Dimple’s brother is one among twenty-five per cent of boy-children under sixteen being sexually abused in India at any given point of time. He is fortunate to the degree that his mother’s complete self-absorption compelled him to speak to his father who was supportive, even if fleetingly. What the father is really saying to his unhappy son is this, ‘Well, we will wait till someone does it to you again and after he does, tell me and then together we will do something about it.’ What he should be saying is this, ‘I am sorry I was not there for you when that happened, be assured I am there for you hereafter if you need my help in anything. Now, there are some things which you and I need to talk about, like growing up and what good touch and bad touch is all about and what that word sex really means. How about you and I sitting down this Sunday to talk about it?’

If Dimple’s father had to say the latter, and then follow through with the Sunday talk, the difference it would have made to Dimple’s brother would have been phenomenal.

As it would to this eight-year-old boy playing near a Durga Puja pandal in Calcutta. A masked man whisks him away into a car, drives to a nearby secluded spot and sodomizes the boy. The boys fights, struggles, he tears the mask off, it is his grandfather’s closest friend. He staggers home and tells his parents what they insist is a lie. A masked man? The boy lapses into silence. A few weeks later he develops a speech defect.

Most sexually abused boys do not get the immediate intervention and assistance they deserve. This is sad because it is that much easier for a boy-child to get help since the family’s ‘izzat’ does not depend on his ‘purity’, unlike the way Indian society judges a female. Tragically, though, a boy-child has his own social constraints set firmly into place by his male peers: to sound as though one is complaining about any aspect of sex—instead of simply pretending to enjoy it all—is to be a ‘sissy’ or ‘chhukka’. Thus, most boys do not prefer to see it as Child Sexual Abuse.

Assume for a minute—after setting the sexual ethics of it firmly aside—that this is perfectly all right, young men being initiated into sex by a randy aunt or female cousin or even a male uncle or physical instructor at school. If they do not see it as any kind of abuse and therefore do not suffer side-effects, then where is the problem?

There isn’t a problem, and there is absolutely no reason why one should be constructed in the guise of Child Sexual Abuse. This is equally applicable to women survivors of Child Sexual Abuse who feel close to nothing—except a very healthy rage which they ventilate and are happier for it. Sections of surveys also indicate a fortunate percentage of women and men who are no worse after their sexual experiences as children with their cousins, assorted aunts and uncles, other known persons and strangers.