A discourse on family values in the time of AIDS

[Guest guest]

ETHICAL POT HAS A DESPERATE HOLE!

It is nothing but our hypocritical attitude to sex, that makes an absolutely

simple matter like prevention of AIDS, into an unresolved uphill task till date.

As for blood transfusion and perinatal transmission, we have quickly stemmed the

tide. But the 80 and above per centage of sexual transmission arrogantly laughs

at our face, as if it involves a deeply complicated and uncontrollably expensive

prevention technique. We know it's a far too simpler affair than an test

and definitely less costly than the A

RV. But the true challenge takes the form of rocks and hills inbuilt in our head

cutting the bandwidth of a simple prevention message. Meanwhile the deadly virus

is silently prowling upon our masses.

Not that our people have no capacity to understand a straightforward message.

But our society reels under invalid assumptions and attitudes towards sex. It

has been immersed into centuries of muffled thinking and a civilization long

misinterpretation on the matters of sexual relationship and its legitimacy, The

elite and the Govts. are caught up in a catastrophic dilemma as to what extent

they should advocate the usage of condoms. For our political statements, condom

is not yet a dignified content and above all, if promoted whole-heartedly, the

campaign portends a dangerous risk of spoiling our adolescents, our youth and

the vast sections of sexually active age-group. Sex-education should not be part

of the school curriculum, for fear it would encourage experimentation and would

instantly bring down the fabric of our society.

Just the callousness of avoiding sex-education in our schools and colleges, in

itself requires a fair analysis of our assumptions and attitudes to sex, which I

propose to undertake at some length here.

It has been almost a century since Einstein and others made it clear that there

is nothing absolute in this universe. Length, Time, particles, waves and energy

- everything get inter-related, and they take various postures at various

systems, besides inter-changing their dual nature even within a specific field.

And yet for our normal perception, things are relatively constant and

independent of one another, at least for definite periods of time and our life

goes on as usual, sparing us the need to bother about the complicated physics.

Science has managed to enthrone revolutionary facts and phenomenon, even though

they totally contradict the instant view. This was possible because reasoning,

truth and evidence were the only rules of science and thanks to the metal of

Galileo and others, the initial confusion and interference waded off quickly.

Something identical exists in the realm of sex and societal organization. Just

as our common perception on physical realities is almost uniformly out-of-mark,

our day-to-day rulings and legislation on sexual relationships are equally

pathetic but even more catastrophic than our first illusion.

It was all-right for the homosapiens, until the medieval ages to legislate and

protect sexual relationship within the boundaries of marriage and individual

family. They didn't yet have the clarity and the capacity to separate

procreation from sex. It was rightly inferred that sex is rather an intimate

activity between two people and those who get involved in it should necessarily

be responsible for the nursing of the children born out of this union. The vows

of marriage evolved into a natural system of long-term support and commitment

between the couples and towards their children, while safe-guarding the property

that was accumulated through the ever growing sophistication of human labor. All

other social net-works got securely built up on this fundamental unit called

family. Religions came in later, to sanctify the system and their mystic spell

on human behavior sealed off the entire matter, once for ever. Kudos to the

human intelligence, till here!

There was none to question this absolute system until the tremors of the

technological era gave birth to a penetrative mind as that of Marx. He clearly

exposed the inbuilt aggravation of injustice that the exclusive rights of

private property would result in. It's our common knowledge today that capital

adds on to capital and a disadvantage breeds ever-more disadvantage. The

analysis dealt a fatal blow to the pride of our civilization but luckily logics

don't hit us on the face and the results hit only the voiceless. Hence no cause

for immediate alarm. The earth moves on as smooth as ever. One doesn't even need

Marx to see for himself, how vicious cycles are deeply at work in our society.

Poverty ensures illiteracy and illiteracy begets poverty. Unemployment induces

slavery and slavery perpetuates abject misery.

