[Reader-list] Ragging and sexuality: Three responses

[Shivam Vij]

Here are some thoughts prompted by the post which asks about the
relationship between ragging and
sexuality, and specifically whether same-sex ragging is a
manifestation of repressed homosexual desire.

My thoughts below are based primarily on prior work as a peer
counselor with victims/survivors of sexual assault
and domestic violence, including but not limited to situations where
the perpetrator and victim are of the same-sex.

I treat it as a given that a pro-equal_rights stance – with respect to
both gender and sexual orientation - is integral to
any human-rights work including work against ragging and all forms of
sexual assault.

(i) My first point would be that descriptors such as 'heterosexual
ragging' and 'homosexual ragging' are misleading and preferably
avoided for the same reason that anti-rape activists are moving away
from terms such as homosexual rape and heterosexual rape, [opting for
the terms 'same-sex rape' and 'other-sex rape' instead].

The problem with 'homosexual rape' and 'heterosexual rape' (and their
equivalents for ragging) is that they suggest that the perpetrators
are homosexual and heterosexual, respectively. More often than not
these adjectives only serve to further stigmatize an
already-beleaguered community, i.e. the homosexual community.
Interestingly, man-on-woman rape rarely stigmatises male
heterosexuality in the public imagination - one wonders why!

Very often sexual orientation of the perpetrator is irrelevant or only
marginally relevant to the abuse. Heterosexual men rape women _and_
men in situations of war. Here, as in most other cases, rape is an
assertion of power and control/dominance, rather than a manifestation
of sexual desire.

(ii) If we consider ragging to be a violation of bodily integrity and
thereby a human's right just as we would rape, then how does it matter
that the perpetrator and victim are of the same sex or different
sexes, or of the same or different sexual orientations? Abuse is
abuse, regardless of the sexual orientation and sex/gender of the
perpetrator or victim. That the perpetrator may be homosexual or
bisexual or heterosexual should not cause one to be any more or any
less condemnatory of the act.

(iii) Any attempt to understand homosexual orientation or the
psychology of homosexuals (repressed or otherwise) viewed through the
lens of same-sex ragging would be as objective and unbiased as
attempting to understand the
psychology of heterosexuality by studying acts of rape.

(iv) Sexual orientation is germane to an analysis of ragging to the
extent that often individual ragging (as opposed to ragging of an
entire bunch of people) is sometimes directed more acutely at males
perceived-to-be-weak, perceived-to-be-effeminate or
perceived-to-be-homosexual. In this context, what may pass off as an
attempt to "make a man" out of the slender/young/effeminate boy by
ragging him is really a vicious attempt to assert the perpetrator's
socially superior masculinity and humiliate the victim by highlighting
his 'failed' masculinity. Of course all of this makes (warped) sense
because we live in a sexist world where questioning a male's
masculinity is humiliating precisely because of the power differential
between men and women. Male-on-male ragging reflects the large sexist
power structures, only treating
appearance and (younger) age as surrogates for a supposedly inferior
masculinity.

(v) Why is ragging sexualized to begin with? What more powerful way to
exert dominance over another person
than by violating their body? What more overt form of humiliation can
you force on someone - in a homophobic society - than by making them
perform sexual acts with someone of the same sex? Abu Ghrayb anyone?
If sexuality were to be implicated in same-sex ragging, I'll suspect
that homophobia and sexism, rather than homosexuality, is what we're
really looking at.

in solidarity and support,
L Ramakrishnan
SAATHII: Solidarity and Action Against the HIV Infection in India
www.saathii.org

o o o o o 

Dear Mr Ramakrishnan,

First of all many thanks for responding to my mail, and sorry for the
delay in replying. Thanks also to Nitin Karani of the Sarai reader
List for forwarding my post to several mailing lists working on issues
of sexuality, because of which I have three good responses, including
yours.

You wrote: "My thoughts below are based primarily on prior work as a
peer counselor with victims/survivors of sexual assault and domestic
violence, including but not limited to situations where the
perpetrator and victim are of the same-sex."

