yes. He made his next move by sliding his fingers into the waistband of my knickers. I wriggled away, mortified as I felt his fingers going into my knickers. He undid my shirt’s buttons with rigour. I began to scream. He again threatened me saying, ‘Workers are around here… you know… if they get to know about this they’ll definitely tell your parents. Then you’ll be in great trouble. So, shut your mouth up, you asshole.’”

“You gave in to all his threats?”

“Yes. I couldn’t think of anything else than to show my yellow streak. Within seconds, we were both naked. I saw an adult entirely nude for the first time. He spanked my buttocks with his hands. He then started to be predatory. He bit my neck hard, and went down to suckling my nipples. I started crying partly out of pain, and partly out of his sadism. His tongue slid down to my navel. ‘Please, let me go,’ I begged him. My phallus was then inside his mouth. I tried to push him away with my hands, but he held my wrists with his hands, and I couldn’t move my hands any longer.”

I couldn’t think, in my wildest dreams, of a blowjob for a 10 years old kid. I could sense that Rama had already terribly abused his power of being an elder by coercing Agil physically, psychologically and emotionally to do an act that merely gave Rama momentary pleasure. He had dared to exploit a child’s bodily integrity.

Agil paused and took a deep breath, as if he was yet to say the most horrifying part of it.

“He spat on his fingers. At first, I didn't realize why he was doing it. But, later, I knew that he lubricated his fingers to penetrate it into my butthole. I jerked my body when that jerk first slid his index finger into my anus. I started weeping even harder, but did not scream. Then went his middle finger along with his index finger. And then his ring finger. He made me lay on the floor with my back against the floor. He was not over me and raised my legs and put them on his shoulders, so that my anal hole was against his penis. His phallus was already lubricated by mucus, and it started to explore me. It wouldn’t enter me so easily as he expected it to, and I wouldn’t not scream as he wanted me to, since I couldn’t bear the pain.”

“ ‘t was a r…”

Before I could say that word, he said it. “Rape.

“I could hear his voice, low and then louder, and other noises too, moaning, grunting, a sharp intake of breath. I was still shrieking as loud as I could, but no one came to my rescue. The door was slightly ajar. It was darker in the room, but I could hear him groaning my name. Barely daring to take a breath, I looked at him. I could make out his shape moving in the darkness. ‘Feels good? ahaan... Feels good?’ he kept asking. I couldn’t bear myself to look away. I thought that that would continue incessantly. I watched him, until I heard him make a noise like a person who cries at his parent’s funeral. Then he started laughing, and I understood that he was finished.”

He paused once again, and I knew that there is a lot more to go.

“His phallus melted like a candle that melts out of heat. Once he was over, he got angry with me, because I wouldn’t stop crying. I could feel that I was bleeding.”

“Rectal bleeding?”

“Yes. It is obvious that a 10 years old would bleed, when penetrated. ‘Oh! Come on, it didn’t hurt you that much. Don’t cry. Come on, Agil. Stop crying. For fuck’s sake!’ At first, he was trying to console me, but when I didn’t stop crying, he started blackmailing me as he got irritated.”

“Did he leave you?”

I felt sorry for Agil as he was forced into knowledge which he was not ready for. Rama had misused Agil’s age, dependence, immaturity and innocence selfishly.

“Ever since then, he never left me. He lost the trust and respect that I had for him.”

He started walking around the bed.

“Did he assault you again?”

I could see him wincing at that question. I knew that the effects of the trauma of sexual abuse, caused by a relative to the child, are particularly difficult to deal with because usually such an abuse takes place over a prolonged period of time and may not be addressed for years.

“The problem is, Mohit, that I did not have anyone so close to me to whom I could’ve possibly shared all these. Neither my parents, nor any of my friends cared about me. Even if I had said it to my patriarchal family, they’d’ve easily dismissed it as hysteria. He took it to his advantage. He was empowered by my being a coward. He molested me at least once every three days. ”

“You mustn’t’ve not said it to anyone in your family.”

“I conjured up all my spirit to only say it to another snot-eater. Arjun is another cousin of mine who is one and a half years older than me. I told him about everything that Rama did to me and that was going on between me and Rama. I earnestly expected him to help me get rid of this problem somehow or the other. But, this arsehole’s mind was filled with loads of filth.”

