Do single women turn men from normal blokes into predators?

Single women are always being hit on, everyone says. They are fair game for all men—young, old or infirm. Indeed, single women turn men from normal blokes into predators. So many episodes proved this to be true. Every time I had a bad experience, I felt the weight of the prejudice directed at women like me: …divorced women are easy game…no Indian man takes a single woman of your age seriously…it’s your fault for making yourself available.

The Rajan episode was the first of many, which involved married men. Neena was right after all: most of them assumed I was available, because I was single. The others chased me just because they believed it was their right to bed as many women as they liked. They were men, after all. And men could have as many sexual and romantic relationships as they wanted.

I remember one justification a married man-friend of mine provided for his numerous extramarital affairs. ‘Arre, Krishna had hundreds of wives. History is full of gods with their gopis…and artists like Picasso who enjoyed multiple sexual relationships, everyone accepts it.’

His narcissism was striking, but not unusual.

But to me, being a target for married men was utterly offensive for many reasons: the assumption of my ‘availability’; the direct, lewd manner in which they approached me; the threatening quality of their overtures; and their obvious disrespect for their wives, and the institution of marriage.

And I had no idea how to stop them in their tracks, since the majority were colleagues, or people within my friends’ circle. Whenever I tried to discuss how to deal with these unwanted sexual advances, I was flummoxed by people’s reactions.

‘No big deal,’ said a male relative. ‘All men are like that.’

In fact, the that’s-how-men-are justifications were everyone’s favourite. From times immemorial, the sexual misbehaviour of men was blamed on their biology: male sexual urges, said everyone, are enormous and uncontrollable. The theory was that the penis had a life of its own, unconnected to the rational mind.

Even well-educated women I met subscribed to this assumption. ‘Men can’t help themselves,’ said an eminent lady psychologist I interviewed at that time, for an article on sexual harassment.

I realized I must have bought into this assumption. Despite my outrage at the manner in which men used their power and position to harass me, I felt powerless to stop them. Tackling male propositioning just became one of the new challenges of my single life. So, I converted it into a source of entertainment. In the beginning, I treated all overtures like a game. The first question I asked every married guy who propositioned me after the Rajan episode, was, ‘So, what’s in it for me? After all, your wife enjoys the benefits of being a married woman. What would I get out of being with you?’

Their responses varied from ‘mind-blowing sex’ to ‘holidays in Goa’ and ‘good work opportunities’. Obviously, they imagined that any one of all these ‘prizes’ would suffice for a single woman of my age. Something was better than nothing, after all. Here I was, a woman who watched Grey’s Anatomy by herself five nights a week. Naturally I would be grateful for the attention of a (any) man, who would distract me from my TV show and lighten up my life, with his occasional foray into my bed.

It never struck any of the guys who approached me that TV offered me better company than them. Or that I wouldn’t have chosen them even when I was young, or if they were single.

Most of the married guys who made a pass at me were simply looking for a distraction from their evidently dull marital relationships. A little action on the side with a woman like me (who had no right to expect anything much from them or life in general) posed the ideal solution for their sleepy sex lives: they were doing me a favour really.

Their approach was usually direct, since they had no intention of wasting time or money on courting me—lewd text messages, emails and on one occasion, when a guy walked me home from a dinner party, the suggestion, straight off, that we should head to my bedroom. ‘Listen, I’m in an open marriage,’ he declared, with the brashness of a teenager making an ill-timed move on his girlfriend.

Once, I accepted a colleague, Sanjay’s, invitation for a drink, imagining that socializing with a co-worker and family man was no big deal. I got this grand idea from yet another of my favourite TV shows, Ali McBeal, which was about lawyers and their lives, and ended with a scene set in a bar with music, with all the male and female lawyers drinking together and discussing their cases and life philosophies.

I imagined Sanjay and I would do the same; discuss the politics of the newspaper we worked for, and exchange notes on music and books. I was in for a rude shock though, since Sanjay was clear that the only thing he wanted from me was sex. His lines were similar to those I’d heard from others. My marriage is a sham; I stay just for the children.

Sanjay vented his frustration over the way his wife raised the kids, her erratic spending habits, the lack of cleanliness at home, and how dull everything between them had become. He told me I was bright and beautiful, and that he had to ‘have’ me. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ he said, when I turned him down.

But that didn’t stop him from trying again and again. Sanjay just wouldn’t take no for an answer. We were alone in the conference room when he propositioned me for the third time.

‘No one needs to know about it,’ he whispered, glancing through the glass to make sure that none of our co-workers were within listening distance.

Instead of calling him out on his behaviour, I engineered a situation that put him in a corner. ‘That will be impossible for me,’ I stated, collecting my papers and putting them in a pile, ‘since my life is an open book. So if we’re going to have a relationship, then everyone should know.’

I looked him directly in the eye and went on. ‘Living alone is really hard, so I will need you around a lot of the time, to supervise plumbers, electricians and carpenters. Maybe you could even help with my tax return…I would probably need your car and driver a few times a week too.’

I could see Sanjay visibly shrinking as I jabbered on. He looked more and more frightened. But the sentence that provided me a sure line of escape, was my declaration that I was unwilling to be the ‘other woman’.

‘I don’t believe in secrecy,’ I said firmly, ‘so your wife would have to know.’

My strategy worked. He avoided me thereafter. He got away, believing that he was the one who had opted out. In the typical way of women of my generation, I let him think that, knowing that I had appeased him instead of exposing his behaviour. My need to keep things pleasant and avoid creating a hostile atmosphere at the office for myself, won over. Today, I regret my lack of courage: I should have taken the matter to the HR department of the office, or told Sanjay off in front of our colleagues.

This incident forced me to accept how hesitant I was to confront men for breaching boundaries with me. Despite my emancipation, I hesitated to stick labels where they belonged: cheater or adulterer or addict or loser. Obviously, I wasn’t alone in my male-protective stance: I’ve witnessed dozens of women behaving like I did, making excuses for the wrongdoings of men. Fear aside, it’s the compulsive need to be nice that keeps women from protesting against unwanted sexual advances. The question is, unless we label it in our heads, how can we proclaim it in public?

Extracts taken with permission from Speaking Tiger; Rs 299; Pages 208