Having dinner with some friends the other night, we were watching television (low-brow, I know — but at least it was news) when my host and hostess reacted sharply to an ad for an anti-abortion pill: “This is going to encourage more sex,” they said in middle-class horror. Since neither I nor, I presume, my hosts could define a measure for “more sex”, I was flummoxed for an answer, and mumbled something about empowerment, the ability to exercise choice, and, of course, managing unwanted pregnancies. “We don’t know all that,” I was admonished, “this is going to encourage promiscuity.”
Were they genuinely naïve? Were they suggesting everyone behave like class monitors to decide when people may or may not indulge in acts of intimacy? And what next — a dress Taliban? Morality censors? Thought police? And what about trawling online sites for virtual sex: should pornography be outlawed, sites blocked, all because of some flawed sentiment that if it’s upfront, it has to be illegal or, at least, immoral.
The next evening, at home, other friends reserved their judgement on a reality show in which the publicity-seeking dancer and actress (?) Rakhi Sawant is being wooed by suitors at a location in Rajasthan, and is to marry the last one “to win my heart”. Rakhi is as hard as they come, and butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, yet she has managed to endear herself to audiences because she says it like it is. Her beaus on the show come across as a bunch of losers who’re in it for a lark, to enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame and use it as a meal-ticket to third-grade stardom.
And yet, the show is strangely empowering for women. “How?” scoffed my friends, so I explained that it was unusual, in India, for a woman to be able to question men about their finances, girlfriends, jobs, views on dowry and so on. “That’s true,” I was told, “but because it’s Rakhi, chances are people will treat it superficially. Who takes her seriously?” Very likely, they were right. To the participants in the swayamvar, as to millions of others, Rakhi is an object of desire, someone who re-invented herself with the help of a surgeon’s scalpel, and does a mean cabaret — more likely to be the poster girl taped to the bathroom door than the potential bride you’d take home to meet momma.
It’s no secret that we’re embarrassed by everything from public displays of affection (first-time Indians abroad can hardly tear their eyes away from courting couples in the subways) to even art that depicts any form of nudity, yet have no quarrel with the erotically charged content of Kamasutra texts and Khajuraho sculptures. But any suggestion of intimacy between people, despite Kalidasa’s poetry or even Bollywood’s romances, is viewed as social impropriety. We don’t do this, we’re Indian, and it’s against our culture.
It’s the same attitude homophobics display, and which our religious leaders are using to counter the public recognition of the private lives of gays. In other words, if you don’t see it, if the courts don’t recognise it, it doesn’t exist, or happen, in India. So an ad that promotes condoms as an aid for pleasure ought to be banned, but if it ends up as a message for the prevention of AIDS, then that’s fine, thank you. If you have a prescription for Viagara for you know what, you’re a dirty old man, but if you need it to keep the ticker going, there’s nothing wrong with that, or you.
Meanwhile, in keeping with these bleak times, an SMS message that bleeped up on my mobile a few days ago: “Have sex with me this weekend, special 20 per cent discount.” Presumably without VAT, service tax or FBT — seriously, now that’s what you can call fun.
