Relationship Dealbreakers

#JustThinking: The problem with a #DealBreaker is that love can completely change the equations; what you thought would be one just isn't.

Nonetheless, a compilation of #DealBreaker tweets listing what mine are:

1. Ok, so, the #DealBreaker list for me: You assume the worst of me, and you make me afraid.
2. Every conversation feels like a cross-examination. And every letter feels like a plaint / WS. #DealBreaker
3. You don't make me laugh when I want to. And when I do laugh, it's only coz I'm thinking of the ridiculous. #DealBreaker
4. You're always unavailable; and will stand me up so that you can spend time with some actress whom you WILL tell me all about. #DealBreaker
5. I wind up not knowing who I should be when I'm with you; and who I AM is never enough. #DealBreaker
6. Your politics are different from mine. ie you're a right-wing lunatic in my eyes. #DealBreaker
7. Your attitude to religion is differs from mine, & u apply scripture so literally that all I can think is "Dude, wrong century" #DealBreaker
8. You have absolutely no sense of time management, cannot show up on time, and expect compassion for your failure to read a clock #DealBreaker
9. You advertise information which should remain private. #DealBreaker
10. You have no time for my friends but expect me to have all the time in the world for yours. #DealBreaker
11. You like Eminem. You think Dan Brown's work is the epitome of literary endeavour. #DealBreaker
12. You don't like Beatrix Potter, or Asterix, or Winnie the Pooh. Or claim to be too grown up for them. #DealBreaker
13. You claim to love to cook but plonk yourself on a sofa and NEVER cook a damn thing. And you HATE my food. #DealBreaker
14. You think I'm being over-demanding when I'm ill and want you around, even if it's only to get to a doctor. #DealBreaker
15. You complain if I shop. You don't like it when I don't look well done up in the way only a LOT of shopping can achieve. #DealBreaker
16. You actually think that you are required to solve problems, and have no idea of how to listen to me vent. #DealBreaker
17. You interpret every single statement of my being unhappy with anything as a personal allegation against you. #DealBreaker
18. You don't know how to defend yourself unless it involves whitewashing yourself by slinging mud all over me. #DealBreaker
19. You say I'm a brilliant lawyer, knowing that I don't give a damn. Or you pick on my brains and refuse to acknowledge doing so. #DealBreaker
20. You have no conception of people not agreeing with you, and don't know how to handle it when they don't. #DealBreaker
21. You do not know the joy of a good fish curry, or realise that it's the single most important thing in my life. #DealBreaker
22. You do not get my need to categorise, file and separate. Or that I don't care that it makes me like Monica Gellar. #DealBreaker
23. You're full of yourself, and don't get why I'm unimpressed by all ur work-related commendations, and care mainly about just u. #DealBreaker
24. You have no idea of how to laugh at yourself. #DealBreaker
25. You think that fuschia is a actually a colour a man can easily wear and pull off. #DealBreaker
26. You can't tell the difference between religion, ritual, spiritualism, and tradition. And assume that I equate them too. #DealBreaker
27. You keep talking about not being sure about how I'll fit into your life, without realising that you need to fit into mine too. #DealBreaker
28. You compare me to your mum, and I always come off really badly in that comparison. #DealBreaker
29. You love seeing me in insanely high heels, then complain when I can't walk as fast as you in them, and slow you down. #DealBreaker
30. My having a job is more important to you than it is to me. #DealBreaker
31. You expect me to be two different people: one in front of your friends, another for your family. And don't get that I'm just me #DealBreaker
32. Final #DealBreaker for now: You don't know the difference between being childlike and childish, or realise that I appreciate only the former.

What I Love About Delhi

The Delhi100 hype got me thinking of Delhi.

• Thinking of MM Kaye write of seeing ND's foundations being laid as a child, wondering why anyone would want to build in such desolate place.
• MM Kaye wrote of her childhood in India (and a world we will not see again) in "The Sun in the Morning". Loved its content, loved its title.