“Did he say it to your parents?”

“I’d’ve appreciated it, had he done that.”

“What did he do?”

“The very next day I told him about Rama, he too abused me sexually.”

“How come? He is just a year and a half older than you. I can’t imagine a guy, who is almost of the same age as yours, to rape you.”

“Age is just a number, Mohit. In fact, the younger the perpetrator, the more severe the abuse is. Haven’t you ever heard of child-on-child sexual abuse?”

He paused for me to answer. I did nothing other than staring at him.

He continued, “We were sleeping together on the terrace of our house. He had done it while I was fast asleep. I woke up as I felt him inside me, but I was late. He had already attained euphoria by then. I still don’t understand how long he had been doing that to me that night.”

“So… he must also have abused you constantly, if ain’t wrong.”

“Yes, he did it.”

“Uff… I pity you, Agil. I…”.

He continued speaking abruptly, “Do you think Rama and Arjun were the only pieces of shit to do that to me? No, a few months after Arjun, Vishnu aged 17, who was another cousin of mine also started to be at my back. He used to bite my neck, cheeks and lips, finger me and masturbate. He used me to achieve an erection, so he could masturbate and have an orgasm. And, it didn’t stop with him. Vishnu said this to his friend named Laxman whose age was around 25. They made it a threesome. Vishnu and Laxman together tumbled in the hay with me a lot of times. Laxman once said that he wanted fellatio daily, that too by children like me. ‘It feels like being on seven heavens when you perform oral sex on me,’ he told me once. By and by, Rama also brought his friend - Amit, aged nearly 30, and they too wanted to have group fun.”

“Stop it, Agil. Don’t torture yourself by reminiscing all these.”

I could no longer afford to lend my ears to his grief filled story. But, Agil did not pause.

“They saw their sexual behaviour with me as fun, like... playing-doctor kind of thing. They had intercourse with me simultaneously. ‘t was a double penetration. I was immobilised. I couldn’t scream.”

“Don’t think about it anymore now.”

“I couldn’t even whisper. My voice was gone and my throat locked. I bled so badly that day. I was not able to poop properly for a longtime since Rama started.”

“ ‘t was a long time ago…”

“But, this was the worst of them all. Abruptly, my breath came to me in a rush.”

“Put it out of your mind now.”

“I gasped, sucked in lungfuls of frigid air, which snapped me out of the terror-induced trance that, thus far, had held me immobile.”

“Hush now… hush…”

Tears shimmered in his eyes. He tried hard to hold them back, squinting, blinking.

“It hurt me as if my anal opening was torn into shreds.”

He looked fragile and helpless, and I wanted to grab hold of him and hug him.

“No!” I shouted, as if a protest from me could somehow alter Agil’s tragic life. I suddenly felt small and helpless myself.

“I could feel that my anal hole had become a bottomless pit. Then on, I was not able to sleep with my buttocks against my bed. Even today I’m unable to sleep properly owing to those incidents. ”

“You don’t have to pour it out all at once.”

“I want you to understand.”

“Take your time. I’ll be here. I’ll wait.”

“When I was 13, Kuzhalan was a guy to whom I went to clear my doubts in Maths. He was a science graduate. I was in his home when he was sexting with a girl whom I assumed to be his lover. ‘I wanna eat your pussy,’ he texted and I noticed it. He knew that I saw him sexting. He took me to his bedroom, took my clothes off vigorously, and started kissing my pubes, and copulated with me.”

I felt that, this time, Agil was rather seduced than violently assaulted. ‘Cause this time he was 13, and I was pretty certain that he had attained puberty. Not only did this incident with Kuzhalan, but also the incident with Arjun made me feel that he was seduced. I felt so ‘cause, Agil could’ve easily pushed Arjun away from him, if Arjun had been very violent in assaulting Agil. He chose to be subservient not only to people elder to him, but also to Arjun. But still, sexual violation of a child, whether it be predatory or seductive, is a profound abuse.

For instance, I thought that Agil was exaggerating and spinning stories. But then I knew that he didn’t’ve any need to make up stories to tell me for a whole night. I also still did not get the rationale behind his hiding all these from his parents.

