Are there two kinds of rapists in India?

A few days ago, a friend who works as a marketing professional and has just turned 30, shared an unusual experience.

A south Indian man, who her parents had arranged for her to meet, started making unfair demands. After a couple of courtesy calls, he began asking about what she wore. And if she ever got late at work, the frequency of his calls would increase.

She decided to confront him and ask why her clothes were so important. Was it a sexual thing?

"Girls who wear short skirts in the company I work for sleep with the boss. It's the easiest way to score a promotion. Just want to make sure you're not the type."

Smarting with anger, my friend said: "What I wear is my business! What kind of a sexist pig are you." To which he remarked, "I was being honest. Besides, with your figure, you'd look the best in Indian clothes."

Needless to say, this was their last conversation.

When she told me this story, I couldn't help but wonder if the real danger to women in India isn't so much the rapists and molesters on the street, but merely the men in our lives. The men who occupy our mind space.

Road and safety

"Getting out of a bar alone at midnight in Gurgaon. What else can you expect can happen other than rape? There are no saints on Indian roads. Women think they live in New Zealand or Canada where it is okay or what?"

I read this scathing remark in the comments section of a news article on a 26-year-old Delhi woman who was allegedly abducted and gang-raped by three men in a moving car on Sunday.

I couldn't help but wonder - do Indian women deserve to be raped if they happen to enjoy a drink by themselves? Venture out of a bar post midnight. Hail a cab. Travel alone. Unaccompanied by a man - her protector as culturally conditioned?

Is this the reason why our fathers are always concerned about the length of our skirts or our plunging necklines? Telling us we should dress modestly, cover ourselves modestly and return home by a certain time?

Anger

This is the reason why I seethed with outrage when Mukesh Singh, the convicted rapist in the December 16 Delhi gangrape, unrepentantly declared in the documentary India's Daughter: "A decent girl won't roam around at nine at night... Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes."

Aren't similar lines echoed by men in our lives?

Are women there to only invite a male's lust? Who decides what is inappropriate in a nation? We openly fantasise about Sunny Leone and yet demand puritanical virginity from our bahus.

The country which bans Savitha Bhabhi is okay with vulgar lyrics in Bollywood item numbers and cheesy sexist jokes in crass reality TV comedy shows.

Back off

Last I checked, drinking or going to a pub or discotheque, or dressing in skimpy clothes isn't illegal. Rape is. No one asks to be raped and mutilated. The victim is the violated one whose consent is forcibly snatched away. Women have a right over their own bodies. Even stalking is as much a violation of a woman's privacy.

Maybe there are two kinds of rapists in India - one a decadent, deranged patriarchal assaulter and the other a product of centuries of societal and moral perversion conditioning.