How important is being ‘good in bed’ for you, boys and girls, when you’re meeting someone for an arranged marriage?
I can understand the need to feel sexually attracted to the person you’re going to bed with for the rest of your life, but would it be the first thing you checked off on your list when you met someone the first time?
I ask because I’d never been confronted with that question before – till it happened to me.
I mean, don’t get me wrong – I’m all for individual preferences. But the idea of deciding she was it simply on the basis of a physical rendezvous, before I’d so much as caught her name, got my goat a little bit.
No pun intended.
I think it would suffice to say that this was my most eventful arranged marriage meeting. It would also suffice to say that this was my LAST attempt to find a bride using traditional means.
Here’s how it went.
Round 5
She was fun, smart, pretty, clever... I could go on and on. Everything about her was perfect. If I’d met her at a party, I’d definitely have hit on her. It felt like she was the brand ambassador of my checklist.
I spoke to her on Skype first (she wanted to see if I looked the same as I did in my pictures) despite living in the same city. We turned out to have a blast. We had loads in common – she was a superhero fanatic, and I had begun to think to myself: here’s the Pepper Potts to my Iron Man.
Okay, maybe that’s pushing it a little bit, but it was that good.
Mother dearest, of course, was delighted that this was finally showing promise.
“Thank God you like this one.” she told me, “Because, otherwise I was thinking of talking to your unmarried exes since no one else seems to impress you and those clowns did at some point.”
Sex in this City?
Anyway, we finally got off Skype and hit the streets. I wanted this meeting to be perfect. So, I wore my best merchandise and took her out to dinner to Jamavar, a Kashmiri cuisine restaurant at the Leela in Chanakya Puri, Delhi.
Little did I know at the time that I was going to face the biggest dilemma of my life.
The conversation began casually enough, with the usual routine – getting to know each other’s likes and dislikes, past relationships, and so on. But then...
Her: So listen, I like you and all. And I’d like to give this a shot. But I have a condition.
Me: What?
Her: I’d like to have sex before things get serious.
Me: Huh? Like you mean, while we are courting and before getting married?
Her: No, before we get emotionally involved and this open-ended courtship graduates to certain marriage.
Me: I – still don’t get it.
Bedroom Patriarchy
Her: Okay, let me break it down for you. Before any feelings start creeping in and they cloud my judgement. I’d like to sleep with you to figure out if you’re good in bed. Because, if I am to bed you for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t be ideal for me if you are unsatisfying.
At that exact moment, I believe I felt what people call, “the earth standing still.” I gawped, gawked, opened and shut my mouth a couple of times, realised I looked foolish and came up with this gem –
“Why?”
She sighed and went on, “Because for years, women have been conditioned to believe that it’s men who are the be-all and end-all of sexual satisfaction. Bedrom adventures end once the man climaxes and there’s nothing in it for the girl. Sex is suppoed to be equal, and if I were to marry you, I’d like to believe we’re equals everywhere – bedroom included.”
I was a little piqued at this, wondering if she’d assumed I was some patriarchal, bigoted douche and hastened to clarify my stand on the matter. I believed in the woman’s right to orgasm – I insisted – would stake my life on it, even – I declared.
But she’d had experiences that a million other women before her already had, and I understood why. Sexual empowerment is still rather feeble in an otherwise empowered world, where women can be expected to be ‘objects of pleasure’ but not really make their own sexual demands. They may claim to “enjoy” what the man does to her, but not often does she shout about what she’d like him to do.
I got it. Completely.
I just couldn’t do it.
Because while I understood her point and fully supported it, I had my own issues. I couldn’t sleep with someone I wasn’t in love with.
Having said that, I’m really glad this happened to me. I may have known this all along, but most of us men probably need to have it shouted out to us once in a while. Also, ladies? We’d love to hear your demands.
(Shibaji Roychoudhury was named after someone who wanted to conquer and inspire. Unfortunately, he is far too ambitious for that.This Delhi based journalist is also an enthusiastic sportsman, a movie buff, comic book nerd, foodie and an avid traveller. He is the monk still in pursuit of a Ferrari.)
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