If you want proof that we’re among the most hypocritical societies in the world, look at the sharp divide between erotica in Indian bookstores and erotica elsewhere.
In the shelves of contemporary bestseller writing, from Ravi Subramanian’s Bankster books to the innumerable mall love stories and modern mythologicals, the absence of adult fiction, or even mildly erotic fiction, is hard to overlook. It was made even more apparent by the success of E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey and other imported erotica, from The Bride Stripped Bare to Valentina (“Liberate Yourself”) and other softcore fantasies aimed at the post-Mills & Boon reader of romantic fiction.
Except for a scant handful of anthologies from Tranquebar and Zubaan, Indian publishing in English hasn’t explored erotic fiction in any substantial way. This is a big gap, especially since there are now writers, from Mary Anne Mohanraj to Rosalyn D’mello, Meena Kandasamy and Abeer Hoque, who write sensual, crafted prose with the freedom and assurance you’d expect from the best literary dominatrices.
Online, the Indian erotic imagination used to operate with far more freedom, but in significantly different ways. In an interesting contrast to similar fan fiction sites in the UK, more men than women seemed to contribute amateur erotica in what I’d once called the “Bhabhi porn” genre — perhaps because more men than women had online access in the early and mid-2000s. Women’s magazines online reversed this trend, but maintained boundaries, often discouraging explicit prose.
From 2009 onwards, when it became possible to access the internet in different Indian languages, something briefly shifted: on the Hindi Web, the Tamil Web, often in closed online women’s groups or women’s forums, women began sharing their fantasies, often in uncomfortable detail. But much of this went underground again when word began to spread that the new laws governing the internet had a wide definition of obscenity online; under these laws, almost all erotic fiction by Indians online, even softcore, vanilla fantasies, could be judged obscene.
One of the funniest, if telling, episodes in the convoluted history of India’s censorship was in the state’s persecution of the legendary Savita Bhabhi of the elastic morals and bodacious body. With great solemnity, senior officials denounced the rising popularity – and class-divide shattering sexual adventures – of a cartoon character: “Anything that is not in the best interests of the nation can be banned.”
As an aside, this is the approach favoured by China, which decided some two years ago that erotica and porn were anti-national. In its concern for the morals of its citizens, China shut down 97,000 blog and microblog accounts and 164 pornographic publications over the last seven months, sending a clear message: sex and sensuality are to be frowned upon and seen as a scourge to be eradicated, under the present regime. As with India, China’s attitude to erotica is content-blind: there is little distinction between harmful pornography (paedophilia, non-consensual violence and torture) and normal expressions of healthy sensuality.
Also Read
Over the last year, the success of Fifty Shades of Grey’s softcore bondage and dungeon décor fantasy didn’t unleash a new wave of erotica so much as it drew attention to the world of romance and erotic writing that had replaced the old-school Mills & Boons. The old stalwarts of romance fiction – Mills & Boon, Silhouettes, Harlequins – had seen their readership dwindle.
New generations of women readers didn’t want the old fantasy of marriage to a hunk; they wanted just the hunk, perhaps with a few interesting toys thrown in. “Although Exotika stories may contain a romance, they do not have to include that as the primary focus,” explains a popular erotica site online, “the relationship does not need to be monogamous or end with commitment.”
This market is crisply categorised, not just by the exact shade of your fantasy (with or without whips and chains etc) but in far more fascinating ways. Though vampire erotica tends to grab the interest of the press, the erotic fiction market has made a fetish, if you’ll excuse the expression, of genre mashups. Vampire fiction and werewolf fiction – “Morgan Kale is a rare white werewolf, a lone wolf who sets Roul’s senses on fire” – overlap, but have distinctly different readerships.
Alien fiction – “the love and sexual attraction between Acklinta, the lovely alien, and Fred, the horny human, remains strong” – has sprung up from the ruins of old-school tentacle porn. Grey erotica, aimed at older men and women, is emerging as an unexpectedly strong entrant, with one recent bestseller penned by the 76-year-old Desiree Holt, who’s close to matching Barbara Cartland with over 100 bestselling titles, from Conditional Surrender to On The Prowl.
Yes, I know we wrote the Kamasutra, and given that we have one of the world’s largest populations, I’m assuming most Indians are aware of the basic facts of life. But you wouldn’t know it from our bookshelves, immaculate in their denial, stripped bare of sensuality.