Here’s a compilation of #WhatIloveaboutdilli tweets:

1. Friends, the kindness of strangers who've often become friends, the anonymity, the recognition, work, insanity.
2. The loudness, always having almost everyone in your face, knowing exactly where you stand virtually all the time.
3. The rudeness, the lack of almost all finesse, & the consequent inability of most people to do anything behind your back
4. Long walks in an old city, bumping into history routinely, taking monuments for granted, knowing that museums exist.
5. Being able to live well on a shoestring budget if you're smart, having tons of free cultural dos at embassies etc.
6. Each time I go to the Delhi High Court, that first glance of Humayun's Tomb in the distance always makes me feel lucky to live in this area.
7. India Gate used to be the roundabout nearest to my place. Always left me feeling lucky to be there esp with the NGMA, Pandara Road at it.
8. Winter afternoons reading on the lawns of Humayun's Tomb, eating oranges. The dargah next door. Lodhi Gardens nearby.
9. Old men taking care of monuments who are almost always willing to talk to you about the city that once was.
10. Street children who make time to spend with you, regale you with tales of their lives, and leave you in awe of them.
11. Antique dealers who tell you about all of their wares, even when it's abundantly clear you can't afford to buy a thing.

Find the #WhatIloveaboutdilli tweets interesting; different people's experiences of the city even if ½ the guys can't go beyond "hot women".

 

Sexual Consent: Exploring the Personal

Writing about sexual consent is never easy. Enthusiastic and articulated consent, of course, is clear, as is enthusiastic and articulated refusal. Between those two ends of the spectrum though, lie an entire range of possibilities which run through many shades of grey, and which touch the legal, political, religious, social, and personal spheres.

It is precisely because those spheres exist, and because they intersect, that any academic account of sexual consent must necessarily be nuanced, to satisfy the demands of a multitude of disciplines, some of which may be entirely inconsistent with each other. And therein lies one of the greatest challenges which those people required to deal with consent, from a disinterested position, face: to find a way in which to reconcile a number of often divergent theories on consent, ranging from those addressing personal healing (if need be) to the legal attribution of culpability (if so required).

Personal accounts of consent to sexual activity, though, do not suffer from that particular restriction: all they need to do to be accurate is to remain honest to themselves. While this requirement, in itself, sounds like little enough, once unravelled, even at the most superficial level, it emerges that such honesty is anything but simple, even if only to oneself. It relies not only on lived experience, memory and emotion — all tricky in themselves — but also on social conditioning and religious teaching.

Each person's story is a distinctly individual story, with there being no certainty that one person’s perception of the grant of consent under a particular set of circumstances being the same as that of another person. The safest course of action is, obviously, to ensure that one always obtains explicit consent from one's partner. Unfortunately, though, explicit consent may not always be enough. The grant, even of explicit consent, could easily be dependent on underlying conditions which find their foundation in one’s upbringing and religious beliefs.

Consent obtained within the confines of a committed relationship may, for example, be entirely dependent on the relationship in fact being a committed one, and any breakdown of such the underlying condition could easily vitiate the perception of granted consent having any legitimacy at all, in the mind of grantor. And once the non-personal is applied to the personal, depending on the circumstances, (and the century!), such a change in perception would, in all probability, either be seen as morning-after regret, or a culpable breach of promise.

Coming back to the personal though: underlying conditions often dictate whether or not consent is granted at all. And for better or for worse, conditions relating to underlying conditions such as commitment and religious sanction (possibly through marriage) invariably involve a host of factors: among others, duty, the desire to please, submission, fidelity — unsurprisingly, all drawn from religion and upbringing. And it is all too easy for these factors to result in the (possibly unintentional) application of coercion.

A perceived or communicated or even simply possible failure to honour either duty or fidelity may all too easily result in the grant of consent solely on the basis of wanting to avert such failure. And should the relevant underlying condition itself be negated, it necessarily negates the consent granted consequent to it. What is left, then, is nothing but sexual activity without legitimate consent, although possibly with willingness.

Sex without legitimacy, unsanctified by commitment or love or sacrament, is shunned by both religion and polite society. Sex without legitimacy belongs to worlds not spoken of in polite drawing rooms. And consent obtained in relation to it is easily questioned in the mind of the grantor especially in cases where the illegitimacy was unclear at the time of the grant.

Each person’s story is different. Perceptions vary wildly. And there is is no such thing as unquestionable consent in questionable circumstances.


Also see: The Validity of Advance Sexual Consent