As a people, we’re not very good with how we discuss sex. Sex is shameful, sex is bad... and woe be to you if you’re a woman who admits to participating in a sexual relationship.
On what must have been a slow day for a troll on the Internet, a certain GM Das wanted to know whether Kavita Krishnan’s (activist and Politburo Member of the CPIML) mother (or daughter) had ‘free sex’. Unluckily for GM Das, he didn’t quite realise what he was up against.
Krishnan’s mother, Lakshmi Krishnan took on the troll and boy, did she win. Of course, she had free sex, she said. She didn’t stop there. She added that she had sex with the person she wanted, when she wanted, “never unfree, never forced.”
Lakshmi Krishnan has won her daughter’s admiration and all of ours. Her reply is important because it exposes what a number of men think about sex – that it is a male prerogative, rather than a choice between two consenting adults. If it isn’t a choice which is “never unfree, never forced,” it is rape.
The Quint spoke to Kavita Krishnan about women’s freedom and shutting down trolls and here’s what she had to say:
See, there are two ways to deal with trolls. You either engage or you don’t. Most times, I don’t ignore trolls. Obviously, one doesn’t reply to them all – there’s too many for that, but engaging in some instances is useful, because even if you can’t convince the troll, your response may open someone else’s eyes.
Krishnan, obviously proud of her mother, went on to say,
My mother’s reply made a larger point about women’s choice – whether it is sexuality, the choice to marry someone of one’s choice and even within marriage. Her intervention proved that women, irrespective of their age, need never be ashamed of their right to choose. We’re all saying Bharat mata ki jai, ab mere mata ko toh sun lo!
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