“Are all these people homosexuals?”

“I’m not sure of their sexualities and sexual orientations. Most of them are married to women now...”

“Not every person who is married to a woman is a heterosexual.”

“Yeah, I know. But at that time, I didn’t know my own sexuality, so how do you expect me to know theirs?”

He was right. I mustn’t’ve expected him to know about others’ sexual orientation.

“But, it was obvious that all these nutbags used me as a substitute to fulfil their lust for girls. All these happenings made me recollect about one of the incidents when I was seven years old, with one of my uncles whose age was 17. Naren and I used to play together. He always made me wear my granny’s saree and pulled it out aggressively like Dushasana pulled out Paanchali’s saree in Mahabharata. So, if I’m not wrong, all these troglodytes including Naren wanted girls. Since I was the one who was available, they used me for their satisfaction. They frequently winked at me, motioned their eyes to invite me. ‘Please come with me for a single night and give me goosebumps,’ they said.''

I could see Agil exhausted by the flood of words and feelings that had rushed from him for such a long time.

“I also behaved like a Girl.”

The last sentence came out of him almost without his volition. I didn’t know how to revert.

I said, “Okay, but I don’t think that they abused you because you were girlish. They’d’ve done it even if you hadn’t been effeminate. All they wanted was to do that deviant act.”

“Deviant? Deviant from what?”

“Deviant from societal morals.”

“Oh, really? I never knew that rape deviates from our societal norms. In fact, rape is one of the few acts that is over-conforming with our societal notions.

“I’m not sure whether everyone who raped me wanted me to be a woman or girl, but I’m sure that all of them wanted to be masculine. They all wanted to be aggressive, strong, dominant, tough, and violent when they raped me. It is Patriarchy, and nothing else, that is to be blamed for them to have done this to me. It is their machismo that encouraged them to choose a weak, submissive and small boy like me for a sexual partner.”

“Those macho boys felt strong by sexually exploiting you and by ingraining in your subconscious a sense of powerlessness. All of them wanted you to serve them sexually and emotionally for them. In order to feel like a Man, they wanted to feel powerful.”

“Absolutely. That’s the reason why it might not be obvious for us to say that they wanted me to be a girl. I don’t think that their acts had anything to do with their sexual orientation either, as you asked earlier. Especially those perpetrators who were substantially older than me felt Good abusing me..”

“Felt GOOD?”

I felt that he couldn’t get the right word.

“Yup, they felt Good during the sexual acts, when they viewed me only as an Object of Sexual Gratification.”

I laid down in bed.

“Children as an object of sexual gratification,” I affirmed.

I was convinced that the sexual orientation of the predators, as Agil said, was immaterial. During the sexual acts, they didn’t see Agil as a human being at all. They were so focussed on their own pleasure and satisfaction that they did not want to connect with the child’s experience of sexual acts.

“You mean they thought that you were a Sex Toy.”

I could perceive that the perpetrators were so focussed on their own needs that they were unable to see Agil as anything other than a Sex Toy.

“I think so.”

He suddenly remembered my previous question and answered, “The Good feeling is the pleasure that they derive from orgasm, from touching my genitalia, and sometimes from the entire process of abuse. I recollect Rama saying, ‘planning to get you alone is itself a thrill for me.’ But, I am confident that they were focussed on orgasm. Orgasm was the most paramount need that motivated them to abuse.”

“You mean they didn’t’ve any sexual attraction towards you ?”

“It mightn’t be right for us to generalize that none of them were sexually into me. But, yeah… for most of them having sex with me was only a partly sexually arousing act. They didn’t adore me. They didn’t get the Good feeling out of fondling me or kissing me. The Good feeling came when they ejaculated. That was the Good feeling they were after. Most of them didn’t even look at my face while committing it. Once while Laxman was forcing me to stimulate his genitals, I constantly kept staring at his face as I was shocked. He said, ‘Don’t look at me. I’ll probably lose my erection and leave, if I look at you.’ ”

“Were all of them predatory?”

