Take a trip to the local parlour. You can walk to it. Someone who looks out for you could help you get there, if you’re a wheelchair or a white cane user. Inside this space there are a whole bunch of humans getting pinched and patted, manicured, painted, shampooed, massaged, hair-do’s getting done, the hum and whir of gadgets, and that smell, a mix of chemicals. Lisa or Maitri will smile at you from behind the counter. If it’s a short hair situation – and I don’t mean down there, I mean up top – then Ravi will flex his muscles and start the chop. If it’s a short hair situation down there, you get to go behind a curtain and Rupa will come in to do you. I honestly don’t know how many male-bodied persons get this done and then if they do, it’ll be a Rupin doing the deed I think. Not like doctors where male-bodied doctors see female-bodied patients and shove in a speculum with casual authority. (Do they chuckle and exchange stories over lunch?) Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Nimmi Ramanujam, in this really good read, says, “We are a product of our culture,” and also that, “The devices we use are designed by people – men primarily – with a certain perspective.”

Back to the collection at the parlour. A sameness to the proceedings you would think, all people, no dog grooming here, choosing from the same menu-based items. Cut, wax, mani, pedi, colour, massage, whatever. But it isn’t the same for the different selves sitting next to each other. Here’s a dhobi list of selves:

1. Cis-het, fair-complexioned, salaried, pregnant, a wife exchanging messages with a husband who is staying an extra couple of days in Thailand to “catch up with friends”.
2. Cis-het, dark-skinned, gig worker, mentally wondering if the money spent here will be worth it at the job interview this afternoon, what she will wear, and whether black will hug the generous curves seductively enough.
3. Non-binary, has anorexia, skinny as hell, wondering if they should cancel the shrink and just go eat and puke some more. Will this haircut make the face look fat?
4. Transwoman walks in, Maitri behind the counter doesn’t smile, but they have an appointment and look well-dressed, what do we do next?
5. The white cane user, a rare self at a beauty parlour, can feel the tickle of cut hair falling upon their face and neck and wriggles a little as Ravi wonders why they are so particular about an angled bob cut, as opposed to a short bob. Couldn’t be a date, or could it? Ravi wonders if he’d be interested in someone who was blind. Maybe for the novelty of it. Post it on Insta for a different kind of cool.

Then there’s a self sitting in a locked room at home, crying and staring into a mirror, feeling like shit because papa found them wearing mumma’s bra, sari and lipstick. On the other side of the door the man shouts and the woman placates. Daddy mummy. This is a self that is not going to go for mani, pedi or bridal make up, but will soon be a groom at the shaadi of their self to a woman who may not enjoy sharing her underwear and lipstick with them. Many selves experience variations of this theme, some find support like this teen who wore a sari at his school farewell, others sadly don’t, like this teen who died by suicide. Self does not live in isolation and this makes all the difference.

These selves in spaces

Humans collect in many spaces, physical, digital, intellectual, emotional and spiritual, just add whatever I’ve missed. They bring their selves to these spaces, they become their selves in these spaces, and also hide their selves quite often, despite being present. There are many reasons for this, but one of the big ones is the relationship between these selves, and sexuality. Or, the self, and sexuality.

Bus stop. Gynaecologist. Gym. Park bench. Friday market. Hotel. Cafe. Metro station. Street-corner paanwala. Petrol pump, office pickup point, bank, movie theatre, panchayat meeting at the village square under the banyan tree?
Public bathroom?
Police station SHO’s desk?
School?
LGBTQIA+ support group? Where ‘care, conversation, and community’ are the pillars upon which self and sexuality construct a life?
Yes, where do you go where humans collect?

Whose is the casual self, eyeing the others, ganging up to pass comments? Who’s protectively huddled inwards pretending their self does not have breasts and preferably does not exist? Which environment raised that self, standing rebelliously, shoulders back, shit-kicker boots on a heavy female body, dare you to try mess with this one. And did those two men just kiss? Who threatens the others with presence, turban and moustache? Is that a woman? Face half-covered with her sari pallu who just raised her voice at a community meeting? Did someone take away the right to own and use a cell phone from somebody else? Did someone try to quietly inch away from a frotteur in the lift? Frotter – French verb. Rub, scrape, non-penetrative sexual contact, usually initiated by persons attached to penises, I could be wrong. A self very different from the one who holds the hand of the one he loves and says – it’s okay, we’ll wait till we’re both okay. (Of course that’s an assumption, because who knows if the lift frotteur and the one willing to wait are just two sides of the one, with two different people. We hide our sexual selves more often than not, hard to prove but worth a thought.) And yet – I do see love, real loving selves, in sibling conversations, in marriages, in chosen families, friendships, parents who unlearn the convention to hold their queer child close to them. These are the very real, respectful, loving, learning selves – of those who stand up for your right to be you, your self, your sexuality.

Log on. WhatsApp, Insta, Facebook, YouTube, Tinder, Bumble, QuackQuack, TrulyMadly.

That zoom meeting? Where someone kept their background and someone else blurred it? Somebody’s mother walked past, ears alert, eyes averted, and somebody checks somebody else’s search history. (Why does somebody check somebody’s search history? Curious about their Blinkit orders? Not likely.) Consider these words in answer to that question – cheating, dating, control, morality, fear, anxiety, jealousy, power, rage, honour, truth and lies. Romance, love, sex, parenting, rivalry, and marriage.

