This one hurt

I am angry.

We just got back from our night out at an establishment we thought was going to be a good place to hang out and chill after a long studious week. It ended up being a strip club and all 13 of us loud, obnoxious, white-skinned Americans were given the best seats in the house. We of course failed to notice a few obvious cultural signals until it was too late: the only women there stood in a line instead of groups wearing extravagant saris or pants that were way to tight for Indian standards, the men looked at the women and us with hungry smiles, all of the benches were facing into the dance floor and the women, and there was a sign on the door that said “Ladies Services” in large, bold letters. Outside of the place we sat and waited for our swaraji bus to arrive as cars pulled up or slowed down, rolling down windows and giving us 10 ladies and 2 guys the same looks that men were giving the women on the dance floor; they looked hungry and expectant. When we passed by one of the cars the men in that car had gazes that intensified and I felt forcibly naked, worried that they could see through my kurtah.

I am so sick of being in a large, totally conspicuous group of loud, obnoxious, white-skinned Americans and my desire to detach from my home country is intensified. It’s not fair that I have beauty preference and privilege in this vain country because of my fair skin color, but it’s also not fair that I should be labeled a loose woman or even a slut for that same “privilege” which I disdain. Being a minority, even if it is a good thing sometimes, is degrading to me.

I am fuming about the women who are stripping in that upper room all decked out in beautiful saris just so they can take them off. When we got back I rushed back to my room feeling disgusting for even wearing jewelry at all and feeling it burning so much that I want to rip it off as fast as I can. We don’t want to judge these people, but we all did. I want to physically slap the men at the bar we went to and yell at them how precious and personal a person’s body is and how it ought to be valued and kept sacred! I want to shake them, saying that bodies are not to be made into a commodity as the world markets would have it be! I want to smash in the smile of the men glaring hungrily, lusting after a human being, and tell them about the intellectual power of a woman and how that makes her truly beautiful, a wild and magnificent stallion that need not be tamed only respected.

My inner wild and magnificent nature is not, will never be tamed

and I am so angry…