Romance - Who Needs It?

A few days ago, the world celebrated International Women’s Day. It’s all about women being empowered. If you ask me, women are pretty liberated and empowered already. In fact, it’s the men who are becoming increasingly domesticated. Men go to chick flicks, do the laundry; even change nappies. And that’s not all. Men are no longer embarrassed to get soppy – to get in touch with their inner selves.

But a silent revolution is underway. Unable to bear the demands of the modern woman, an increasing number of Indian male yuppies are making the dramatic decision of banning romance from their lives. These anarchists are taking a stand against what they regard as emotional manipulation. It is in reaction to this decimation of the alpha male, this creation of a comical character called a good modern husband, that an increasing number of men are rejecting romance altogether. No more wooing the average girl in the office, succumbing to her feminine wiles; and then putting up with her inevitable tantrums. Not when they have discovered ways of satiating their carnal needs - exotic sex tours and high-end prostitutes.

Take the attitude of this 27-year-old advertising professional from Delhi. He believes in hard work, hard cash, and holidays in Thailand, Amsterdam and Rio. He says with the excitement of a new convert, "Earlier, I would meet a pretty girl in the office and try to strike up a conversation. It would take considerable effort to cut through her airs and graces and get talking. The topic of the conversation would be a pain to me, but I would pretend to enjoy every moment. After a few days she would be ready to go out for coffee. This would be followed by a mind-numbing movie. Then, another round of coffee. A month would have passed by now. I would still be in hot pursuit. A few weekends later would come the big day for dinner. After the dinner I would, chivalrously, drop her home. And the next day, just when I would expect my big moment to come, I would find her chatting animatedly with the idiot from marketing. What a waste of effort."

Moreover, success in love brings a new set of obstacles. According to one 18-year-old undergraduate student of information technology in Bangalore, sometimes he does achieve his objective, forms an attachment and succeeds in scoring. But what happens when he falls out of love and starts fancying other girls – not unusual in his age group? At that point, it becomes difficult to break free from the relationship. Now, he just cuts through the preliminaries and pays for what he wants. For as little as $1000, he can have a fun weekend in Southeast Asia.

Of course, this growing trend, of men with breaking away from social norms and finding love in the commercial place, is at a higher state of evolution in Western nations. According to a report which appeared in the British Medical Journal in 2005, the percentage of British men who paid for sex had increased from 5.6 in 1990 to 9.0 in 2000. But the element of surprise lay in the details. It was not just the fat slob, the sex worker’s client stereotype, who was visiting brothels. The study found an increasing number of successful, attractive men in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties opting to pay for intimacy.

Clare Spurrell, a reporter for The Times of London, interviewed some of these men wondering why "the sort of young man of whom most mothers would approve", paid for sex. The interviews revealed that, according to some men, a prostitute can offer what a free sexual encounter cannot: lack of any emotional obligation.

According to a senior vice-president of a communications agency in Mumbai, a trend is emerging, where some men are no longer interested in the women around them. Flirting used to be and still is the norm when it comes to interaction between men and women at the workplace. But now, an increasing number of males believe in hard work and earning good money – and not in asking women out; in forging relationships. They prefer chasing exotica and would rather go on planned sex tours abroad.

Radical feminists call the phenomenon a systemic "objectification" of women. But is this objectification really so repulsive to women? A student of advertising and public relations says, "In my institute, the boys are out to get the prettiest girls, while the girls are out to get the guys with the best bikes, best mobiles and rich dads. And there’s no such thing as love. So if some men have stopped being hypocritical, what’s wrong with it?"

This new bred of alpha males believes that, though men appreciate the needs of women, women don’t always reciprocate. They expect guys to listen to and understand everything they say, but don’t realize they are driving some of them crazy. So why shouldn’t men make the dealing straight? This view, as offensive as it might be to women, is a very common view that most men keep hearing all the time from their friends.

Even among men who like relationships with regular women, there is now a rise in the lure of brothels. They provide what a relationship cannot - variety. They justify their attitude by referring to anthropology. They argue that being respectable was not, at any point in human history, a fervent male wish. Even as an increasing number of men are dismissing monogamy as an unnatural societal condition, what is interesting is that they are conducting this rejection not with any nebulous guilt.

I hasten to clarify that I do not subscribe to the attitudes described above. I am a hopeless romantic: the kind who, in an earlier era, would be out there slaying dragons for his lady love.