“ ‘t’s pretty obvious that they were predatory. I would also add that they were proprietary. I could look back to Vishnu saying to his friend, ‘Being in control of this bitch itself gives me pleasure. He’s our conquest and who’s perpetually gonna serve and satisfy us sexually.’ His friend said, ‘Are you into this whore? Why do you say that he will serve you perpetually? I thought it’s just a fling.’ Vishnu said, ‘I don’t love him, but I want him to love me, so that he’ll be available for me whenever I want sex.’ ” He yawned as he spoke.

It was apparent that Vishnu and his friend did not have in their minds that Agil is a pretty boy, but they wanted him to always be theirs. Actually they never thought that children might have feelings of sexual abuse.

“Were you the only child whom they abused?”

“I don’t think so. Yet, I ain’t sure. Especially the older ones like Amit and Laxman. When for the first time Amit came with Rama to assault me, Rama asked him whether Amit liked me. Amit said, ‘It doesn’t matter whether I like this slag or not.’ Rama asked, ‘Are you into male kids?’ Amit said,‘ the more I enjoy fellatio and fucking, the less I care who the child is.’ ‘You mean you don’t discriminate children based on their sex?’ And they burst into laughter.”

“Don’t you regret not having spoken about these to your parents?”

He sighed. I knew he didn’t want to answer.

“I don’t think that parents would ignore a valence issue like child sexual exploitation…”

“Valence issue? Means?”

“Hmm… valence issue… is which elicits a uniform emotional response without any adversarial or conflictual opinion from anyone,” I said the definition that I had memorized when I was in school.

Agil didn’t react, but I knew that he didn’t understand what I said. I made an attempt to explain.

“In case of child sexual abuse, there can be none who has a controversial idea that supports it and there cannot be a Pro-Child-Sexual-Abuse lobby. Even your parents must be against child molestation.”

“Do you know something about Positive Pedophilia?”

“Which is….?”

Both of us yawned together this time. Haha… yes, yawning is contagious.

“I’m confident that those bastards who molested me did not have this idea. Rather they were sure that what they did to me was wrong. And they did it to me, because it was wrong. Even in schools we can see boys who are mischievous being hailed by other boys for being notorious. Such actions of praising them for their mischievous character encourages them to do those wrongs with more severity.”

He hasn’t yet reverted to my question, so I maintained silence.

He continued, “Coming back to positive pedophilia. There are people who believe that children are sexual beings and should be given the liberty to run their own lives as they choose, including the ability to determine how and with whom they should have sex. These people are of the opinion that children often seek and initiate sexual relations with adults. They think that adult-child sexual relations are therefore not necessarily exploitative and traumatic, but may be helpful to or empowering for children.”

“But in your case, there wasn’t any consent, no?”

I could see Agil’s eyes were red like blood. He wanted to sleep, but still he also wanted to reveal something to me and so he continued.

“There was no consent until I attained puberty, when I was almost 14. Those abuses went a long way. At some point, I was no longer able to endure it. I started pushing them away. I tried to be bold. After that I started liking it. And yes, I consented. I consented to those whom I was sexually attracted to. And I sought and initiated sexual relations from that time.”

“Even if you’d consented, those acts were nothing other than sexual exploitation. The fact that you’d condoned their acts is immaterial.”

He put his head on my arm when I was talking.

At first, I did not want to listen to his sad stories. Later, I realized that he had forgotten all these incidents for all these years, because remembering them was just too painful, and those memories of assault had surfaced during his adulthood. It was paramount for me to treat his memories respectfully rather than dismissing them as delusion. If I denied what he said, I’d deny the reality of sexual abuse. The tragedies of his molestations were perpetuated by silence and denial. It was crucial that he, as an adult survivor of sexual abuse, should speak out the reality of his experience. I knew that this was just the beginning of his tragic story.

“Uh..” I opened my mouth to say something, but by no time he started snoring.

****

9 September 2018

“Mohit, it’s time we leave.”

I heard a sluggish voice. I toiled to open my eyes only to see him heavy-eyed too (though he had washed his face). I was embarrassed because of those boogers around my eyes. That is one of the reasons I don’t like people to be around when I wake up from my bed. The other reason is the foul smell from my mouth once I wake up. I didn't want him to be repelled by that odour from my mouth.

