"Male Sexuality & rape: a view from psychoanalysis" a talk by Madhu Sarin at The Attic, 36, Regal Building, CP > 6:30pm on 27th February 2013

Time : 6:30 pm

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : The Attic, 36, Regal Building, Connaught Place, New Delhi-110001 
Landmark : On Parliament Street close to 'The Shop' showroom & next to the 'Kwality' restaurant
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Metro : Nearest Metro Station - 'Rajiv Chowk' (Yellow Line and Blue Line)

Event Description : “Male Sexuality and rape: a view from psychoanalysis” a talk by Madhu Sarin.

Social sanction and child development determine what is constitutive and normative about human sexuality.
The role of the mother in the earliest part of every individual's life endows her with tremendous potency and power in the psyche. This is what lies at the basis of every form of patriarchy – an attempt to subsequently nullify and neutralise abject dependency and helplessness in relation to women, particularly by men, very early on in life.
Psychological research shows us that the early relationship with the mother is also constitutive of emergent and evolving sexuality and pleasure. The representation of male sexual desire as primitive, bestial, uncontrollable and uncontainable and women's bodies and selves as catalysts for the same, makes rape the exercise of sadistic pleasure by men, and the weapon of choice to chastise, punish and keep women in their place. This has played out in different ways through culture and history. At this moment in time, it is intersecting with democratic values, with the right and freedom of each individual irrespective of gender to be treated with integrity and respect, and hence challenges patriarchal assumptions.
The speaker will discuss some of these ideas and attempt to show why the commonplace notion that equality and freedom are more conducive to human (including sexual) happiness than fear and subjugation of one gender by another, need to be struggled for and constantly re-asserted.  This involves awareness of fantasies and representations which lie deeply embedded in the psyche.

Madhu Sarin is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Delhi and New York and previously taught philosophy at Delhi University. She has clinical experience in a variety of settings and has written, taught and conducted trainings in the field of mental health which includes working with the Tibetan Govt in exile.

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