Curse of sexual beings

My five month old kitten is in heat. Two nights ago I was woken up by a sad, lonely cry. Loud and full of longing. This little ball of fur was walking the up and down my empty hallway crying her heart out.

After a brief moment of panic which saw me profusely fussing over her and checking her body for any signs of injury, it dawned upon me slowly. She was missing someone. Or something.

I might be a human who is more in control of my biological needs compared to a kitten going into heat for the first time, but we both were experiencing a deep longing for love, albeit hers more primal than my emotional one.

Our vet and cat-parenting friends had warned me that my kitten could go into heat in these few months before her vaccination courses are done and she is spayed, but I was not prepared for it being so soon.

All night long her sad wails kept me up. There was nothing I could do to ease her discomfort and that left me feeling frustrated.

Not getting any sleep despite having a very bad haze-induced coughing fit and allergies was not helpful either.

So like any sensible first-time cat-parent, I turned to Google for help. Most of the recommendations were more playtime, more hugs and cuddles, more belly rubs and more patience.

Then there was one that recommended placing the cat in a dark room to calm her down and keeping her away from furniture and such so that she does not spray her urine to mark her territory.

Confining my kitten and keeping her away from the rest of the house so that she does not mess it up. That sounded like a practical advice and a few hours of relief would be much welcomed.

But then like how I tend to operate, this nugget of advice got me thinking. Confining my kitten, ostracizing her just because she was in heat sounded a tad too close to practices of confining menstruating women.

In many cultures, menstruating women are expected to be confined from their daily lives and "quarantined" until their period ends. These restrictions are placed on women lest they contaminate everyone else as they bleed, for periods are seen as "unclean" in many cultures and religion.

The moment a young woman gets her first period, she is told by everyone that she is now a woman. With great power comes great responsibility, and the power here being sexuality and responsibility being purity and honour.

Women are sexual beings, but the only time we as a society acknowledge women's sexuality, it is done pejoratively. Women comfortable with and in charge of their sexuality are labelled "tease", "easy" and derogatory words that wrongfully used to refer to sex workers and promiscuous women.

They need to be controlled, their sexuality (re: power) needs to be contained and channelled for the greater good, which simply means consumption and procreation.

We tell women to be ashamed of their bodies but we use those very bodies to sell everything from drinks and clothes to cars and vacations. We tell women to meet their family's needs but chastise breastfeeding mothers for doing exactly that.

We would not be giving out such conflicting messages if we as a society did not objectify women's bodies and exploit their sexuality.

So I asked myself "who was I to punish my kitten for something that was only natural just because it made me uncomfortable?" It was not I who was in a disadvantaged circumstance, it was this five-month-old kitten who was going into heat for the first time and not grasping what was happening to her and her body, or why she felt the way she did.

The same happens to every young woman everywhere in the world when her body experiences physical changes and nature makes her feel and experience things that are complex and difficult to understand or even explain. It does not help that we tell her that her period is unclean and that her body is obscene.

Young women, too have desires, and by forcing them to shut off that part of their lives just because we are uncomfortable with having healthy conversations with young women about their bodies and sexuality is inhumane.

So, do consider spaying and neutering your four-legged furry babies. If your children are of the two-legged non-furry kind, do have conversations with them about sex, respect, consent and health. These are the ways that we can protect our loves ones. – October 11, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.