We knew that neither of us had enough sleep. I looked at the clock. 90 degrees exactly. ‘T was 4 AM when we both slept. Neither of us were unsatisfied either. This wasn’t a sex date. I was happy to ‘ve known so much about him.

“Gosh! I just remembered. I’ve to take my Mum shopping.”

I threw the blanket away and rushed to the toilet.

****

We had our tiffin in a restaurant. There weren't many people in the restaurant. I noticed that when he sat, he involuntarily brought his legs close together. We sat opposite each other.

I was yearning to ask him something that I’d long been awaiting to. But, since he told me about all his forced sexual encounters with people right from his childhood, I couldn't hold my thoughts back. I didn’t give a second thought whether he’d get hurt by it or not. I didn’t want to beat about the bush. I tried to put it in the bluntest possible way.

“Methinks both of us should have ourselves tested for STDs.”

The waiter stood near our table. In no time, water flooded Agil’s eyes.

His eyes said would you’ve asked this, had I not told you about my sexual abuses?

‘T’sn’t about you alone. You know... ah… don’t you think we’ve to play safe?”

Although I never intended to talk about sex, I had to in order to make him feel comfortable. I only wanted to make sure that he had no health issues.

“When shall we?”

He pointed to the name of a very usual breakfast food from the à la carte.

“Two Pohas,” I said to the waiter, and he noted it down on a piece of paper, as if it was difficult for him to remember those two words until he reached the kitchen.

“What?”

I thought he asked when we might have sex.

“Diagnosis test. When shall we have it done?”

I liked the way he carried himself. I expected him to explode.

“When are you free?”

Though I knew that I’d only be available during weekends, I asked him for formality sake.

“Now.”

I shrugged.

The waiter brought the food sooner than I expected him to.

“Coming Saturday,” I affirmed.

He’d not object anyways. Moreover, I didn’t want to make a big drama script out of this silly matter.

We started eating. I’d’ve eaten two spoons of Poha after which I got an idea to make this guy get close to my family.

“Are you free on Wednesday?”

“Have classes till 4 PM. Will be free after that. Why? Are you gonna book a room on that day too?”

I pretended as if I didn’t listen to his last question.

“What about in the morning? When will your classes start?”

“At 9 AM.”

I was disappointed. I thought I would make him accompany my sister. If he accompanied her, he would not be able to attend his classes on time.

“What's the matter?” he asked as he was chewing the food.

“Uh…. you know…. I run an NGO…”

“Yeah, Mendlife Foundation. What about that?”

“Manisha will be visiting Holy International School in Uttam Nagar. She has an appointment with the principal of that school on Wednesday at 8 AM.”

“Manisha is your younger sister, no?” he asked me, though I’ve already told him about her.

I nodded my head.

“What’s the meeting about?”

“She is to conduct an environmental awareness camp in the school and a tree plantation drive.”

“You want me to join her?”

“You know… I’ll’ve to go to office on Wednesday. So …”

“Hmm… I’ll go with her. I think I should bunk my first class. It’ll take a minimum of an hour for me to travel to and fro.”

I was glad.

“So… come to my home at 7 in the morning. From there, you both can leave together,” I said as I ate the last spoon of Poha.

“Our sexual prudishness does give the law the right to deprive children of their sexual freedom and to harass pedophiles for having unpopular sexual preferences.”

That was the revert for the last words I spoke yesterday. We left.

****

10 September 2018

I did not get an opportunity to either speak with him or chat with him the whole day after we left the restaurant. I was busy shopping with Mum and was very tired once we were back home at 4 in the evening. I did nothing, but slept like an undisturbed log lying on the floor until I woke up at 6 AM. Involuntarily, I looked around for my mobile. It had been switched off, since it wasn't charged for the past two days. When I switched it on while ‘t was charging, I saw that I’d received three missed calls - two from him and one from a colleague. He’d also messaged me.

“They only wanted that sexual pleasure. They didn’t have any human feeling of love or affection while committing those acts. They were just lustful,” read the first message.

The second read, “But there was some part of me that liked those acts as a child. In particular, I liked to kiss and be kissed. I liked to be fondled and nuzzled.”

Everyone likes to do those. But, what does he mean by saying ‘as a child’. Is he talking about prepuberty?

