About Gandhi and his sexuality, we have to consult history. At 37, he took a vow of sexual abstinence because 21 years earlier, his father passed away in his house while Gandhi was making love to his wife in another room. That memory always tormented Gandhi. The fact that a bout of lust had kept him away from his father in his dying moments. So he spent his life trying to conquer his sexual urge. The perfect Brahmachari in Gandhi's mind was a man who could 'lie by the side even of a Venus in all her naked beauty without being physically or mentally disturbed'.
For years after taking his vow, Gandhi experimented with different diets, looking for one which would have the slightest possible impact on his sexual organs. "While thousands of Indians sought out exotic foods to stimulate their desire, Gandhi spurned in turn, spices, green vegetables, certain fruits, in his efforts to stifle his," wrote Lapierre and Collins in Freedom at Midnight.
But at the age of 67, Gandhi got a shock one night when he woke up sexually aroused. He was so anguished by 'this frightful experience' that he swore a vow of total silence for six weeks. To master his desires, he gradually extended the range of physical contact he allowed himself with women. He nursed them when they were ill and allowed them to nurse him. He took his bath in full view of his fellow ashramites, male and female. He had his daily massage virtually naked, with young girls most frequently serving as his masseuses. He often gave interviews or consulted the leaders of the Congress Party while the girls massaged him. He wore few clothes and urged his disciples, male and female, to do likewise because clothes, he said, only encouraged a false sense of modesty.
The Mahatma and his 'girls'
Free Press Journal | 12 January 1997
He defended the practice by declaring that one cannot overcome a desire by avoiding it, but by facing it on a daily basis.
'I hope you will acquit me of having any lustful designs upon the women or girls who have been naked with me.' said the Mahatma.
'The perfect Brahmachari' he said, 'was a man who could lie by the side of Venus in all her naked beauty without being physically or mentally disturbed.'
A View On Nude Life - Mahatma Gandhi
As it was, he sewed dissent wherever he went. His last years were more controversial that his early ones. Each night he slept naked between two young girls to prove his sanctity. Whatever it was, it was scandal-inducing, even --- some might say --- a consciously divisive act of showoff. "Here I am," he was saying, "a seventy-nine-year-old proving (1) I can find naked girls willing to sleep in the same bed with me --- tended by my wife, no less; and (2) Just to show who's boss, there will be no fiddling around, not even wet dreams." It might have been better for all of us for him to have kept these I'm-a-master-of-my-own-soul celibacy experiments a secret from the world.
Gandhi The Man The Story of His Transformation
Eknath Easwaran
Gandhi was married at age 13 to a girl about his own age and at age 37 took a vow of sexual abstinence. In spite of this vow, he found a need to fondle prepubescent and early adolescent girls. He took such girls to bed with him to overcome, he said, his "shivering fits" in the night. His female companions, who came from his inner circle - all certified virgins or young brides - entered his bed naked in order to warm him with their bodies. Some of them also administered enemas to him. Among the young girls, there was rivalry as to who would sleep with him, and one of his girl disciples reported that his bed companions had a difficult time in restraining their sexual impulses since he often rubbed against them and touched them in erotic places. Although his closemouthed house guardians were fearful of public reaction if news of these "pedophilic" sexual interactions were publicized, Gandhi continued to engage in them until his death. Gandhi did not have sexual intercourse with them, but obviously the touching and feeling were very important to him. If he had lived in the United States, he would have been sentenced as a child molester (Bullough, 1981).
Problems of Research into Adult/Child Sexual Interaction
Institute for Psychological Therapies | Volume 8, 1996
Eric Vern L. Bullough and Bonnie Bullough