Those profile pics with soft seductive shine and ethereal halo lighting, curated, to show a self that reveals, or hides, and sometimes explores, the sexual self. Why do we tell or do not tell our children about groomers, predators and false identities online? What is it about the self of a child or a young person that we protect, empower, or disconnect from understanding sexuality, including their own sexuality? And why?

On an aside, I wanted to know whether we still have matrimonial columns in the newspapers that list out aspects of self to include binary identity m/f, height, weight, complexion, age, occupation, caste and family background. So I checked. Yes, they are very much still in style, see, for your ‘beautiful blend of traditional matchmaking and contemporary convenience’. All because there’s a kind of societal sexuality that’s been around for generations, and it’s linked to control, hierarchy, politics, laws, money, class, caste, and words I am now carefully no longer using to describe some of the diversity of selves that we are.

But we said Sex-uality? And Self?

Yes we did.

Here’s the Sex:
Each person in these collections across spaces was born and assigned a biological sex based on their genitals and the knowledge of the humans around them. So far the most familiar are the binary, male, female, and intersex. Chromosomally that is XX, XY, and multiple other possibilities of combinations, with a few numbers and alphabets thrown in, such as 45, X46, 47, 48, etc., and words that leap out of the shadows yelling ‘boo’, such as syndrome, agenesis, mosaicism. Not to minimize all this ill or well-meant scientific labelling, but to attempt underlining the fears and misgivings that attach themselves to this language.

Here’s the Sexuality:
Each person in these collections across spaces was born in an ecosystem of expectations, historical and contemporary, handed down or passed across like an unwieldy parcel – born of those chromosomal features just referred to. So these expectations authored by family, friends, neighbours, community, strangers and state, plus the occasional spiritual task-master, swaddle the baby even in environments too impoverished for swaddling cloth. The baby may go on to be privileged, or not, well-nourished and cared for, or not, but there is one thing that every baby born has in common – that parcel of others’ expectations based on a biological understanding of their genitals. Expectations at the core of the self – as sexuality is at the core of the self.

Earlier I used the term societal sexuality, and I do not just mean the impact of society on sexuality or the other way around. Here’s how I see it – a weirdly collective experience of sexuality, where everyone’s in the same room, watching each other, judging, commenting, liking, reporting, blocking, following, criticising, bullying, and doing the accepted, or the not accepted, depending on the label stamped on your paperwork of birth, census, lineage etc.

Let’s be clear, it’s complicated because there’s both good and bad to the sharing that goes on here. The good involves encouraging good practices and discouraging malpractices such as violence and abuse. The bad includes the dynamics involved in simply deciding what is good and what is mal. For example, who decides for who, who is protection extended to and who falls through the cracks? What abuse continues to prevail, what understanding brings respect, love and change?

Back to the parlour, Bumble and the panchayat tree

Identify your self. Are you there? Who are you there as? Is your friend happy in their skin, the trousers or the sari? Are you?

Perhaps it is difficult to explore the self of another because this self is a large composition of physical, social, mental, emotional, digital – and yes, sexual aspects of being. A composition without discrete lines or even shapes, where all the colours mix and the whole is more than an aggregation of parts.

It is entirely possible though to consider the self one ought to know best and access with greater ease – one’s own self. An ease that is crucial when you consider how many layers you are, what your visible self is, and, where. Ease, in front of the mirror, before your daddy whoever he may be, at the wedding reception of your cousin where people gather to make new matches, ease before your girlfriend, boyfriend, lover as you consider issues of consent, of caste, of discrimination, of ability and disability, of age and morality. Ease in the face of laws that decide your identity before you can.

Putting that unwieldy parcel down. Creating that space of ease that allows your self to breathe and acknowledge identity and sexuality from your individual perspective. Before you start, here’s a tip. Self is a word that’s often misconstrued and needs a revised understanding. It is vastly more than a Lego set collection of cells and chemicals, or even thoughts and behaviours limited to your biology and psyche. Self is you, your grandparents, the traditions and heritage of the people you are born to and/or who raise you. Self is the state’s construction of you, a census definition of you and your access to care and support of many different kinds. A good doctor, a respectful open-minded mental health carer who does not practice conversion therapy, a company that creates a safe and inclusive environment so that you can earn a living and benefits at par with everyone else, even if you’re queer. Self is you in a state of becoming at all times, this, or that, or many things, in an environment that may or may not constrict you – at home, in school, at the market place, hospital, bank or on the social media platform where you’d like to share a post celebrating your fifth anniversary with your partner.

Meanwhile these selves and their diverse sexualities wink seductively at each other and sit on the sidelines shouting large warnings at the world of mothers, fathers, brothers, police and others in society. Keep your self in check, your sexuality appropriately stuffed into high-rise jeans or low-cut thingamajigs, or nicely hidden behind a large kurta with long sleeves. Be aware of where you are and which of your selves should peep out and show itself.

Creating a space of ease is not just on micro you, it is on your whole self, integrating aspects that originate in macro you. This is the system you are born into and breathe in and out every day, in every form you fill, every transaction you initiate or participate in. We are all connected. Why should this connection work to the benefit of some, creating an unequal and unjust society? Why should it supress some voices, needs and desires and elevate others in the effort to force conformity?

You are society too, as am I, each of us is one, important, valuable self – amongst the many others that experience life, take decisions, wake up each morning with some daily life to-dos. We are connected, I and us. Creating a space of ease must start with intention. And the good news is, since we know how to support some, then we can learn how to support all.

Cover image by Helena Jankovičová Kováčová on Pexels