Encountering the third kind

Walking on Marine drive, I just escaped getting into an encounter of the third kind. But some others werent so lucky. The busy couples were so busy doing what they were doing and just didnt see it coming. Then it started. The acts, the begging, the blessings and even the haggling. But I indeed wonder, what would be the best response that would not only get rid of the 'problem' but make all involved happy and smile. Imagine you are on a romantic date on and suddenly encountered with the people called 'chakas', what do you think would be a response that will make you sound nice in front of your special one, make the intruder happy and you too at the end of the day?

A historical perspective of Eunuchs

In today's encore excerpt - eunuchs, those castrated servants who performed a wide variety of functions for kings in ancient and more recent times. The special value of eunuchs (literally bed-keepers) to kings and other high-ranking officials was that they could be better trusted since they had no desire for the wives and other women of the court, did not have the distractions of family life, and were thought to have less ambition. Here we see eunuchs in the capital of Constantinople circa the fifth century CE:
"Eunuchs gave the palace at Constantinople a special atmosphere. They were men who had been sexually damaged by disease, accident, or deliberate mutilation. Mutilation, as horrible as it sounds, was not always or only conscious cruelty, inasmuch as eunuchry was a path to power and safety for the marginal or the vulnerable. One source speaks of the Abasgi outside Roman territory at the eastern end of the Black Sea (modern Abkhazia retains the name), whose king sold boys for castration and killed their parents. If the fatality rate on these castrations was about ninety-five percent, few cared, and the survivors might feel themselves lucky in many ways.

"So normal a part of the landscape did the eunuchs seem, and so easily was their involuntary sexual isolation compared with religiously approved abstinence, that in later times when exegetes read of the service of the prophet Daniel at Nebuchadnezzar's court, they naturally assumed - meaning it as a respectful interpretation - that he must have been a eunuch too. On a higher level, the angels and their sexlessness gave sexless males below a kind of respectability. The general Narses, who replaced Belisarius and finally brought grim peace to Italy for [the emperor] Justinian, was a eunuch. By the eighth century, a eunuch could even rise to the patriarchal throne in Constantinople.

"At the pinnacle of the household was the grand chamberlain, always a eunuch and thus supposedly without family interest to corrupt his service, responsible for every aspect of management and control. He supervised the silentiaries (court officials) with their golden wands, who offered discreet guidance and control to ensure that all would be orderly and impressive, and whose influence could thus incidentally mean a great deal. On retirement they were normally admitted to the senate."
James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire, Harper Collins, Copyright 2008 by James J. O'Donnell, pp. 200-201.

Many of a kind

Many of what kind?

The kind that are not males or females.

There are so many of this kind in this world and I feel bad that no society recognises them. I have never seen a form where there are three boxes for sex/gender - male, female and other.

Despite all the claims of proudness of all our civilisations, this discrimination against recognising millions of people is a shame on our civilisation.

For more details about the number of people and all the science behind this, read along:

As many as 4 per cent of people are born with neither a clear male nor clear female identity, according to the Gender Trust. Most may be unaware that they are classified as "intersex" and suffer no discomfort or distress as a result.However, some babies are born with ambiguous genitals which leave their sex unclear. They may resemble those of a female with a large clitoris and the labia fused together, or they may look like those of a male with a small penis and an empty scrotum. Surgery may be carried out so the baby can be assigned as either male or female.

Others are born with genetic abnormalities. The sex of a baby is established in the womb according to whether they have an XX chromosome pair (female) or XY (male). The commonest gender disorders are chromosomal abnormalities such as Turner's syndrome (X0, where the second X chromosome is missing), which affects one in 10,000 girls, and Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY or XXXY) affecting one in 1,000 boys.

Girls with Turner's syndrome mostly have normal genitals but the ovaries do not develop and they remain infertile. Boys with Klinefelter's syndrome may have small testes or produce low amounts of testosterone and can develop breasts. They may also have signs of a womb and ovaries.

People with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or AIS (one in 20,000 births) – as described by Janet – are genetically male (with the XY chromosome) but due to a failure to respond to testosterone do not develop male genitals and at birth appear female. They are thus usually raised as girls. They can develop breasts at puberty, but the vagina is small or absent, and they do not menstruate. Some AIS women have had modelling careers because their lack of male hormones means they are unlikely to develop body hair and are less prone to skin conditions like acne. But society is often unkind to people with such disorders.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/i-was-treated-like-a-circus-sideshow-1786139.html

Forget the father, forget the mother

Forget the terms "mother" and "father". It does not seem to make any sense to me anymore. After the recent event that has taken place in the US, I am very confused about the definition of father and mother. I have a few questions that I would like you to answer before I go ahead with this topic:
1. Does giving birth to a baby make a person a mother?
2. Does providing the egg for making the baby constitute making the mother?
3. Has the mother always have to be a female?

In the most conservative answers, yes will hold good for all these questions. But think a little more liberally. Answer1: No. Haven't you heard of surrogate mothers? The egg donor is called the mother. Ans2: yes, a biological mother. But no, in case of adoptions.
Ans3: Now I am really confused about the meaning of the mother in the first place. So I will say cant say. I will explain this part. In the most reccent event, a father has given birth to a child. The story is as follows: There was this girl born 35 years ago and around ten years ago got her sex changed by surgically removing her mammary glands and taking testosterone, but retained her original reproductive organs. Then the state of Oregon in US pronounced that the person was man enough to be called a man(now this is legal). So she is now a he. He marries a woman. But the woman has had hysterectomy( a surgery where the uterus is removed) and cannot bear a child. So he stops his testosterone doses, orders a donor sperm, gets artificial insemination done, and he reproduces naturally(remember he still has the female reproductive organs). So he(legally a man) bears a child. 

So now I am really confused about the role of a person as a mother? What is the one critical condition that makes a person a mother? Looking by the way things are going, gays and lesbians wanting to adopt and raise children and also use donor eggs/sperms to have kids of their own, the definition of father and mother is going to be very blur and fuzzy. Interestingly, I have a solution to this :) Forget the terms father and mother. Call them parents. Primary parent and secondary parent. (Just like in a joint bank account). If the parents have two kids, one could be the primary parent for one and the secondary for another and alternatively for the second kid. This generalisation will bring all kinds of parents to the same level(Gay parents, Normal heterosexual parents, Lesbian parents, Single dad parent, Single mom parent and guardians for kids without parents). All will anyway be taking on the role of a human being who wishes well for the kid and wants the kids to succeed. So we can put an end to stopping the discrimination based on gender and then even the sexual minorities(cross dressers, transvestites, gays, lesbians and people with genetic defects where they may have the sex chromosomes of XXY and very rarely XXXY) will benefit and everyone should be treated as equal human beings. Oh! And by the way haven't you heard "Research is on to make a sperm in the lab just from a woman"? Science keeps getting interesting. :-) If you know or think you know the answer to this question, please comment :"What is the one critical condition that makes a person a mother?"

Update 26 Sep 2012:
After 4 years of proposing my above idea, France is set to ban words 'mother' and 'father' on official documents under plans to legalize gay marriage.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09/25/france-set-to-ban-words-mother-and-father-under-plans-to-legalize-gay-marriage/