'Eve teasing' - we all know it and live with it. It’s nasty and discomforting. But how do we deal with it?

I’ve written before about teaching gropers a lesson – the way I like to deal with the sexual assaulters I call ‘street bastards’. Now I’ll tell you what I don’t like: my male friends standing up for me. Thanks, but I can stand up for myself.

A lot of women think that what men really want are dumb women who are good looking.

I know some men who have issues with this. Just like some women have a thing for ‘bad boys’, some men admit that they have a thing for ‘bimbos’. But saying that all men like this is a little extreme.
 

Trying to support a friend through an abusive relationship is an unending and totally frustrating job, in my experience.

I’m sorry for being so bitter. But I’ve tried to help my best friend through a horrible, violent relationship for three long years – only to see her go ahead and marry the guy. Now she longs to get away, but it’s too late.

I wanted to throttle the boy who harassed my 11-year-old daughter. But instead I took a different approach - and got a very surprising response.

The other day she came home from school and I could see right away that something was bothering her. It was a boy in her class – he’d asked her to be his girlfriend.

‘All men trip on violence.’ I think it’s the stupidest lie that everyone unquestioningly believes.

If you ask me these blanket statements are a little ridiculous, it’s like saying all women like pink. I’m a man and I've never liked Wrestle Mania or violent video games. But the important thing is that I’ve never been violent in real life.

A SlutWalk march in protest at street harassment will take place in Bangalore on Sunday.

The SlutWalk movement started in Canada when a policeman controversially said women should “avoid dressing like sluts” to stay safe. Love Matters asked a group of women in Bangalore to give us tips on how to stay safe and avoid ‘eve teasing’ in their home town.

“I don’t like the term ‘SMS stalked’, it sounds very unserious,” says Bangalore student Tara.

“It makes me feel like whatever I went through was locked into my little phone or something. Like it didn’t spill into my real life.” She was stalked by her own boyfriend. It was her first relationship ever, and someone she really liked. But she ended up living in fear.

For about three months now I have been living in one of Amsterdam’s (in?)famous red light districts.

There are brothels right opposite my home, plenty of sex shops in the neighborhood. It’s an absolute sex-in-your-face experience. Even as I write this, I can hear a man bargaining with a prostitute on the street.

I think the biggest stereotype about men is that we aren’t sensitive.

Apart from being unfair, this stereotype is simply not true. I don’t believe in some filmi version of being sensitive. All the fuss about flowers and gifts and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Valentine's Day and all that rubbish.

We were having a huge argument over something petty. I was used to this – things always spiraled out of proportion with him.

I remember it being very late on a sultry summer night. It had been a long day and my ex-boyfriend and I had just returned to his place after attending a friends’ wedding. It was a night that would leave me reeling in shock.