 Hello everyone! Hi everybody, welcome back to our vlog from the Kama Sutra to 2020 where we answer your questions, your worries and your concerns around all things connected with sex and sexuality. And so, Anvita today, as usual, I have a fascinating question, but also a question that made me feel quite sad in a way. This is from a young man and it says, ma'am, I haven't confessed this before, I'm queer, I like men, but I cannot imagine myself in guy-to-guy lovemaking. In my fantasies, I'm always the woman. I can't decide whether I should go for a sex change or not. Because of this, I have left my CA at final level and I couldn't clear my civil services UPSC exams either because of this gender dysphoria. Ma'am, please help me with some advice. You know, as I said, it's a question that made me feel so sad because I thought this is possibly one of the biggest decisions that anybody is ever going to make in their life to try and go through a sex change. And the only person that he can actually come to talk to for advice are two disembodied voices on YouTube. I mean, we have closed down our channels of communication. Our society has treated the subject as so taboo that this young man cannot even go and talk to somebody about this on a personal level, somebody that actually is close to him and get his advice. He has to come all the way out to us. And I think that in itself is just, it's a very sad reflection on society and how we behave when it comes to this subject. Sorry. No, no, I was just saying my heart goes out to this young man, you know, because he's going through such a confusing period that he's put his career at hold, you know, he's obviously a really intelligent young man who's doing the CA and UPSC and everything. So in some ways, his future is getting jeopardized because he doesn't have safe spaces to talk. Absolutely. And I just think, you know, why have we done this? I mean, forget the fact that we have done this. We now need to start changing this for our children because the next generation as they come along, we don't want them to go through the same obstacles, the same problems that maybe the older generation went through. So really changes need to be made. But coming back to the question that this young man asked, so it's interesting, you know, because he talks about fantasizing about himself as a woman, when he's with another man and whether he should go through a sex change or not. And I was actually reminded that in our ancient texts, in our Purans, and of course in all the Kam Shastras, we constantly talk about this fluidity of sexuality. So we have a lot of stories from our past where men change into women and women change into men. So it's not even as if it was never thought of earlier. And it's not always because somebody puts a curse on you and so on. Sometimes they actually change from men to women or women to men because of reasons of sexuality, because of desires. So there's one story in particular that comes to mind. There's this young prince and he's going through a forest and the forest has a curse on it. So he gets turned into a woman. Now once he gets turned into a woman, he spends many, many years as a woman trying to go to all the gods one after the other saying, please turn me back, please turn me back. Now the gods agree. So he spends many years as a woman, living as a woman. And then finally, after many years, he gets switched back into being a man. And he then says that actually I found that my sexual pleasure was so much greater as a woman that I want to go back to being a woman. The gods say to him, sorry, you can't do this. You can't say, I want to now go and live as a woman because you've been born as a man and you have certain duties that you have to complete as a man. But eventually the gods agree to letting him live as a man and a woman on alternate months. For one month, he lives as a woman, one month as a man. And he has partners as both man and woman because we are told that he actually has children who call him father and children who call him mother. So he has relationships in both his lives. And we are also told that, I mean, for whatever reason, I haven't figured out why this bit is there, that when he turns into a woman, the month that he has spent as a man will be erased from his memory. And when he goes to being a man, the month that he spent as a woman will be erased from his memory. But I guess to me, what fascinates me completely about this story is the fact that we actually acknowledged the idea of the transgender or this moving sexuality, where his desire is to be something else and he chooses to be that and he gets to fulfill his choice. I wish this story was true for today and all of us could get a month being male or female and try out both. And so many young people, though this idea is, as we know, very old, are talking about gender fluidity and really wanting not to be boxed as, if you're a male, these are the only things allowed to you. If you're female, these are the only things allowed to you. And people are really saying that gender is a continuum. It's very fluid. Some days we feel this, some days we feel that. And what I found really fascinating about the story is that it speaks to this idea that this difference and this young man also gave us the difference in his question that gender is different from sexual orientation. So gender is who do we want to be as when we go to have sex. So this, the story that you told us for one month, he wanted to be as a man. And for one month he was as a woman. But sexual orientation is who we want to have sex with, you know. So this, this story from the Kamsathra is obviously about somebody who wants a difference in gender, not, but he's still in heterosexual relationships. He's still in relationships with opposite gender people. Whereas sexual orientation being a gay man or the queer man that this person mentioned is having sex with the same sex in some ways. So just, it's just that there is now a lot of distinctions being made between gender and sexual orientation. Previously it was just assumed that if somebody was transgendered, then they were gay, you know. Just because they were, they were being in a female body. That means they'll have to want to have sex with a man. Like