I have a request. Would you mind being a counselor for ragging victims
who approach us?

You wrote: "Very often sexual orientation of the perpetrator is
irrelevant or only marginally relevant to the abuse. Heterosexual men
rape women _and_ men in situations of war. Here, as in most other
cases, rape is an assertion of power and control/dominance, rather
than a manifestation of sexual desire."

The difference between rape and ragging is, well, the latter is mental
rape. While the rapist commits the act, rarely does the ragger commit
sexual abuse that amounts to physical contact between the ragger and
the fresher. The ragger forces two freshers or more into homosexual
acts, or the ragger asks the fresher to "strip" and masturbate. The
extremes hereafter begin with holding each other's private parts and
may go up to forcing two freshers (men) to have sex, mostly anal sex.

So the comparison with rape is somewhat inaccurate. 

The ragger himself claims to be heterosexual all along, goes about
wooing girls, sometimes accuses freshers of being 'homo'. Are you
saying that sexual ragging of a man by a man has nothing to do with
sexuality, and all to do with power? As the second article appended by
me showed, this may not be true. The narrator makes his sexual desire
for the fresher, Vinay, clear from the very beginning. But the
narrator's friends who asked Vinay to strip, we don't know about their
sexual orientation.

My point was that a ragger could be doing this just to experiment with
his own sexuality - though not necessarily, not always. Let's say it's
a fifty-fifty chance. Do you deny that?


You wrote: "If we consider ragging to be a violation of bodily
integrity and thereby a human's right just as we would rape, then how
does it matter that the perpetrator and victim are of the same sex or
different sexes, or of the same or different sexual orientations?
Abuse is abuse, regardless of the sexual orientation and sex/gender of
the perpetrator or victim. That the perpetrator may be homosexual or
bisexual or heterosexual should not cause one to be any more or any
less condemnatory of the act."

Sure, but what I meant was that ragging takes place in an avowedly
heterosexual world - where raggers and freshers alike woo girls, their
limericks are all about heterosexual sex. In such a world, a senior of
one sex abusing the fresher of another sex is understandable. It's
like a man raping a woman, and I'm not understating the gravity of
such a situation. Just that in ragging this is not the situation. It
is boys who make boys strip, masturbate, have sex with their
batchmates, and then everyone goes back to their 'normal' heterosexual
world. Why then did homosexual ragging take place?


(iii) Any attempt to understand homosexual orientation or the
psychology of homosexuals (repressed or otherwise)viewed through the
lens of same-sex ragging would be as objective and unbiased as
attempting to understand the psychology of heterosexuality by studying
acts of rape.

"(iv) Sexual orientation is germane to an analysis of ragging to the
extent that often individual ragging (as opposed to ragging of an
entire bunch of people) is sometimes directed more acutely at males
perceived-to-be-weak, perceived-to-be-effeminate or
erceived-to-be-homosexual. In this context, what may pass off as an
attempt to "make a man" out of the slender/young/effeminate boy by
ragging him is really a vicious attempt to assert the perpetrator's
socially superior masculinity and humiliate the victim by highlighting
his 'failed' masculinity."

You are right, though there is a risk of generalisation here. I know a
ragger who looked thin as a rod, but not 'unmanly', and he made a
giant-like sportsperson fresher strip. The power game here may be that
the ragger was assured of his own 'manliness' precisely by sexually
humiliationg a stronger 'man'.

"(v) Why is ragging sexualized to begin with? What more powerful way
to exert dominance over another person than by violating their body?
What more overt form of humiliation can you force on someone - in a
homophobic society - than by making them performsexual acts with
someone of the same sex? Abu Ghrayb anyone? If sexuality were to be
implicated in same-sex ragging, I'll suspect that homophobia and
sexism, rather than homosexuality, is what we're really looking at."

