#BoysLockerRoom: Men Explain How Men Talk About Women When They Aren't Listening

¡°You know it is mostly a boob-ass talk and how easy women are if they agree to sleep with men. Many just want to look and sound cool,¡± tells Rahul (name changed) a professor at Delhi University, when asked about ¡®typical¡¯ man behaviour in a group chat among men.

Lurking beneath the temporary global pandemic is a pervasive epidemic which has been haunting womankind for centuries. The discussion around it may have taken a backseat for a couple of months, considering that the world is fighting a deadly virus which threatens the very existence of humankind. But it is back in the limelight.

This morning, many woke up to the news of an Instagram chat group called ¡®Bois Locker Room¡¯, with hundreds of boys from South Delhi, getting leaked. The group was allegedly used for sharing photos of underage girls, objectifying them, and planning ¡®gang rapes¡¯, revealed a Twitter user.

A screenshot of the chat group was shared by a South Delhi girl on Twitter. ¡°A group of south delhi guys aged 17-18 types have this ig gc named ¡®boy's locker room¡¯ where they shit on, objectify and morph pictures of girls their age. 2 boys from my school are a part of it. MY FRIENDS AND I ARE FREAKING OUT THIS IS SO EWWW AND NOW MY MOM WANTS ME TO QUIT IG (sic),¡± she wrote.

The chat revealed that boys, many of whom are underage, had made statements such as -- ¡°We can rape her easily¡± and ¡°I will come whenever you say. We will gang rape her¡±. The group chat was full of morphed pictures of underage girls, slut-shaming and body-shaming them.

There have been similar incidents in the past. In 2019, a top-ranked Mumbai school suspended eight boys, aged 13 and 14, for making violent, explicit and derogatory remarks about their female classmates on a WhatsApp group.

The infamous DPS MMS scandal from 2004 had sent shockwaves across the country. An underage male student shot a video of a fellow female student, scantily dressed and performing a fellatio on him. The clip went viral on porn sites and later found a way on India's leading online auction website Baazee.com. An exlusive newspiece had mentioned - "India's biggest online trading portal baazee.com had listed the said MMS clip under the title 'DPS girls having fun' with the member ID of 27877408."

Evidently, little has changed since 2004.

While discussions around sexism, casual sexism, harassment and abuse have become more vigorous and impactful, it is almost disheartening to see that testosterone-soaked culture is very much alive and thriving. We are living in the times when it is decreasingly cool to be sexist, but in a parallel world such as these groups, it can't get any cooler.

Arjun (name changed), who is currently a filmmaker in Mumbai, admits that over the time, conversations around women have become subtle. ¡°During school days, the conversation was entirely limited to women's bodies. But that has changed drastically now. We definitely look down upon men who do not respect women and are comfortable making derogatory comments against them,¡± he says.

Sexualising women is as easy as breathing. It comes naturally to a privileged gender.

Rahul admits that there are times when people who claim to respect women tend to objectify women who are not their girlfriends or partners. ¡°They are comfortable abusing women who aren¡¯t their friends or girlfriends. Of course, there are men who do not support such conversations but would prefer to keep mum only to save themselves from getting into an argument.¡±

A staggering number of men claim to be feminists but their feminism is restricted to women around them, boastful social media posts and ¡°I Am A Feminist¡± t-shirts. Because looking ¡°cool¡± is ¡°hep¡±.

Many would say sports, automobiles and occasionally literature, unites men. But going by a generic social media behaviour, nothing unites most men like an orgy of immoral and explicit conversations about women. Calling women ¡°prosititutes¡±, ¡°feminist r*andiyaan¡±, ¡°rape-worthy¡±, objectifying and hyper-sexualising female bodies is a staple.

Most men find an unnerving ease when uniting over the treatment of women. It assumes a shape of a subtext of male bond itself. And there are people who believe that education is the key to uprooting such behaviour. The most common argument is that such behaviour exists in men who aren¡¯t educated and do menial jobs.

And it is a flaccid narrative.

The incident in question today comes from a high-class society. Education does expose us to a better understanding of the world and society, but imbibing that understanding is clearly an individual choice. What changes with education is only the language of abuse. It gets refined over time. But the underlying idea of sexism and abuse doesn¡¯t fade. It remains the same.

It #boyslockerroom throws a harsh light on a pervasive rape culture. The problem is so deep-rooted that even if these boys assault women in the future, the society is wired to point fingers to women and hold them responsible for getting assaulted or raped.

When boys hardly 18, sexualise girls who are barely 15, and normalise a conversation around ¡°rape and gangrape,¡± it exposes a deeply flawed and a failed society. It forces us to rethink how society raises its sons. This objectification comes from a deep sense of entitlement, across economic, education and societal hierarchy barriers. It will continue unless patriarchy, privilege and toxic masculinity is not addressed and uprooted. It is a systemic problem which requires systemic solution.