It was a regular Saturday morning and I was walking home after running an errand for mum, my four-year-old brother in tow. We were just a couple of houses away from mine when a nice-looking man approached me asking for directions. With a polite ‘I’m sorry I don’t know this address, bhaiya’ I began to walk away when he struck up a conversation, asking me which school I go to. Wary of giving away details to a stranger (my parents had always warned me against this) I was a little cagey, but he with his friendly smile told me he knew a bunch of my seniors at school. I was eager to get away nonetheless, when he asked me if I wanted a vibrator, saying it was very popular with my seniors. He even offered to come home to give me a demo when my parents were away. Alarmed, I mumbled that I wasn’t interested and was about to walk away when he unzipped his pants and flashed saying that this was the demo he was talking about. Even to my 11-year-old brain, it was a disgusting violation of my rights.
This was only the first instance. Another time a dowdy-looking salesman approached me on the same pretext only to flash when I looked down to see the paper he was holding. I was in college then. It left me outraged and I wished I’d struck him across his cheek for his nerve instead of just hurling abuses. Both incidents occurred in the residential colony I grew up in; a very secure locality. And both times I was “decently dressed”.
I’m sure I’m not the only woman to have been given an unsolicited preview of the male anatomy. I fail to understand why in the whole wide world, it is so necessary for a man to flash at women passing by.
There is a serious need to address issues like flashing. There have been cases where friends have been flashed by beggars when they refused to give them money. And this was in full public view on a busy main road!
These incidents may not have left me scarred but they sure have left me angry and frustrated that there wasn’t much I did. And it has left me wondering, isn’t it basic to teach young boys about what is appropriate and inappropriate? We’re all ready to be up in arms about pre-marital sex and live-in relationships and even PDA, but this we will not address. How is it okay for a man to flash and get away with it? How is it okay to prescribe social norms and dos and don’ts for women, while men can have all the fun? How is it okay to ask a woman to dress “decently” while a man can unzip himself wherever he pleases?