Maybe yes, but perhaps only partly? What if in a bunch of abusers,
there are some who have a conscious or unconscious 'same-sex'
orientation? They're doing what they've always wanted to do, but didnt
have social sanction? Or are just experimenting? I know i'm being
repititive with this point, but I would like you to reconsider it.

Thanks a lot,
Team PACE


o o o o o o oo 

From: "Greg Pratt" <gp at panix.com 

This discussion on ragging -- what I think we would call "hazing" in
the United States -- has a lot less to do with sexuality than it does
subjugation and humiliation. One need not look further than the abuses
at the Abu Gharib prison to see how those wishing to control will fall
back upon sexual humiliation as a weapon of choice. In closed social
environments where there is an expected "pecking order", such as a
school or university, those with seniority will assert themselves to
newcomers, to make sure they know who's the boss. Sometimes this is
nothing more than making fun of someone for asking seemingly
ridiculous questions. When I was in high school, the alleged
stereotypical response to any freshmen asking for directions to some
unknown classroom was, "It's on the fourth floor, near the entrance to
the pool. (Our high school had three floors, and no swimming pool.)
Or, it can take the much darker forms, like the "lifting" behavior
described earlier.
 
In my mind, the more violent reactions come from those least secure
about their own sexuality. That doesn't mean that they are homosexual,
simply deathly afraid that they aren't "man" enough. I can'tremember
ever hearing about women doing this to each other, and I've never
heard of any real-life cases of gay men doing it. (But for a fictional
account, _Relax, It's Just Sex_ provides a startling look into that
subject.)
 
As for the supposed link between homosexuality and child abuse, there
really isn't one. I have found, however, that people who have suffered
from sexual abuse as children often find it harder to come to terms
with a differing sexual orientation as adults. Developing a healthy
adult sexuality can be more difficult when it becomes connected with
the memories of a sexual subjugation earlier in life. When your
sexuality starts to assert itself in your mind, and you start
connecting it with the memories of the abuse, the combination can be
confusing and terrifying. I'm sure that has an effect on people who
have been ragged or hazed, though less so if their sexuality has
already started to develop.
 --
 Gregory Pratt gp at panix.com
 East Rutherford, NJ, USA http://www.panix.com/~gp/

o o o o o o

Dear Greg,

Many thanks for your reply to the post on ragging and sexuality. Yes,
ragging is similar to hazing in the US, but there maybe crucial
differences. Also, the average age of losing virginity in the US is
16, in India, 21, and this may cause some differences in sexual
ragging in India and sexual hazing in the US. This is again one
difference between ragging and Abu Ghraib: the abusers in the latter
are adult people, approximately 6-12 years older than Indian
students/raggers.

You wrote: "I can't remember ever hearing about women doing this to each other."
There have been some rare cases of girls sexually abusing girls in
girls' hostels in India, and this is very intriguing indeed. One
example is that of the Indu Anto suicide case in Sophia College in
Bombay, six years ago, in which the police are now investigating if it
was a murder. It was a post-mortem of the deceased that revealed
sexual abuse. These cases may be less rare than they seem, because
sexual ragging never comes to light unless there's a suicide -
something our Dossier is trying to change by giving voice to the
unheard heart-wrenching stories of ragging victims who still carry the
scars.


You wrote: "I've never heard of any real-life cases of gay men doing it."

As far as India is concerned, no gay would do such a thing and then
say he did it. Most homosexuals in India are not declared gays, they
may themselves be confused about their sexuality. And nobody admits
such a thing, nobody says look I committed this crime. And the victim
or even a witness won't know whether or not the ragger was doing this
because of his homosexuality. Those who are confident of their
homosexuality - like the author of article 1 - are likely to be very
sensitive against sexual ragging because they know how sexuality can
be made a tool to humiliate.

You wrote: "But for a fictional account, _Relax, It's Just Sex_
><DEFANGED.14 provides a startling look into that subject." Can you tell me more
about this, is it a book?

Your mail is of great help for us to understand the links between
ragging and sexuality, and will surely contribute to strengthening the
'Ragging and sexuality' section of our website-dossier, which should
be up soon.

