Novel Sexual Slavery

Men over the ages have been fairly creative in finding out multiple avenues to address their sexual needs. Gentle coercion, trickery, prostitution, rape, blackmail, war booty and casual encounters with the opposite sex are but a few of the avenues readily available to the physically stronger of the human sexes. The method used may vary depending upon circumstances, the environment and local mores but the primal need to sexually subjugate and control members of the opposite sex remains. The New Yorker magazine profiles yet another form of this subjugation highlighting an ancient Hindu practice in southern India where pre-pubertal girls were initiated into becoming a sex worker (devadasis) by making the girl believe that she is a demi-goddess and the services she performs are actually a service to the lord. An elaborate medieval legend involving gods, goddesses, sages and wontons also provide for sufficient moral ammunition for purveyors of the trade to explain to themselves that all they are doing is just another form of worship which in the end will lead to salvation. It is indeed interesting to see the absurd lengths to which we men go to satisfy the primal urge. Indeed repulsive, pathetic and nauseating.

The writer goes with the two devadasis to see the goddess Yellamma at her temple in the southern state of Karnataka. Tells the legend of Yellamma, who was the wife of a powerful rishi, Jamadagni, who punished his body and performed feats of great austerity. After fathering four children, these included a vow of chastity. One day, Yellamma saw a heavenly being making love to his consort. The rush of desire she felt destroyed the yogic powers she used in her husband’s service. Jamadagni guessed what had happened and cursed his wife. According to one version of the story, Yellamma became sickly and ugly, covered with boils and festering sores, cursed to wander the roads of the Deccan begging for alms. Devadasis believe that the tale of Yellamma shows how the goddess is uniquely sympathetic to their fate.

The ‘sex through religion’ system which has been extant for the last thousand years (in some format or other) is starkly illustrated in Telugu poetry from the fifteenth century from the collection ‘When God Is a Customer’

I’m not like the others.
You may enter my house,
but only if you have the money.

If you don’t have as much as I ask,
a little less would do.
But I’ll not accept very little,
Lord Konkanesvara.

To step across the threshold
of my main door,
it’ll cost you a hundred in gold.
For two hundred you can see my
bedroom,
my bed of silk,
and climb into it.

Only if you have the money

To sit by my side
and to put your hand
boldly into my sari:
that will cost you ten thousand.

And seventy thousand
will get you a touch
of my full round breasts.

Only if you have the money

Three crores to bring
your mouth close to mine,
touch my lips and kiss.

To hug me tight,
to touch my place of love,
and get to total union,
listen well,
you must bathe me
in a shower of gold.

But only if you have the money


Abstracted from a study here are results of a survey conducted by Joint Women’s Program, Bangalore for National Commission for Women listing the top reasons for the dedication of pre-pubertal girls into a life of sexual slavery:

1. Being a blind, a deaf or a dumb or a crippled girl
2. Well being of the family
3. No male issues in the family
4. Mother was a devadasi
5. Only female child in the family
6. Followed from generations
7. Poverty
8. Father had undergone an operation and vowed to fulfill religious promise
9. It was a religious ritual
10. To appease Gods for the well-being
11. Father’s brother made her a devadasi
12. Due to skin ailments


Suggested References:
- Altekar, A.S., The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization, Benaras: Motilal Banarasi Das, 1956..
- Dubois Abbe J.A and Beachampes H.K., Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928
- Dumont Louis, Homo Hierarchius: The Caste System and Its Implications, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972.
- Gough Kathleen, “Female Initiation Rites on the Malabar Coast”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, No. 85, 1952.
- Kadetotad, N.K., Religion and Society among the Harijans of Yellammana Jogatiyaru Hagu Devadasi Paddati (Jogati of Yellamma and Devadasi Custom), Dharwad, Karnatak University Press (Kannada), 1983.
- Srinivasan, K., Devadasi (a novel), Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1976.

Lucian Freud, “Naked Man on Bed’, Oil on canvas, 32” X 28”, 1989

Painting Post: Battery

Sunil, 'Battery', Oil and gesso on masonite, 40" X 44", 2007

This is a second picture in a continuing series that I started early this year. The first in this series is here.

Statistic: In the United States, a woman is battered every 15 seconds. Source here.

Painting post: Exploitation in Rwanda

Statistics are sobering but none caught my attention more so than when I ran into a website called the Sisters of Rwanda here (http://sistersofrwanda.org/). This is an NGO run out of Rwanda by Jared N Miller (a partner in The Incubator Group, a private equity firm out of Nashville) and Joseph Ayienga (Pastor from Kenya).
The NGO is actively involved in helping prostitutes (former and current) on the streets of Kigali, Rwanda lead better lives by teaching them about better opportunities and slowly but surely convincing them to stay off the streets.

The numbers that caught my eye were the results of this group interviewing random samplings of women in and around Kigali. Some averages taken from interviewing groups of 50 women were as follows: (from their website)

-5 Men per day
-7 Days per week
-3 Weeks off per year
-A condom was used less than half of the time
-If a man pays 5,000 RWF ($9.00 USD) he doesn’t have to use a condom. If a man pays 1,000 RWF – 3,000 RWF ($1.80 USD - $5.40 USD), the girl has some bargaining power and can get them to use one about half the time. The more the man pays, the less likely he is to use a condom.

They had images of women on their site that bespoke a kind of suffering that I could hardly imagine and I decided to paint one of them. This is what I have created and I decided to call it "5 Men a day 7 days a week 49 weeks a year". The painting is 3 feet wide and 4 feet high.