Psychiatrists Joseph Beitchman, Kenneth Zucker, Jane Hood, Granville DaCosta, Donna Akman and Erika Cassavia, from the University of Toronto and the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Canada, published a much-heralded paper in Child Abuse & Neglect (16: 101-118) in 1992. This panel reviewed the long-term effects of Child Sexual Abuse and made this observation on sexual identity: ‘Adult women with a history of childhood sexual abuse show greater evidence of sexual disturbance or dysfunction, homosexual experiences in adolescence or adulthood, depression, and are more likely than non-abused women to be re-victimised.’ They add, ‘There may be a small but significant increased rate of homosexual activity among women who have been sexually abused in childhood.’

Does Nisha’s happiness lie in a skilful psychiatrist dialoguing with her in the light of the above finding? Sadly, this will not happen as Nisha will not even initiate such an analysis with a psychiatrist; she has convinced herself she is a lesbian.

Equally disturbing is what is being perpetrated by a very small section of lesbians. Just as oversexed men, older homosexuals and bisexual men set upon male children sexually, there are some over-enthusiastic lesbians following the example of the perpetually penetrating male by sexually setting upon girl children. Farida, now a counsellor for students in an upmarket Delhi school, still recalls with barely-concealed rage the time, not too long ago, when she was a student in a well-known northern hill-station boarding school.

‘I was fifteen and easily the most attractive, a lot of younger girls would send me notes, roses and things like that. I would be kind to them but not encourage them because these crushes are common among little girls. For instance, in day schools they go crazy for a brief period over their class teacher if she is pretty and young; without active encouragement this kind of thing fades away. What I really had problems with were two obviously lesbian girls in our dormitory; there tends to be some mutual and brief body-exploration among senior girls in boarding schools before they settle on their sexuality. But this was heavy-duty, almost like penis envy on their part. Even then we all ignored what they did with each other once it was lights out, also they were seniormost and had come in together from two well-known families in Delhi only the year before that. Together, they tried very hard to get my attention, they even began leaving me obscene notes. One night, it was during exam days, I was asleep and awoke to pairs of hands on my breasts and groin. I think they thought I would not kick up a fuss and take their sexual abuse, well, lying down. I swung out of bed and hit them as hard as I could. Then I turned on the lights, dragged them to their respective beds and slapped each one very hard on their face. “Don’t you dare,” I hissed, “don’t you ever dare.” This news went around quickly in the school and over the next few days I was told by juniors of how this pair would often try and sexually abuse the younger girls. This lesbian pair had been thrown out of another school for the same reason, their parents used all their clout to get them into ours. What were these pseudo-liberal parents thinking of, why did they not think of the other children?