I thought of asking him to stop thinking about it. But then I also knew that I am the only person with whom he possibly could share all these without hesitation.

He must share everything with me. I must be a support.

“Once you were an adolescent, you started developing an affinity for it?” I texted and I got out of my bed and went to the bathroom.

While brushing, bathing and pooping, I could think of nothing else but those words - There was some part of me that liked those acts as a child.

How can a child like those acts?

I got out of the toilet sooner than ever to only see no reply from him. He probably must have been getting ready to go to his classes. I had my breakfast. I had my mobile right next to me, anticipating a response. I waited for a long time until 12 noon. I had my lunch and slept so that I didn't sleep in the office.

“Hey, sorry for the late reply. Was quite busy the whole day.

And.... no, I meant when I was a child. It was before puberty.

I’d like to talk about it. Shall I call you?” he’d sent it at 4:30 PM.

I saw it at 8 PM when I was getting late for my office.

I replied, “I don’t think so. We shall chat. You mean you got erections when you were involved in such acts?”

I knew that the likelihood that children would enjoy physical stimulation was true. And yet, in Agil’s case, those acts were mere abuses. They were forcefully committed. I couldn’t digest the fact that Agil was aroused by such molestations.

Was Agil a masochistic kid? I didn’t get an answer to it until I read a letter written by him for me in blood - the bloody letter that he’ll write for me when he decides to leave me later in our lives.

“Hey, Mohit!

I know I would never have the courage to hand this over to you in person. But, I beg you to read this. I know it was all my decision to move out. But, Mohit, I waited. I waited for a month. That you would tell me this is the stupidest decision I have taken. Just a nod, just a sentence that it was would have sufficed. I would even rot in hell to be with you, Mohit. Because you are my one true love.

Mohit. I waited. I waited for a month. That you would tell me this is the stupidest decision I have taken. I would rot in Hell to be with you. Just a sign. But you seemed to be more sure - that I have made a good decision by deciding to leave you - than I ever was with all my second thoughts. Do you know how I feel about you? Well, you should. And, man, you made me the poet I could never even be in my dizziest daydreams...

I never knew eyes can speak

Until I met yours

“Broken me” needed your morning breeze

Your single smile is my disease’s cure

Mohit, you are not just my boyfriend. You are much more than that. You may not believe me but despite having many boyfriends in the past, I believe that you are my first love. As I've known this one thing from being with you Mohit, to be in love is nothing, to be loved is something and to be loved by the person you love is everything.

You are the person who taught me the concept of self-love. You gave me the courage to be what I am and that it's okay to be not okay. Thank you for being there for me when I need you the most.

Love was something I never knew

For I never met anyone benign

You understood me, one of those few

You did make my sun shine

Yes. You are my love. You made me realise what true love is, Mohit. But we live on a planet, in this bizarro world, where only the opposite must attract. Likes are supposed to repel. So, I guess I always knew somewhere deep in my heart that this wasn’t forever. We will not be forever. And then I realised…

Yes, you are the Sky of my Life

Being there to make it colourful

I know I can never be your “wife”

But our love in my life was the Most Powerful.

Yes, Mohit. You are the sky of my life. You are always there, but no matter how many times I chase the horizon, we can never meet. We cannot be together. But. Maybe, this is supposed to be a fairytale - when everything seems lost, the protagonist saves the day. I would be stuck in the castle, just like a hopeless romantic prince when you read this.

Let me come to the biggest question now: Will you be the Knight in Shining Armour? Will we be together? Will I ever unite forever with the Sky of my Life?

I know. The World does not let us live. Let me then die to meet you in Heaven. Or Hell, maybe. As the world deems fit for us.

Yours forever and always,

Agil.”

He reacted instantly.

“Indeed I was sexually aroused as a kid when I was involved in it.”

I was ready to go to the office. I spurted to the car park whilst chatting with him.

“Even if you were aroused, you would not be able to appreciate the full significance of that sexual activity. Your sexual behaviour couldn’t’ve’d the same meaning or feelings as manifestly similar adult behaviours. You liked it because it was a mere touching and playing for you and nothing else.”

I got into the car.

“I’ll text you once I reach the office.”

