Over at the addictive blog PostSecret, a desi-angled postcard for your procrastination pleasure on a Monday morning [tipster hat tip to Chick Pea].
My active imagination went into overdrive trying to figure out the story behind the image. Usually with most PostSecret cards the inspiration is pretty apparent but for this postcard, the story behind the image left me questioning:
a) Was it a guy that lost his virginity to an Indian woman? Or was it a girl that lost her virginity to an Indian man? Or maybe I was presumptive in thinking this was hetero-normative, and really it’s a queer drama being played out.
b) Was the comment filled with xenophobic hate by a non-Indian to an Indian? Or was it a jilted Indian lover that was upset that the other Indian chose another Indian to lose his/her virginity to?
A concerned reader over at PostSecret e-mailed the following to the site, the comment left underneath this postcard.
Subject: Indians aren’t bad.I am an Indian American and honestly, I think people should feel honored to have sex with Indians. I mean, we DID write the Kama Sutra.
Amen to that. What do you think is the story, morning glories?
Related Posts: Dearest Pecola, I Want to Weep & Postsecret Isn’t Always Tragic.
Or maybe it was actually referring to Native Americans and they just got confused… again.
I was more concerned about the grammar: your lost your?
Take an extra 5 minutes and look for “you” to cut and paste into the postcard.
/grammar nazi
sorry, that last comment didn’t contribute to anything
I like to think that the de-flowerer is just so perfect that the only thing the jealous writer of the note could pick on was that s/he was Indian. (As in, would be perfect for you, but Indian, and not fill-in-the-blank like writer!)
is there a punch line to this post?
“your lost your?”
i am so confused. anyways, its probably an Indian who got mad at her Indian BF and decided to post-secrets.
but then again with that “whopping” mistake, I hardly think it can be an Indian.
or it could be just another case of an Indian guy experimenting with exotic “native” girls only to later breakup to save face in front of his parents!
Ex’s current and inferior girlfriend, is that you?! D:
Indians aren’t bad, that’s right, sister! We (as a collective) came together to write the Kama Sutra, then we came together (if you know what I mean, and I think you do)! We’re fucking exotic! Especially in the way we fuck!
Say what you want about this kind of popular Orientalism and the kinds of crippling stereotypes it perpetuates about Indians through dichotomies born of 18th century anthropological douchebaggery, but it sure has it right when it comes to the inherent skill we possess at sexual intercourse. Never mind that many of us are fumbling and inept to the point that (in the case of this uncontrollably sensual nymphomanic commenter) we remain virgins into our twenties!
Yeah, fuck all that shit! Come into my harem! We can have passionate Vedic sex while we take tech support calls, perform open heart surgery, and charm snakes out of baskets. And we can charge on-looking white people to watch!
But, inevitably, there will be some Westerners too poor to afford our cutthroat and exorbitant fees (remember, we’re Indian, we’re genetically bound to ‘roll’ this way). And the only way to compensate, to reach the widest possible audience, is to use the demeaning tropes they have of us as guidelines for our behavior in their society. By using otherizing stereotypes to combat otherizing stereotypes and in doing so otherize ourselves, we can finally complete the project of imperialism ourselves, by subjugating ourselves.
Amen to that.
I think it was a Pakistani guy or girl who wrote this postsecret.
What, this is some sort of Pakistan vs. India thing?
I wouldn’t want this clearly important and substantive post to devolve into an orgy of voyeurism, and a sequence of pointless comments about jejune gender and ethnic stereotypes about self-hate/superiority/exotification/penis length, based on speculations on an anonymous comment sparked by an unknown backstory. So, let me come clean.
I was the one who sent in this card to Postsecret. It was mainly because I was overcome with grief about a child next door who has been completely distraught ever since her favorite toy was washed away when the Thames breached its banks last year. As a matter of fact, what I meant was:
I was sick about her losing her sledge to a (surging) river.
Since I live in a working-class (as you might have inferred from the fact that the kid still hasn’t had her toy replaced in over a year) part of London (which you knew from my reference to the Thames, I’m sure), I naturally used Cockney rhyming slang. So, sledge rhymes with pledge of “virginity pledge”. And river rhymes with giver, which is the latter half of “Indian giver”. I know, I know, I am a racist for using that term, but I am working with my social worker on that issue.
However, the really deep dark secret in that postcard is mine, and it’s the photograph. You see, I come from a macho family that prizes rugged manhood and traditional societal norms, and which even went to the extent of banning our national treasure, Monty Python, from ever being played in the home when they realized that the lumberjack song was not really an ode to working-class men everywhere. So, I don’t know how to share with them that inside me there is a sensitive woman waiting to get out. To double it, they absolutely hate the immigrants (“Pakis”, they call them), so they are definitely not going to take it well when I tell them that the girl inside is Indian, and just loves curry!
Help! I need somebody! Not just anybody! Help! You know I need someone! Help!
10 · Rahul said
Are you being serious?