I invite you to join our low-volume mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anti-ragging

Thanks a lot!
Team PACE

o o o o o 

From: Sanjay Lulla 

Can I add a few words?

Reading the whole mail went down to the articles. I am sure the
articles annexed thereto would have tickled many of us (don't lie,
they tickled me initially). For a second I forgot that we were reading
about a problem and the next second I thought was it necessary to
include the articles? Well part of the answer lies here.

Ragging, though not experienced by me, may mean in a nutshell the
maybe a means to show superiority by the senior students or maybe just
to get to know the fresher. I won€ '²t dwell on this much since I don€
'²t know. Coming down to sexual factor, sex has been a matter of
intrigue for time untold. Generally anything connected to sex is
considered taboo no talks no explanations no discussions. I remember
people saying when I was young that if I play with my wily I will go
blind or lose my blood or may not grow tall (though I am not tall)
People tend to scare children on the subject of sex. Hence it becomes
a matter of intrigue. Nakedness is associated with sex and it is
mandatory to cover oneself atleast with a banian or a towel this gives
rise to curiosity in the mind. Have seen people in public urinals peek
at their neighbors even though they had no sexual interest in him
(there were no making of eyes). Then I remember seeing a crowd from a
BEST bus long time back. This crowd was around a poor beggar who was
sleeping and his lungi had opened. An old woman came and covered the
man and the crowd dispresed. Hence I can say that such cruel sexual
repression and curiosity and the fact that the seniors have to be in
power plays a major role. How can I be powerful? When I don€ '²t have
any guts? By making the other person helpless. The surest way to make
a person feel helpless is by uncovering his nakedness. Everything open
between us and all is crap. By dancing naked in front of others I do
not become their best of friends!!!

And there is always a level of being queer in every one. But it has
nothing to do with being gay since as u can see from article 2 only
the author amongst the several guys and a gay relationship with the
Vinay character and of the reasons given above. Unfortunately all this
is being used in ragging. Had read about such a case recently in the
newspaper where the aggrieved fresher had proceeded against the
seniors and had them expelled, maybe it was in Gujrat?

This is more basic but this is what I understand.

Thanks
Sanjay 

o o o o o 

Dear Mr Lulla,

Many thanks for replying our post on ragging and sexuality. It does
add to our thinking on the subject.

You wrote: "And there is always a level of being queer in every one.
But it has nothing to do with being gay since as u can see from
article 2 only the author amongst the several guys and a gay
relationship with the Vinay character and of the reasons given above."

We don't know about the sexual orientation of others, and thus can't
presume them to be heterosexuals. They may well be homosexuals, though
my guess is that often in 'same sex' ragging, the ragger can choose to
be anything: homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, confused. He doesn't
have to say it. When he dispassionately says, "Take off your clothes,
fachch!" he could be saying this because:

1) He (the ragger) is indulging in a power game, using sexuality to humiliate;
2) He is experimenting with his own sexuality, trying to explore
whether he has homosexual inclinations, feels attracted to the
fresher's body;
3) Is a homosexual but since society forces heterosexuality on him, he
has not come out of the closet, and has found a proxy route to indulge
in his homosexual fantasise;
><DEFANGED.15 4) Both 1 and 2.
5) Both 1 and 3.
6) All three.

I think points 1, 4 and 5 are the likeliest.

Also, the incident last year you are referring to, was not in Gujarat
but in IIT Delhi, a very hyped one because a) It was IIT, b) It was
Delhi, c) most importantly, the victim's father took the bravely
unusual step of filing a police complaint.

But there is far too much sexual ragging, specially in small towns,
and the media never tells you about it. Prakash Rajpurohit of IIT
Delhi is a name now embedded in the nascent history of the
anti-ragging movement in India, but the media never told you that in
the same year there was a ragging suicide in Jaunpur district of Uttar
Pradesh. Only the Jaunpur papers reported it!

I invite you to join our low-volume mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anti-ragging

Thanks a lot,
Team PACE

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