The early societies would have hardly imagined that their simple legislation on

family and private property would gradually allow layers and layers of

discrimination, inequality and deprivation based on the laws of capital, mass

technology and surplus labor. Their innovation was not at all meant to address

the intricacies of the later feudal system or the technological age or finally

the era of globalization, driven by knowledge & communication revolution. It is

a total shame on our part, that despite three waves of civilization, which

steadily widened the spectrum of injustice in our society, we hardly bothered to

introduce any qualification to our primordial laws, handed down to us since time

immemorial.

Our reference to Karl Marx doesn't ever imply that we accept the over-simplified

solutions presented by him. We know that the so-called dictatorship of the

proletariat met with a huge disaster in our own recent history. Communist

regimes collapsed for the simple reason they had logically wiped out the space

for individual aspiration, the fore-most driving factor of an economy. It was a

total denial of human desire, entrepreneurship and individual responsibility,

for all of which the state wanted to be the arbitrator. We are glad that the

experiment soon met with a dead-end.

However, it doesn't follow in any way that the laws of privatization and

liberalization have the blessings of absolution in the eyes of history. They

simplistically assume that ever-growing profits would result in ever-growing

investment and jobs and that the standard of life for all sections of people

would necessarily improve. The theory is of course a direct anti-thesis of

Marxism, and while it has basically produced today's wealth and opportunities,

it is also singularly responsible for the glaring discrimination of our society.

In the foot-steps of communism, social democracies did attempt to reallocate the

tax revenues towards the social sector but in no time every macro solution

introduced by the political systems seem to have run out weaker and weaker by

the sweeping waves of globalization and privatization. Further, the same

questions of efficiency, profitability and accountability seriously haunt all

such measures.

The fundamental weakness then lies somewhere else. We could perhaps paraphrase

our objective in this way. Only when an appropriate social consciousness evolves

in every human being, just similar to his intense natural attachments of family

and private property, then and only then a constant flow of redistribution can

exist side-by-side with the natural tenets of growth and prosperity. Analyzing

the basic features of the family, we understand quickly that this is by far the

privileged social unit where innate mechanisms of equal distribution are at work

at optimal conditions. No body has to compel or instruct parents, for example,

to take care of their children.

But even a society is defined in very similar terms of give and take policy

among its members. Where then the snag arises? While every individual is a

member of a family as well as the larger society, the radical variation in his

attachments towards these two entities happen to be highly imbalanced. Is it

totally a natural phenomenon or is there a self-imposed scheme, aggravating the

genuine limitation?

The concept of family as an absolute unit, definitely urges every human being to

place all his eggs on this compact, cozy shell and throw away half-heartedly

the bits and pieces of earnings either as tax or as charity. Is there a way to

correct this psychological imbalance, that has steadily seeped into his nature?

Does the basic social structure, so ingeniously built up by man, stand on

ethical grounds after all, or has it squared off an extra-bit of assumption,

paving the way for the monumental cracks that we gladly take for granted.

Nothing but science can come to our rescue again. The reliable knowledge and

tools it offers, truly enables us to expose even the most subtle pitfalls, that

could have preyed upon us, since the beginning of ages. It dawns on us almost

unassumingly, provided we stick to the pure reasoning power, that the family

system, handed down by the early civilized man, should not be an absolute

system, after all. It's walls are not so holy, as we have been made to believe

and behave.

Given the fact that science has placed in the hands of mankind, substantial

power to separate procreation from sexual act, will any one explain to me

logically, why it would be immoral to admit extra-marital relationships of the

type that do not disturb the basic family commitments. Suppose I take away the

property of some one or hit him or spit on him, or if I co-erce a woman to come

to bed with me, you can very well declare, I am encroaching on some one's

rights. But I don't quite comprehend, how my innate desires that urge me to go

beyond the sinful accumulation and the excessive attachments of the individual

family structure, could ever be called immoral or unlawful. And what ever I am

suggesting for a man, is absolutely pertinent to any woman as well. The genuine

freedom of woman will only arise, when she earns the maximum degree of

independence from the tyranny of the family structure.