“Not that I didn’t understand anything. Of course at that age, the arousal that I experienced couldn’t’ve had those requisite sort of feelings for sex. But for that reason, you can’t mean that I was asexual or sexually innocent when I was a child (i.e., Prepuberty).”

He further sent, “I have seen kids touching each other’s parts or their parents’ private parts. I have also done it. As a kid, I played with my friends, seeing who urinated farthest. As a kid, when I saw adults kissing each other, I used to think I won’t do such adult acts when I grow older. I have seen my schoolmates putting their hands down their pants, rubbing vigorously and making loud panting and moaning noises, and other kids copying this behaviour and arousing themselves. As a child, I also felt jealous about my parents’ private parts.”

It is not only about such acts. Children also experiment with language related to private parts. Terms such as fart, pee, poop, butt, teat, dick head, butt face elicit squeals of delight and hilarity among children. Children are driven by their attraction to the forbidden. Since private parts imbued with special meaning are generally inaccessible, they are all the more fascinated about them.

I’d known that children even commence sexual acts.

“Children also kiss, hug, and initiate other sensual touching and stroking - all these acts owe more to attachment needs than to erotic needs.”

But, I was doubtful whether they got sexual pleasure out of such acts.

“You made up your mind that you were homosexual when you were a kid, huh?”

Before he could text, I sent another message.

“I mean did you know about your sexuality when you were a kid?”

“Do you suppose I, as a child, had no sexual life, sexual excitations, sexual needs or sexual satisfactions? But, I acquired all those sexual desires between the ages of 12 and 14? Do you mean that I didn’t’ve my genitals when I was born and I grew them after puberty?”

I didn’t reply until I reached home in the morning of Tuesday. Once I reached home, I read his messages.

As Agil said, we just cannot deny the fact that child sexuality exists. From a very early age, children tend to engage in sex play and are capable of various types of sexual experiences, including masturbation. But, they have less awareness of a connection between erotic pleasure and their self stimulation. They enjoy such experiences. They even need such experiences for their sexual development.

“You mean…”

I couldn’t type anymore. I was worn out of the work I’d been doing the previous day. I wanted to sleep. I thought I’d’ve a call with him in the evening once I woke up.

****

“Yes, I was pretty sure that I’m into males when I was 6.

“When I was 6, I stayed with my grandparents. Gugan, my mum’s brother, was a police officer. He had a sturdy body full of hair like a bear. But, he never grew a moustache, nor did he have a beard. Still, he was a handsome man. I used to keep staring at him as he changed his clothes. I fell for him each time he wore his uniform. Added to that, ‘Darling’ was my pet name with which he used to call me.”

I woke up at around 1 PM. I knew that it was his lunch time. I called him. As though he was longing for me to call, he picked the call up instantaneously.

“Morning, Mohit!”

“Look… there is no indication that you were concerned with any ensuing sexual contact. You could’ve stared at him purposefully, but your purpose wasn’t the same as that of adults. You were only curious and not erotic.”

Words from my mouth came like the water flowing from a dam. I realized that he greeted me and I did not.

“Did he molest you?” I added apologetically. “I mean Gugan.”

“No, he didn’t. In fact I’d been alone with him a lot of time, but he never misbehaved. I loved to travel with him in his car. He used to buy me a lot of toys and chocolates. I remember him kissing me only on my cheeks. I’m certain that those soft kisses were not sexual.”

The speaker of my mobile was turned on. Manisha was also dining with me. I’d told her about Agil on Sunday while we went shopping - about his abuse and that he’d accompany her to the school the next day. I’dn’t told her we were seeing each other.

“Not all pedophiles abuse children,” Manisha uttered her first words to him, because we believed that Gugan was also a pedophile.

He was literally shocked.

“Man o man! Who’s that?”

“Not all adults who abuse children are pedophiles.”

Manisha went on speaking without caring to introduce herself to him.

“Most of the junkies, who abused you, were not attracted to you. From which we can infer that they were not pedophilies. They targeted you because you were weaker and more pliable than adults. Whereas, Gugan would have been a pedophile who was able to control his sexual urges. He could have concealed his feelings his entire life for fear of condemnation and punishment.”

