Living up to Being Promiscuous

Who said everyone enjoys being constant? Maybe being promiscuous only defines what being gay is all about — carefree and intrinsically hedonistic! Maybe it’s also time, we celebrate this indulgence and realise what a diverse community we actually are.

Rohit Singh Deo

We are accused of being “promiscuous.” Is it wrong to be so, I ask myself. The intention is not to glorify myself with the word, but to examine it from a different angle.

Yes, I am promiscuous. Am I ashamed of it –is the question I ask myself and my conscience. I love to be in denial of the world around me. This is me; I am a bottom. I enjoy exploring the realms of darkness filled with my sexual escapades. I flash myself on online profiles, café shops, pubs, bars, restaurants, markets, malls, work places, discotheques, famous parks and other gay jaunts until my eyes scour for that moment of pleasure and I have my urge satiated by the body beside me.

Never content with my sex buddies, I have regular visitors to my house. My house that I have created for myself some time back is a safe haven to enact my fantasies.

THEY, as always, “have no place” and innumerable responses to feed hungry souls like me:

I have no place.

I am married/I am single, with no place, but a tool to satisfy you.

I can come right away.

I am sorry you are too far away. Could you please pick me up?

Hope you are well-stocked.

I, on the other hand, have to be well prepared:

I have a place or make a place, irrespective of the situations in which I may be.

My kind of place – oh my, spic and span is not the word.

I smell sweet and am well-groomed for the act. The next door aunt would envy me.

Well-stocked indeed – keeping the neighbourhood chemist happy as I boldly shop for the assorted condoms on display.

All this comes at a cost for being gay and wanting few minutes of pleasure. Is it worth the pain and agony? Perhaps, only those in our shoes can feel the pain. Clinical psychiatrists would love to have us fill their clinics for having such a disruptive nature, but how would it end even if we were to be counselled. Men are too good to be ignored and they are all over. Will life ever be gentle with me is what I ask? Even if I did find a man, whether or not he is married, the desire of being wanted would still persist. Men love taking advantage of our situations: gay, bisexuals, versatile — you name it.

Some are strong and fight it from within. Yet, some others fall prey to the expectations of others and abuse themselves by shelving their egos and letting their alter egos take over them. Is it wrong or right? Each of us would have to find our own answer. We live in a world where we freely live by the consequences of our own actions. We are our own masters. We cannot confide in friends, families, medico-physicians, and, even if we did, the argument for monogamy would still persist.

Society is made of relationships. Some of us live lives where we are open and come out to our family and friends. Yet others lead closeted lives, webbed and wedged with thin lines of relationships which have significance only on a bed. Some people get into a relationship and even make a commitment in order to avoid promiscuity. I regard this sort of arrangement totally selfish in terms of its sexual ownership and control over the other. Relationships work well for those who make compromises and then work them out.

How do we reconcile the spread of diseases with promiscuity? Is promiscuity highly risky? Is this a myth or a reality? Some of us are diligently cautious when we have sex. For others there are those one or two slips which lead to serious repercussions. Promiscuity doesn’t cause diseases, but unprotected and unhygienic sex does, even if one is within a single sexual relationship. Is it worth taking a risk? I would rather surrender myself into the flow of the moment and its little pleasures, which may last only for a few minutes or hours, perhaps even days or a year. So long as I am offered the thrills of a gay life, I’d rather enjoy myself than languish from unfulfilled desire. What might seem a promiscuous fling for one may appear an encounter of possibilities for another.

You and I create society. Do I have to justify myself for being who I am? Do I blame society for being promiscuous? Do I fight society and take it by the horns, scream on the boulevards, come live on televisions, or concoct a spicy story for some glossy magazine? Should I lose hope and let go of the world? No, I am sure each of us struggles for his/her space. Each of us works for himself/herself and leads a life of dignity. Will it help if society supports our promiscuity? Will it help if we hide the fact that we are promiscuous?

Promiscuity - a word that is taboo and associated with the gay world; not to be spoken about in straight circles, only to be branded upon homosexuals. Promiscuity challenges the institution of heterosexual marriage by opposing the value of fidelity, which tends to have a privatised ownership of the other through monogamy. Perhaps, that’s why it is looked down upon. Living by it is for those who are young at heart and spirited. It enables us to encounter each other in a spirit of openness and surprise. Here are some wonderful words of wisdom tweaked to gay liking: “We have one life to live. So enjoy it”.

Rohit is always ready to explore the unthreaded path. He makes his own bridges for any one to reach out to him. He loves his recluse life and is not ready to share it with anybody.