Section 377 debate: A natural trap LGBTQ fall for voluntarily

Every time the Indian Supreme Court is invited to apply its mind of Section 377 of IPC, dealing with homosexuality, I see the same pattern repeating in social media debates.

Starting with the video of male lions that mount for dominance (ps: as there is no penetration, these lions are not prosecutable under 377), to websites claiming of homosexual cheetahs and bonobos, the core theme focuses on one word, i.e. nature.

I have to admit that the word nature is important to this debate; as, if we read Section 377, it states, "Whoever voluntarily has carnal inter­course against the order of nature…" But, as these debates are dragging on, not just in India, but globally, I have started seeing 'nature' to be an ugly trap that LGBTQ are falling for every time the subject crops up.

Sex is a biological drive evolved by nature. Nature gives the highest reward in terms of pleasure to encourage all sexually reproducing creatures to engage in it. Nature wants us to have sex, as replication is the essence of life.

As sex is existentially critical, nature has installed a biological drive in the from of a highly-specialised software to execute the act in the proper order, so reproduction is successful.

Though sex, as they say is between the ears, it can't run as a software only in the brain to procreate. Sex needs hardware in the form of a reciprocating body physiology of highly-specialised sexual organs that execute the commands issued by the software of sex.

As sex is a software in the brain, it is entirely possible for it to come in very natural 'homo' or 'hetero' versions. But, when it comes to the hardware that the software needs to operate, human body has not been able to evolve, matching the physiology as yet. So, the heterosexual interaction of the penis-vagina evolved over time and is interpreted in homosexual interactions in various ways, using different sets of organs to run the software of sex.

Section 377 is an archaic section, though broadly applied to all homosexual sex in general today, it is by its very definition linked with 'penetration', as it is actually about a blast from the past known as sodomy. As penis-vagina interaction, driven by sex software, can't be playing out in a penis's interaction with a digestive tract organ, historically all cultures have opted to consider it unnatural and thus unlawful.

While there seems to be some logic in looking at homosexuality as unnatural from body physiology perspective, the reality is completely different. If we look at the software of sex, its very purpose is procreation and not recreation. So, if we look at modern heterosexual sex, it is mostly recreational, it, too, is equally unnatural as homosexual sex.

Truth is, sex in humans has transformed and gone far beyond its 'natural' purpose of procreation, and hence it can no longer be measured on the count of body physiology.

The bigger truth that we need to grasp is, if there is any morality that nature believes in, it is the laws of physics. As long as something is possible to do, it won't be violating laws of physics, and thus must be accepted as natural.

The word that really needs attention in Section 377 debates is 'voluntarily' and not 'nature'. Consensual sex between adults can't be in the purview of the state and hence Section 377 needs to be decriminalised when sex is voluntary.

As the LGBTQ community and its sympathisers keep debating its natural-ness, it ends up implying that they agree with the definition of 'natural' of their adversaries. It is a trap that they keep falling in and derailing the core issue of privacy and fundamental right to personal choice as long as it is not harming others.

City-based science nomad who tries to find definitive answers