nobody could really imagine that maybe they could choose. So I just want to make that distinction that there's a big debate around it. And it's amazing that we have examples from Kamsathra. Also what you were saying, which was really interesting, that he actually points out that he has a specific gender, but a specific sexual orientation, which is different. Yeah, yeah, and what really struck me is that he said, I can't imagine myself in guy to guy love making. I only see myself as a female. And for me, it speaks to what you were talking about society. There is no education. There are no role models. There are no images for, you know, offered to young people on what same sex love making looks like. You know, where do we see two men kissing or two women kissing? So even when they're thinking about going for a date or they're thinking of love making, all material available is heterosexual, male to female love making or romantic relationships. So where do people even start to imagine what does the same sex relationship look like? What does that date look like? What does that kissing look like? What does love making look like? Sex education doesn't, you know, it really doesn't help these young people. We barely manage heterosexual sex education, but there are no examples of same sex, sexual relationships there. And popular media fails them. So where is the information? All fantasies available are heteronormative, you know? And not only that, what you just said actually fascinated me, because we have boxed everything in. So if you are male visually as male gender, then the expectation for how you act, how you dress, how you behave is a particular way. If you are female, as gender, as physically visible, then there are certain expectations of how you will dress, how you will act, how you will behave. And yet, when I look at the Kamsutra, interestingly, it actually talks about the fact that how positions will change if a woman is feeling slightly more masculine on a particular day, or if a man is feeling more effeminate on a particular day. If he's feeling more feminine, how the same positions that are actually set up for heteronormative, heterosexual relations, even those positions will change because the woman is feeling more masculine one day. It says she will take on the role of the man. She will be on top. She will decide how much force or how much pressure she wants to put, how she wants to actually approach that lovemaking, and vice versa. So back then, I mean, you consider that 2000 years ago, it was saying that there are going to be days when, even as a heterosexual couple, you are going to want to change your gender feeling that day, that your gender is actually in the mind. And it absolutely is. And that's why people have started talking about gender not as a physical body, but more as how we are feeling, what are the roles around it, do we feel more masculine, do we feel more feminine? Or we don't feel either. So the movement of gender non-mindry has also become a really important movement today. But I think in all of it, what if he suggested to this young man that if he started by dressing feminine, like you're saying, taking suggestions from the Kamasutra of feeling more feminine, dressing more feminine, wearing lingerie, so many people would come saying, oh, my husband has this. He wants to have this fantasy of wearing lingerie to love making. And that is a fantasy and couples want to explore if it's OK to do it or not. And it's within their bedroom. So what did this young man did that? He started off by actually dressing up feminine and looking feminine and try love making. Because I think a sex change operation is a really big step. And he needs to decide that if he is feeling feminine in all parts of his life or only in love making. He didn't write about it. He only wrote about love making. And I think it would be a very big change if it is just in love making. So he really needs to seek help, explore his gender identity, explore his sexual orientation, and then think about a sex change operation. But before that, maybe this is something to try out. So I think our advice to this young man would be, as Amita also just mentioned, that we're going to explore this through fantasy. Sex change is a very big operation. I'm not saying it's unusual. I'm not saying that nobody does it. Yes, people do it, but it's not simple. It's not cheap. And it is also, I believe, quite painful for the body to go through something like this. So let's not take too hasty a step. He's already said that he is queer. He's definitely, his desire is to be with a man. So he's not saying that he wants to change his sexual orientation. He's definitely queer. What he wishes to do is see himself in a slightly different body image. So our advice to this young man is start exploring it via fantasy. Go and get yourself clothes that you see yourself, or you see a woman, see yourself as a woman being dressed in. Dress yourself as a woman, wear all the things that make you feel extraordinarily beautiful, or what you think in your head will make you feel really beautiful, really feminine, really desirable, and actually approach your love making with your partner dressed like that. See how that makes you feel. And maybe gradually that will bring you to a little bit more of a comfortable point. It'll bring you to a slightly more secure point in your own body image. And hopefully that'll actually help you to go forward with your own exploration of your gender identity. And we would really like to wish this young man the very best of luck. We can feel the pain. We can feel how difficult and confusing this is. And if he can help in any other way, please keep sending us your questions, or if you have, if you tried something, and if it worked or didn't work, we would love to hear about it. Absolutely. We always say fantasies are great. Arousal is a natural thing. Desire is the best thing for you for stress relief. So long as you are not hurting, harming, or being violent, either towards yourself or towards your partner, so long as there isn't any aggression involved, we encourage you to try just about all of your fantasies. Wishing you in the meantime, good sexual health, and we'll see you here next week. See you next week.