Seema (name changed) is a 29-year-old theatre actor based in Bangalore.
Seema has been dating on and off since she ended a long-term relationship two years back. After a pregnancy scare she started keeping condoms at home. “I am trying my best to be a responsible adult but I think the men in my life have a lot of growing up to do,” she says.
As someone who has been sexually active since the age of 18 I am used to the judgmental crap that is thrown at women in control of their sexuality in India. If you’re a single woman living alone in the city everyone from your landlord to your maid think what goes on in your bedroom is their business.
Judgmental
It’s impossible to live how you want to if you care about everyone’s opinion so you develop a thick skin and pretend not to understand their snide comments. So when it comes to my personal life I have always surrounded myself with liberal likeminded people.
But last year I found out that even ‘open-minded’ men can behave like the judgmental uncles and aunties I’ve been trying to avoid all my life.
Pregnancy scare
I went off the pill after my break up two years back. I had been seeing a lot of this one guy that I really liked and things were going fine till I had a pregnancy scare.
It was one time that he didn’t have a condom and I was in the ‘safe period’ so we thought it would be fine. But my period was delayed by two weeks and I went crazy thinking of what I would do if I was pregnant. I eventually took a test and it was negative but I think it was too much too soon for him and things fizzled between us.
Hot and heavy
After that I was freaked out enough to buy a pack of condoms to keep in the house. But I was wrong to think that buying the condoms from the local chemist was the most embarrassing experience of my life.
Almost a year after the pregnancy scare I was dating someone new. He was really sweet and we had been taking things slow but one night we were hanging out at my place and things started getting hot and heavy. We both thought it felt right but he wasn’t carrying a condom.
I remembered the pack that was lying in my cupboard and offered to get it. But he got really angry suddenly and left without saying a word.
Being responsible
I didn’t know what I had done wrong till I got a mail from him saying that I had been fooling him into falling for me while I had been having sex with someone else – why else would I have condoms in my house?
I tried my best to explain that keeping condoms at home doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with the whole world but he was too angry to believe me. I am trying my best to be a responsible adult but I think the men in my life have a lot of growing up to do
(The person in the photo is not Seema.)
Would you keep condoms even if you weren't planning to have sex? What do you think of Seema's date's response? Leave a comment here or on Facebook.