How Was Asal Kolaar Allowed To Get Away With Sexual Harassment In Bigg Boss 6 Tamil?!

Trigger Warning: This deals with sexual harassment and violence against women and may be triggering for survivors.

I don’t watch Bigg Boss much. But this incident, or should I say a couple of disgusting incidents caught my eye. I’m talking about Bigg Boss (BB) Tamil 6. It started around October last year when viewers started calling out Asal Kolaar, a contestant in the BB house, for his indecent behavior with women.

One of the examples can be found in this tweet where he is found rubbing a fellow woman contestant, Queency’s arm while she was busy talking with another contestant.

— Filmic Reels ❁ (@filmic_reels) October 16, 2022

Not only that, he unnecessarily touched another female contestant, Janany’s shoulder while she was busy talking to someone.

The daily dose of Asal Kolaar creepiness.#BiggBossTamil6 pic.twitter.com/AUn1zkrTzX

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— Bigg Boss Follower (@BBFollower7) October 25, 2022

From the video, it seemed like she was annoyed by the unsolicited touch.

On several other occasions too, he was seen touching female co-contestants inappropriately.

After he got evicted he explained his actions by apologizing and saying, “I behaved like I would if I went to my relative’s house.”

He also said, “They saw me touching a few female inmates but if I had truly behaved the way trolls are accusing me, the contestants would have definitely objected.”

Do men like Asal Kolaar not understand consent?

In any of the situations, I didn’t see him asking the women if they were comfortable with it. He didn’t even ask for consent to be “objected to”. First of all, they were random people he met and stayed with for several days. And even if he thought of them as “family”, they are still entitled to their personal space and boundaries.

What irks me is his justifying his not asking for consent and doing what he wishes by invading others’ personal space, which is symbolized as a form of care – the one he would show his “family”.

Whoever it is, family or not, personal space and consent are very important. Maybe the housemates were too uncomfortable to bring it up? Maybe they should have, but they didn’t, doesn’t mean is it okay.

What he’s trying to say is that he went on doing what he wanted because from his point of view, “She didn’t exactly say it, so I assume she wasn’t uncomfortable.”

When I say consent, I don’t mean sex or people in relationships only. It applies to acquaintances and strangers as well. I don’t mean consent applies only to men, it applies to everyone. The tea analogy makes the concept clear. If you asked a guest in your home if they want chai and they say no, would you take the cup and pour it in their mouth forcefully? Did you say, “No, obviously not!?” Now, you get the concept of consent.

A personal boundary should be valued in any place, be it home, office or a reality show. Remember that we need to ask for permission not just once, but every single time.

What were the Bigg Boss organisers doing?

The TV channel didn’t bother to call him out for his filthy and cheap behavior. However, the viewers voted him off the show. There was a lot of anger, hate, and troll.

Unfortunately, just a few months later he exited the BB house the backlash dulled down. I used to see angry comments online and on Twitter, but now I see comments supporting him, and people saying how they mistook him to be a bad person. And life goes on.

He is a celebrity now. He has several fans. He attends game shows as though nothing happened. He even went back to the BB house as a guest.

After he went back, he even blamed a contestant, Shivin for saying, “The public saw what people in the BB house couldn’t.” He meant that they instigated people to turn against him. The public saw him as the pervert he is. But, we can’t expect him to have accountability, right?

It’s sad how people like him get away with whatever they do. Imagine if this is the plight in a reality show watched by millions of people, what would happen to those we don’t know about?

In a parallel universe, I would expect this guy to be publicly shamed and the women to speak up against him in such a way that he can never step foot outside again out of embarrassment and remorse.

But this is our world, so let’s forgive him and make him a star. I feel so hopeless when I think of this…hopelessness at the maximum.

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