A sex worker on why Malayali men are the worst to women
In Kerala, even a sixty-four-year-old woman like me won’t be able to find a house.
Seventy-five per cent of Malayali men with whom I had interacted in my life do not regard women as their equal. Malayali men live their lives with an inherent certitude that women are very inferior beings. I have heard that even Sree Narayana Guru thought that women are, “vessels filled with shit and urine, doomed to send men into hell.” I don’t know if he has really written so. Even when they themselves are the ones in need, Malayali men treat most women with such contempt as if they are the ones bestowing a favour — a mentality which can tolerate nothing more than “Coming?” “How much?”
We do not come across this attitude in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Though in both these states, there is no recognition from the government, women engaged in sex work do enjoy partial recognition resulting from the existence of company houses with their supporting paraphernalia of petty thugs and gangsters. Such women are not so easily dismissed as in Kerala. They are addressed more respectfully. In Tamil Nadu, they show a certain respect to Malayali women out of desire.
Such differences in attitude can be seen in their approaches to sexual activity as well. People in Karnataka are not greedy about sex. At a pinch, this can be done even in the corner of a farm. When I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, as a single woman, I did not find it so difficult to find a house in Mangalapuram. It was not such a big deal to be seen chatting with your neighbour on the street for hours on end. Even if his wife comes by and sees you chatting, she won’t regard it as a serious issue. No hankering after sex. Nobody comes knocking on your door at night. No pinching and grabbing. They don’t consider sex as something so inaccessible. They are not afraid that their husbands would be stolen during the night. In Mysore, too, the situation was somewhat similar.
In Kerala, even a sixty-four-year-old woman like me won’t be able to find a house. Like money paid at toll booths, we have to keep giving. “You are a sex worker. Just supply our needs and get lost.” That is the attitude we face. As far as women are considered, I think old times might have been better. Sambandham relationships, which existed among Nairs, allowed Nair women the freedom to discontinue an existing marital relationship, and to also choose another person if she were so inclined. But this did not mean that any man could presume that he had the liberty to enter into relationships with any Nair women.
When I used to work in the mud quarry, there were two men — Thekkumpulli Balan and Pallivalappan Kuttappan — who were considered terrors in the area. Certain spaces in the village were considered their “area”. We either avoided those spaces or else went as a group if we had to go there. Their most villainous activities were card games. If any woman passed by, they would run after her to grab her breasts. This grabbing of the breasts was the most that they did. They never kidnapped or raped any woman. They were worried about making her pregnant. They knew that if they did so, news will go around the village and that would bring them shame and humiliation.
The image of cruel and ruthless villains sprung into existence in the Malayali psyche because of Balan K Nair, an actor of yesteryear, who was invariably cast as the villain who raped women in almost all the movies in which he had acted. Today, both in reel and real life, the nature of violence has changed. Even television serials consider that the best way to depict a female character failing in her life is by showing that she has either lost her “virginity” or has been impregnated.
Kerala’s geographical location is best suited to the hypocrisy of Malayali men. It is very easy to run off to neighbouring states for needs that they can’t fulfil in Kerala. The wealthiest among my clients hail from the business class. A friend of a well-known person once decided to help me economically. But he wanted to have a tryst with me by way of acknowledgment. He was a communist from Vadakara. He wanted to meet me, but not in Kerala. “Let’s go to Mangalore,” he said.
Those from northern Kerala usually prefer going to Mangalore. We don’t have to be afraid of anything there. Rents too are low. And there are more sex workers there. There is a phrase in Tulu for this —“kadappanakkil”, which means a runaway. Malayalis go to Mangalore in search of a job and sex workers. Just as you get cheap liquor in Mahe, the border town in Pondicherry, you get sex workers in Mangalore for much lower rates. Lodges are also cheaper and there is no threat of police raids. Men from Kozhikode prefer Mysore. Sex workers from Mysore have told me that Malayali men give them more money and more love — perhaps their behaviour changes once they change the state!
Those from Thrissur leave for Pazhani. Due to the inflow of pilgrims, it is easier to find rooms in Pazhani, and there won’t be any scrutiny about the age differences between the client and the sex worker. Tirunelveli is the preferred location of those from Kottayam, and Kanyakumari for the Thiruvanathapuram dwellers. Since these are touristy locations, nobody bothers about a man and woman seen together. This is how our geography plays an accomplice to the sexual deceit of Malayali men.