“She’s my younger sister whom you’ll be escorting tomorrow to the school program.”

I didn’t want to make him feel irreverent.

Manisha said, “Hey, Mohit said about all those to me. Sorry about that.”

“I’ll pick you up at 7 in the morning, Manisha.”

He tried to change the topic of conversation, but Manisha didn’t seem to give way to it. She mistook his embarrassment for feeling bad about referring to his uncle as a pedophile.

“As a rational human being, we must be able to separate the mental state of pedophilia from criminal acts of child abuse because the two do not go hand in hand. Gugan might’ve been a pedophile, but he never attempted to assault you,” she said.

“Er… shall I catch you up after class? I need to go now.”

“Sure. Don’t you forget to come tomorrow,” she said firmly and hung the call up.

“Did I hurt him, Mohit?”

“Not at all. He was getting late to his class. I don’t think he was upset by the way you spoke. Maybe he was shy. ”

She shrugged. We were then done with our lunch. She was thinking for a while. She was in dire need to say something. But, I felt that she didn’t know how to start the conversation.

“Uh… Pedophiles are among the most repressed of all sex offendors and the attitude toward adult-child sex is the last unquestioned bastion of sexual puritanism.”

“What? Do you mean we must allow child-adult sex?”

Somewhere deep in my mind, I also thought that our hatred for adult-child sexual acts is due to our sexual puritanism and prudishness. But still, I was not open-minded to accept such sexual acts even if they were consensual and even if they gave pleasure to the child involved.

“I think the current moral rejection and legal prohibition of all sexual contact between adults and children is part and parcel of an unjustified, undiscerning, and oppressive paternalism towards children. Children should have rights too, including the right to make their own sexual choices.”

She was overzealous about debating on this issue. She has always been a person who has strong opinions and has been vociferous in expressing her ideas.

“I believe that the meaning of children’s acts, even though sexual, is different from adults’ behaviour. Children’s acts are a consequence of curiosity and playfulness. They don’t do it knowingly.”

“There are children who do it fully knowing. They even know more than a grownup.”

“They don’t do it with self-consciousness, and they are even open to doing those acts in front of everyone. They never seek privacy in committing those acts.”

“Did you conduct any study or research to be so sure about your blatantly wrong hypothesis? This is what conservative people’ve being saying for centuries in order to exclude children from sexual acts.”

“And most importantly, they are not passionate or erotic while showing sexual interests. They are just excited,” I said as if I didn’t hear anything that she said.

“There are children who, indeed, are willing to have sex. When a child is willing, why should we prevent or condemn child-adult consensual sex?”

“You mean, children should be allowed to perform all sexual acts that adults perform?”

Agil’s story fed me a new interest in talking about this topic.

“Children must be given sexuality education from preschool onwards. They must be provided with information and options, so as to enable them to give informed consent. This sexuality education shouldn’t be patriarchal. Hopefully such an education will lead to a generation of adults that challenge the narrow construction of sexuality which considers sexualities like homosexuality and pedophilia to be taboos.”

Manisha has always been a pro-LGBT+ heterosexual person, but little did she know that her brother was also Queer.

Homosexual acts were also seen as a crime, and are still seen as a sin. And so is pedophilia. But, committing homosexual acts is no problem with informed consent of adults and in private, whereas committing pedophilic acts will be a chaos to the society, though they are undoubtedly committed in a lot of households. Desires, sexualities and sexual orientations are all natural. But, for that reason a natural calamity won’t be pleasant but a catastrophe, I thought, but forbade myself from saying to her.

“Won’t that allow adults to take children for granted and use them whenever they want?” I asked her.

“As regards child abuse, we should highlight the issue of patriarchal power and the dominance and power of adults over children. Since sexuality is also socially constructed, sexuality education should focus on relationships, respect for bodies and power, rather than only focussing on reproductive, genital sex education.”

There are a lot of people who ‘ve started crying out for sex education. But, I’m pretty speculative as to how sex education will single-handedly help in nullifying or at least plummeting child sexual abuses. As Manisha said we must root out patriarchy from our society. Patriarchy has remained to be the root cause for a lot of miseries endured by women and children. MEN WILL BE MEN attitude is the reason for Agil to be assaulted.