On June 9, an audio of Clubhouse conversation between the alleged social media’ influencers’ started to make rounds on Twitter where the speaker normalised ‘hate sex’ with ‘sanghis’ because women are ‘hot’. In the undated conversation, that happened on the Clubhouse app in a room titled “sex with your ex” on the topic “Do you only date hot people”, one speaker identified as Neeraj Kadamboor (Instagram ID kadamboorneeraj) made a derogatory remark on women who are opposed to his political ideology.

Neeraj essentially said that he finds “sanghis” “hot” and would like to have sex with them. Right at that time, his fellow “influencers” chimed in, saying that “Sanghis are not hot” because of their political ideology. At this point, Neeraj Kadamboor says that he would want to have ‘hate sex’ with Sanghis.

Interestingly, one person who was involved in this entire episode was one Aishwarya Subramanyam.

When Aishwarya Subramanyam, one of the moderators of the ClubHouse room, asked Neeraj if he dates only hot people, he responded, “No, I date all kinds of people but on the dating apps, I do sometimes thirst for these very hot Sanghi types, just for fun.”

To this Aishwarya responded that Sanghis are not hot, but Neeraj nevertheless defended himself saying he finds them hot. Neeraj further adds, “Just like the opposite of paper bag sex….”, to which a lady in the group remarked: “It is like having hate sex”.

Later, of course, the defence mounted was that Neeraj was talking about ‘gay sex’ and since he himself was gay, he can talk about his own community like that. That argument too, would appear to be an attempt to whitewash the vile comments made. Men or women, nobody really deserves to be humiliated physically and mentally for their political opinions. But the attempt to whitewash the comments by claiming that it was only about gay men, also could be an attempt to escape scrutiny by ensuring that the ‘woke’ crowd can cry ‘homophobia’ when the problematic statements are called out. A strawman argument was perhaps being constructed, but even if the ‘gay community’ explanation is taken on face value, no part of the comment can be considered acceptable.

Dehumanisation of a partner and the subsequent emotional and physical exploitation won’t be ok when the individuals involved are of same sex and the arguments being made by these individuals can just as easily apply to partners belonging to either sex.

Aishwarya Subramanyam has now taken to Instagram to justify what was said, in no uncertain terms.

The argument being made by Aishwarya to justify her extremely problematic is quite disturbing.

Essentially, Aishwarya says that “hate sex” can also be consensual. But she conveniently appears to ignore the fact that in most cases, it isn’t. Furthermore, as per the definition she has herself cited, the sex turns into a “form of micro-aggression and even retaliation and revenge.” Thus, it is bizarre that she is attempting to defend the usage of the term.

Hate sex is defined as intercourse with someone one dislikes or hates. In simple words, a physical relationship between two people where there is no emotional connection between the two and at least one of the partners hates the other who is completely unaware of it. Such experiences often lead to permanent scars for one side. In many cases, such instances even lead to major crimes.

The underlying assumption being made by Aishwarya here is that the other person involved, the ‘Sanghi’, would have no issues here at all with a liberal individual taking out his/her hate and disgust against him/her using sex as a tool. One could safely say the situation is unlikely.

Now let us assume the following scenario:

Sinha, who wishes to have “hate sex” with Sanghis, meets a woman or a man on some dating app, who he finds physically attractive. They then end up in a physical relationship and Sinha, to act out his “hate sex” fantasies with the “Sanghi” he despises, crosses lines during the act of intimacy. Dehumanizing them, mocking them, getting physically rough with them and worse.

To assume that this scenario has any element of consent is justifying physical and mental torture of the women and men one disagrees with ideologically. Does consent to get intimate automatically mean that the said person consented to be dehumanised and hated? The assumption that any form of physical and mental torture can come with an element of consent is in itself problematic and rather shocking when it comes from those who consider themselves “feminists” and “liberal”.

The same argument that he was apparently making for homosexual men can be extended to women as well, if we are to take that defence at face value.

What is essentially being justified here is the use of sex as a tool to vent out anger and hatred against another individual. In that sense, the mentality here is not much different from the ones that motivate crimes against women.

In many cases, rapists subject women to sexual violence in order to assert their dominance over them. In other cases, rapists attack women to humiliate and emotionally damage her husband and other men in the family. In the current ‘hate’ sex justification, a similar mentality is on display.

The liberal here gloats over the fact that he is ‘f*cking’ someone he hates, exercising domination over an object of hatred and showing the individual his or her place beneath him. That’s the mentality at work here. It is essentially the weaponisation of sex against political adversaries.

This mentality is also one of the defining aspects of Grooming Jihad. As a part of Grooming Jihad in India, Hindu women are entrapped by the assailants who pose as imposters, intending to have a sexual relationship, marrying them and later manipulating them into eschewing their beliefs and faith.

Historically, sex has also been weaponised by armies and invaders as a means to subjugate natives. During medieval times, Mughal kings kept Hindu women in their harems as sex slaves. They were raped and tortured, only because their belief was at variance with the Mughal kings. More recently, ISIS codified sex slavery and its fighters extensively used it against their non-Muslim captives.

It does not need the IQ of Einstein to realise why the weaponisation of sex is so problematic. It only leads to more crimes against women and dehumanises political adversaries. Once adversaries have been sufficiently dehumanised, all manners of crimes against them are justifiable.

So when someone ‘thirsts’ for ‘hate sex’, where you have forceful, sometimes rough (read rape) sexual intercourse with someone you hate because of political ideology, one is actually perpetuating the long cycle of victimisation of women. Perhaps this is why the ‘liberals’ do not accept the concept of Grooming Jihad as real despite innumerable examples of sexual exploitation, rape, forceful religious conversion and sometimes even murder of Hindu women by Islamists.