I too read this as a Pakistani – Indian comment. but perhaps that is my personal experience – I once dated an Indian American Hindu who in the first few months of dating told me he’d never date a girl who had dated a Muslim or african American in the past. as this was my first desi bfriend and my first experience with the south Asian community in America, I was really upset and surprised that people who grew up in multicultural areas could think this way. the relationship did not last obviously. I’m not bringing this up to inflame this discussion on this site, but writing to say that there are folks who still think this way in our community.
11 · Arjhun said
As always.
SM just jumped the shark.
would it annoy / upset / offend you if a long time desi girlfriend / boyfriend lost his/her virginity to someone after you that was not desi ?
I like to watch.
7 · Capital R said
You just revealed the plot for the sequel to Slumdog Millionaire.
I lost my virginity to an Indian – so responsive, so thrilling!
18 · bess said
Hmmm… that link describes Indians as speedy burners, not exactly what we’re, um, shooting for.
“Speedy Burner” he told me it was a Kama Sutra move.
all good now
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9367/postsecretsthumbae0.jpg
Taz, I LOVE the title of this post. Haha. 😛
And I assumed that this was written by a non-Indian (and racist) girl about a non-Indian guy that had lost their virginity to an Indian girl.
7 · Capital R said
I liked this point a lot. Totally went over my head when I was posting this last night (as well as the grammar mistake on the card, as well as the perspective that it could be a paki vs. indian). I guess that’s why we have comments to our posts, so readers can catch what I’m unable to in the heat of the moment. 😉
Mmm, kink for one. Now, you’re thinking!
“We are all other-f___ers.”
FYI: the girl in the pic is Parvathi Melton. I just drooled all over my keyboard.
LMAO @ 14 Nemo
I lost mine to a Pakistani, luckily it was before the days of PostSecret.
Are you throwing shoes?
7 · Capital R said
I agree with the gist of what you are saying, but wasn’t there a less insufferably scoldish way you could have said it? Unless it was purposely over-the-top, in which case, carry on.
27 · bess said
Hahaha!
27 · bess said
Foot fetishists and bush haters are featured in next week’s edition of Post Secret.
It sounds like its from a white dude that cant stand the fact that the girl he likes slept with an indian dude. Alot of white dudes from where i from think that way.
“Dharma is better than Artha, and Artha is better than Kama.” (Kama Sutra 1.2.14)
So you’re working on that one now. And will you be wearing eyeliner and heels again? kama kama kama kama kama chameleon…you come and go…
One more unnecessary, insufferable use of the word “normative.”
One more unnecessary, insufferable comment with nothing to say.
My guess is it is the catty comment of a non-desi to her brother.
25 · kal said
naah, it’s anne hathaway in brownface.
I wud help taz and bing her back to the fold.
Was the card meant to be a joke? Does anyone know of the artist/designer(s) and if they have other works of art?
36 · rob said
Close, but not quite. Actually, it’s a card from John Coulter to his sister Ann.
yeah, the pic of the chick is throwing evryone off, otherwise we’d all just assume its a white dude upset over his girlfriend having sex with a non-white. but a girl upset that her boyfriend had sex with an indian. never heard that. actually , i’ve never heard of the first scenario either except for maybe alec baldwin, but i’m sure it exists.
of course, it could be a lesbian chick in the middle of a prop-8 anti-black/brown backlash.
my guess is its a desis dad or someone upset his son corrupted an indian chick, when every decent desi knows thats what white chicks are for.
40 · Rahul said
can’t belive i didn’t think of that
18 · bess said
i swear to god i totally thought of that and was preparing an hilarious comment. gutter minds think alike.
To be honest, I am extremely upset and disgusted by the postcard. It is ugly and parochial with the poster’s focus on the subject losing his/her virginity with an Indian. Shouldn’t it be South Asian?
except I’d have never thought this:
A desi dad cutting and pasting together a postcard to send to a blog??? (totally agree about the white chicks, though)
I am going to say it was a woman saying this to a man that lost his virginity to an Indian woman.
In my opinon women tend to be alot more racist when it comes to sex. Women will put it in there head that “Okay I will only bang a white man and maybe a dark skinned Italian, but anything else is just not for me”
Men on the other hand when given the opportunity will not turn down the chance with a woman they find visually stimulating no matter the color.
When it comes to sex, men fight for equal oppurtuniy and women prefer the seperate but equal approach to sex.
Ahhhhh nevermind what I just said.
I forgot that men tend to be equal opportunist for themselves, but hold there women to a seperate set of standards. I can picture a man losing his shit over the fact that his woman, pure as the snow, was rammed by a Indian beast.
On the other hand I cant picture some racist dude going on the internet to make a postcard that expresses his racist beliefs.
So in conclusion it was a woman saying it to a man.
well, i was thinking of Yo Dad maybe, but I’m sure he’d never do that. But I guess we’ll have to wait until Abhi…
i prefer the lesbian scenario
Shallow Thinker, in the words of a cuttin’ n pastin’-racist-postcard-makin’ fool, “Your Lost”!
I laughed way too hard at this.
I’m with Capital R on this one — I appreciated the exasperated tone 🙂