Living in north India as an out gay man who does not dress, talk or walk like your usual hetero Hun exposes you to some unusual insights into north Indian masculinity and I’m willing to venture that these are true of Indian masculinity all over the country, given similar experiences in metros and semi-rural sites across the country.
The first of these insights is that any, and, I repeat, any, man in India is up for a quick blowjob and a poke in the hay with another man. North Indian men are almost aching for it and hardly need a smile or some eye contact to come up and ask for it. I’ve been propositioned by autowalas, rikshawalas, random Romeos on street corners and, of course, many married unclejis. I, of course, research masculinity, and so am ready for such encounters merely for the sociological riches they offer. Giving some overheated Jat hottie a blowjob at the end of a long interview does not seem like a bad deal at all to me. I am quite happy, as you can imagine, to oblige.
The north Indian male of the species is usually a gym bunny who wears an obviously fake tight T-shirt with the high-end brand name on it spelt wrong and jeans with designs on the back pockets in gold bits and baubs. His chest and biceps are quite disproportionate to the rest of his body, especially his spindly legs and his tight, bulging crotch may just be the effect of a badly dried pair of boxer shorts curling up at the edges and full of stiff, dried-up semen in the middle. But he is high on himself, clearly thinks he’s hot and will gladly wax eloquent on why he goes to the local gym everyday: which is to be healthy, look good, win the women and be able to defend them when the time comes. Matters will soon turn to sex and then, after some minutes of strenuous denial…. well, you have to get as many questions in before it is time for the payback.
So, there’s insights two, three and four for you: one that, bulky and ugly biceps and chests are what north Indian men, and, once again, Indian men in general, think makes them hot. Two, Indian men love themselves and think strength means big bodies with which to defend women in the big bad jungle that is contemporary Indian life and three, that every Indian man has done a man at some point in his life and will do a man again, with an interlude of denying any such possibility as ever being part of his universe, an interlude that lasts all of five minutes.
The north Indian man will tell you that he works his body to win the respect of his male friends and that feeling each other’s biceps is just part of the respect-winning exercise and nothing else; he will always maintain that there is competition between the men who work out, but none of it is even remotely sexual. If he’s in a good mood, he’ll tell you that sex is not a good thing and losing semen is like losing blood and must instantly be replenished by lots of protein-rich food. If he is insane (and believe you me, a lot of them are), he will speak to you of the perils of crooked penises, of nerves in the penis that must be pressed and those not pressed and those that never should be pressed lest it lead to imbalance of fluids in the body. No doubt much of this invaluable information has been gleaned from local, indigenous quacks who are visited for a variety of reasons, from erectile dysfunction to general susti which needs an ilaaj.
Of course, as you might have gathered by now, this is not the South Delhi upper class gym bunny (who will never participate in such a conversation and will have gay sex, when he does, only in the toilet of a farm house at some dismal gay party) but the Hindi-speaking mofussil boy from interior Delhi or Haryana, Punjab or Uttar Pradesh. The next thing you will learn is that this guy does not keep his conch clean. So, you must be ready with what I call my smegma kit: a small towel (or the spare toothbrush, if you don’t like the vibe of the guy too much or you think he needs to be brought down a few notches with some good, old-fashioned penile scrubbing), a small bottle of water (and flavoured condoms if you are a sucker for candy and super-safe sex). All, or some, of this must be used before you hunker down.
The next insight is that sex for the north Indian man is only the butt-fuck and the blowjob. Nothing else matters and when it comes down to it, they’d settle for only the butt-fuck. If you are not up for it, they are sorely disappointed and will still hit on your ass crack, fuck you between the legs, in the space between your asshole and thighs and generally anywhere there anyway. The other insight is that their women are not giving them blowjobs. Lower middle and working class Indian women do not do blowjobs. They think it is dirty and they simply refuse and our macho men have no option but to deal with that. Of course, they would not dream on going down on the women, so in some sense the women are only being fair. One of my fuckbuddies, an autowala, wants to meet me everyday only because his wife will not go down on him. The only thing he likes other than the blowjob is for me to suck his man-tits. Which leads me to my next and final insight, the father of all insights.
Suddenly, in the middle of it all, the testosterone-ridden, supermacho, overheated, aggressive, abusive north Indian man will turn around and ask you to pound his ass.
Amen.