Very minor differences exist between men of different castes, religions or occupations in this matter. When I was staying with Rosie in Vavannur, I had seen Muslims in that area treating sex workers with a slightly better sense of equality. They would treat us to good food. They also wanted us to dress well. Once, I was wearing a skirt that was torn on one side. Rosie’s friend who was with us at that time became very agitated about this. He told me that I should never wear torn clothes. Nairs, on the other hand, have a “disposable” mentality, “use and throw, that’s enough for her” sort of attitude.
I don’t have clients beyond these three states. While travelling in Delhi, Kolkata and Thailand, I was able to acquire a nuanced understanding of the stinginess and cruelty peculiar to Malayali men. I recall one such experience while travelling in Thailand. My friend Lalitha was my travelling companion. She could manage a little bit of Hindi. But she was dismissive about Muslims. We were in a restaurant, having a drink. The table next to us was occupied by two Pakistanis. They weren’t drinking. I raised my glass and said cheers to them. They invited us to their table. Lalitha hesitated; she saw them as enemies. “How can we chat with our ‘enemies’?” But eventually we went across to their table. When they enquired about us, we told them the truth — we were in Thailand to attend the sex workers’ meet. Yet they were ready to continue the conversation. We were together for half an hour or so. If this had happened in Kerala, the conversation would have discontinued the second we had uttered the words “sex worker”.
Another time, a friend of ours from Kolkata came down with a fever and we had to rush her to the doctor. As soon as the doctors came to know of our profession, they refused even to touch her.
In most public places in Kerala, we had to suffer scorn and humiliation. We were kept apart as though we were infected with some sort of contagious disease. Yet, for their needs, which could be satisfied only by women, these Malyali men couldn’t keep their hands off us.
Once, I was travelling in a bus from Mysore to Kozhikode. Evening had started creeping up when the bus began to descend along the Wyanad Ghat road. The mist-covered mountains and valley offered a glorious sight. The person seated behind me leaned forward for a better view, and as he did so, he grazed my hand. I turned around and glared at him in anger. There might have been six to eight passengers in the bus, including myself. Seeing me glaring at him, the rest of the passengers thought that the guy must have groped me. But what was interesting is that all other passengers started reproaching me. Even before understanding the whole situation, they started supporting the guy, saying that such things are bound to happen in a bus. A young man who was seated next to me attempted to explain what had happened. Immediately, all the other passengers turned upon him. Their line of attack against him was, “You are not married. So, you can keep your mouth shut.”
The argument continued till the bus reached Kozhikode. “Our wives would never react like this. It is doubtful whether she is a good woman!”
That day I learned the valuable lesson that a good wife is one who suffers such groping and pinches in silence. I had also come to realise that a woman who travels at odd hours is definitely considered a bad woman. At that time, I had been living in Mysore for almost six months. While there, I had to board buses even at three in the morning, and I was never met with raised eyebrows.
If Malayali men are to respect women, they should have some kind of added worth — like fair skin or be beautiful, or something like that.
I have a friend who lives in Guruvayur. She did sex work in Guruvayur for almost thirty years and gained financial independence, something I could never achieve. But she was never able to have a man interact with her during daytime.
I have never received any additional payment for my good looks. At night, beauty or no beauty is all the same for Malayali men. I could get clients at daytime because they could introduce me as their wife while renting a room in the lodge. Be it a temple, a church or a mosque, only fair-skinned women would be readily given rooms in the vicinity. Others wouldn’t find it easy to get rooms.
If nobody else is noticing, any woman would suffice for a Malayali man. I had another friend who used to live near Amala Hospital. If we asked her to take a bath, she would reply, “Last night I was given a thorough bath by saar.” There are clients who have sex only after the woman is given a bath.
Many hold on to the false notion that a woman who is not pretty gets a lesser number of clients.
The Malayali man’s identity is anchored in the flawed concept of “virginity”. Many wives have shared with me their experience of being viewed suspiciously by their husband just because they did not moan in pain on their first night. There are many clients who would be happy if the sex worker cries out in pain while having sex. She might be crying due to pain from the vaginal infection she has contracted from having sex with multiple partners. But the men imagine that the woman is a virgin, and it satisfies them.
Though these are general facts about Malayali men, there indeed are exceptions. Twenty-five per cent of men might have a different outlook, having lived outside Kerala, or perhaps for no particular reason. In this book, I am presenting a few close-up shots from those twenty-five per cent of Malayali men. The only criterion enabling such a selection is the closeness of life and memory, some of my most cherished memories.
Romantic Encounters of a Sex Worker is the culmination of equally close and intimate conversations I had with Baiju Natarajan, Dileep Raj and Reshma Bharadwaj.