It is not at all doubted that individuals are limited and that they need certain

cohesive psychological cum economic embryo. And the society can very well rule

that any marriage, committing towards a long-term relationship and the nursing

of children, should be adhered to as such. But does this ever imply that the

sexual needs of a man and a woman and correspondingly their sense of commitments

should necessarily be buried within the man-made capsule, called family.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of each individual to behave in the right

manner, for each complex unique moment that arises before him. The law can at

the most define, the hard core universal violation of human rights. After

stating that any one who gets married should remain committed to his partner and

his children, it would certainly burst its brief, if it moves to rule that any

sexual encounter outside the marriage, is summarily illegal. An over-stepping of

its own domain, naturally results in logical deductions such as declaring

sex-workers as illegal entities in their own soil. In a sense, they are the

most imaginative people, who strike a living on the ignorance of our

civilization. Other categories are of course the Indian cinemas and the

advertising world. Each of them exploits the suppressed instincts of human

beings, terrorized as they were to fit into the pigeon-hole family system.

It has been adequately substantiated throughout history, that the instincts

towards plurality can never be stifled by the Law. Today in Andhra 19% of men

and 7% of women engage in extra-marital relationship as per the latest NACO

survey. Those who maintain that these are mere aberrations that need to be

corrected, have the burden of proof upon them as to why every such relationship

should necessarily be a violation of human rights. Suppose I have a partner,

who entertains a similar world-view as that of mine and fully endorses

certain specific short-term sexual encounters outside the marriage, how can the

law interfere with our own wisdom. After all, we have a much deeper

understanding of the nature of human beings and the sense of what is right and

wrong, than the enlightened law-makers and the incarnations of the by gone ages.

The moment the rationale of a law breaks-down, it should naturally get

re-defined and retreat to its universal domain leaving the rest to the personal

convenience. A mayhem, no doubt, you would immediately point out. But the

society would offer its own checks and balances and the individual will

naturally develop a much deeper sense of responsibility. Who are we to

underestimate the human dynamism of satiation and self-regulation that the

future would automatically usher in. In some under-privileged countries, even

democracy has been too early for our people, but do they not have the freedom to

learn through repeated mistakes. Give to man and woman the right that belongs to

them and they will prove worthy of themselves. If we are too hesitant, or too

smart in presenting round-about truths, we will be addressing ever-growing

aberrations, such as the unabated sexual transmission of HIV, today.

Man has too long been a child, under the hypnotic cradle of family and private

property. He needs to be disturbed from this cozy womb and nothing but his

abundant sexual instincts would force him to continuously strive for a smarter

balance between his well-defined family and the ill-defined society. The social

psyche of man would be constantly bombarded, till he realizes that an individual

family is only a relative arrangement for solace and joy and that ultimate

fulfillment can only arise, when the society at large is placed in a better

order.

It is true that every individual needs the most practical convenience of a

single family system. But he equally needs a dynamic opening up towards an

unlimited social fabric, made possible through the complex web of short-term

relationships and commitments. This undefined plurality would gradually engrave

upon him an ever-expanding social consciousness. Not that an immediate and a

right type of redistribution of wealth would be guaranteed. But people will be

shattered in their past identity and would take up the search for their new

social dimension within the mega-family that is ever more beautiful and ever

more decaying.

All the past definitions of Law and Religions relating to the ideal Man and

Woman need to be overthrown as a token of gratitude for their guidance till now,

or at the least they need a thorough re-interpretation and a substantial

qualification, word by word, myth after myth.

Some one would say that even from the point of view of HIV/AIDS, multiple sexual

relationships would horrendously flare up the infection levels and would

implicate a 100 % safe-sex behavior, even in family settings. Today we are

already moving into a stage of mandatory pre-marital HIV test. The logical

extension would certainly involve all sexual encounters between husband and wife

at some stage or the other. We have heard of the racket in Andhra Pradesh, where

young men have gone to the extent of immediate engagement, once their HIV

positive status was known, in order to collect a huge dowry and later to doom

their newly married wife and the new-born babes. If men become so practical,

women will have no other choice but to demand 100 % safe sex encounters and the

argument is applicable vice-versa as well.

I have not written this expecting the world to change. But I can easily correct

myself, if sound arguments are shot back.

E. Rajarethinam

E-mail: globalcitizens@...

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