What is it with South Asian males?

Can't they keep their private organs in check

| by Pearl Thevanayagam

(June 07, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Name and shame them. Rapists are not always illiterate ignoramuses. Many are suited middle class government servants preying on their minions. Back in my Daily News days, Gilbert Dias, ( a very geriatric journo) would come near my desk and whisper obscenities in my ear. The management turned a blind eye to my complaint since he had the knack for pilfering files from ministers' offices although his writing skills left much to be desired. It took a Muslim journalist to thwack him with her handbag when he made indecent advances to her.

The late Norton Weerasinghe, the adminstrative officer at Lake House, had all the girls in his office under his thumb that he was listed in the rest houses in Colombo and suburbs as was the Late Vincent Perera, Minister for Environment whose list at Mahara (Kadawatha)Guest House was longer than a 'roo's tail. This minster had me phoning my news editor to send the vehicle pronto when he sent his body guards to invite me to his suite at Lanka Oberoi during a workshop. Then there was a senior journalist who headed an international news agency (now departed) when I asked for a reference asked me to have dinner with him. When I declined I also lost an opportunity with a foreign news agency.

If you think rapists are village yokels you can think again. Just check out the various restaurants at lunch-time around Colombo such as Akase Kade, Pagoda, Crescat and Majestic City and you will find bank managers with their secretaries, Lake House managers with their underlings and journalists checking into freebie five star hotels promising nubile wannabe models with publicity.

Then there was Judge Seneviratne who wore sunglasses in the evenings and cruised the pavement in Colpetty looking for prostitutes.

National Organizer of the SWU (Socialists' Women's Union), Samanmalee Gunasinghe, came out with the startling revelation that women are raped every 90 minutes in Sri Lanka. While Ms Gunasignhe's efforts are laudable SWU could do even better by holding workshops for men at all levels of society with testimonies from victims of rape and sexual harassment at work and in their own homes. Rape and sexual harassment are serious issues which affect women physically and psychologically.

South Asians have a penchant for adjusting their crotches in front of females who in the West would be hauled up for indecent exposure. Why is it that they have to splay their legs in public transport thus inconveniencing others and taking up most of the seats? Do their dangling parts need more space than those of their female counterparts or do they need to advertise them in public? Little do they realise that most women would like to be left alone and if they do desire the attention of male company they would do it in their own terms. Women are certainly not gagging for it as our menfolk seem to think.

Sex with consent is one thing but coercing a woman when in a vulnerable situation such as poverty or loneliness is something Women's Affairs Ministry and other women's organisations need to address. It is a stark reality that rape is committed often not by strangers but by those who are trusted such as uncles, employers and even own fathers whose wives are earning the upkeep of the family in foreign shores.

There is a solution. The government can legalise prostitution with safety guidelines like in Thailand or allow access to adult movies. Policing the morals through censoring has not prevented perverts so far. AIDS will not go away if the government thinks Sri Lankan men are paragons of virtue. Rape, indecent exposure and sexual harassment are serious crimes which deserve maximum prison sentence.

The writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 22 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)