I believe that fundamentally there is no major difference between sex work and other kinds of manual labour that requires physical exertion. A labourer who carries sand or chanakam would often experience physical irritation and fatigue. Sex workers also live through situations where they might experience such bodily irritation and fatigue. On the other hand, the satisfaction that a person gets while viewing the fruits of the physical exertion is also accessible to sex workers when they get a really good client. Then the client and the lover merge and blur, making it difficult to distinguish one from the other.
All labour should be discussed in the context of exploitation. Once, after a conference, I was driven from the venue by another participant. He told me that he too had gone to a sex worker once.
“I paid her after sex, when she was leaving. She took the money from me and then bowed down and touched my feet. I was surprised. Do you know why she did so?”
I replied, “It might be because you are the first person to pay her in full after sex.”
Labourers being cheated of their wages or being underpaid is common in India. Sex workers might also live many lives as professionals, besides being labourers. They could be seen as counsellors who listen to other people’s woes and who give them expert advice. In many countries, there are instances where sex work also occupies the place of an art form, though in India, for a street sex worker, such leisure and creativity are often denied.
Nothing is inherently impossible for a sex worker. In fact, I consider being a sex worker has also given many women confidence, a more nuanced knowledge of the human body and psyche, an awareness of the care that each person requires, making them adaptable to other job spheres as well. I have three friends who, after a period of sex work, have entered other jobs like taking care of women after delivery, working early mornings in rice godowns or as street cleaners. Just take the example of how magnificently sex workers have intervened in AIDS prevention work all over the world. There are also several sex workers who are writers, who are active in theatre, who have acted in movies, and so on.
The problem then is that society reduces a sex worker to sex, as a person from whom sex is appropriated by force. It views sex workers as sexual props. A sex worker is not seen as a mobile and thinking human being for whom many possibilities may exist. Even if sex workers enter other work areas, the tag of “sex worker” with its attendant stigma follows them — “a sex worker who is also a writer, a sex worker who is also an actor”.
The choice and circumstances require complicated and complex understanding. Of course, circumstances play a major role in women becoming sex workers. Women who enter sex work may have limited options in work. I was a construction labourer before becoming a sex worker. When my neighbour, Rosie, told me of sex work, I decided to try this job as it seemed more attractive to me. It paid more, offered more flexible job timings, with no bosses to control me. There is no other job that I can quickly go to at any time of the day or night, and come back with money in my hand. So yes, I was exercising a choice from within my circumstances.
There is the logic of rehabilitation in dealing with women in sex work, or women who explore any other option. Why I didn’t take up other options is that the same logic applies to women engaged in other work as well, especially if they have a prior known history of being sex workers. This logic does not permit the possibility that under the circumstances, sex work might be a better paid job or a job which might offer better negotiating powers to the worker compared to other job choices. This logic demands that—for the sake of rehabilitation, for the sake of moral appeasement of the government or social workers or international funders—women should give up sex work and be rehabilitated into lesser paid, more exploitative jobs and choose a life of semi-starvation and deprivation. Many young women who get trapped in “sex trafficking” face this situation.
Many of them would not be accepted back in their community or family. They should be given a chance to continue in sex work if they so wish, but not under confinement. They should be provided with education and skills and other resources that would enable them to decide what they want to do with their life. People who associate with a sex worker do not want to widen her options, her right to bargain with her clients. I align myself with the larger female community in our country. That is why I didn’t explore other options. I want to be a woman, a sex worker, who might have had other options, but wants to be seen as one who explores multiple options at the same time, and refuses to succumb to this logic of rehabilitation.
The government should consider sex work as a form of employment. Sex work is a self-employment option available to women, and should be seen as such. I consider that sex work should be decriminalised. Though the Indian legal system does not consider sex work per se as a criminal activity, sex workers are persecuted by the police and the legal system. In Kerala, cops uphold moral policing, and hence frequently crack down on sex workers. The police have even committed murders which were never brought to light.
Sex work is like a lipiyillathabasha, a language without a script, whose rules are undefined. If sex work is decriminalised, then legal and public persecution of sex workers would be reduced (hopefully). It would also reduce incidents of sexual harassment within Kerala society. This would mean that public morality condemning consensual sexual activity between adults outside marriage cannot be used by the police and public to hound women.
I demand that the government conduct a comprehensive survey of the conditions of sex workers in India, and have a dialogue with sex workers and their organisations to consider their rights and their demands.
(Excerpted with the permission of Om Books International)