Getting what she wants...

Devdas plays on the TV. An ex-colleague flips channels. She stops at the Dola re song. Curious, I ask whom she prefers in the dance-off. She bursts out laughing. “I now know why Devdas wants to drink himself to death in the movie. Both the women he’s interested in are calling out dildo la re. Must be so emasculating!”

Jokes apart, from exploitative sexual control, to sexual and reproductive rights, and beyond, the arrival of sex gadgets is dashing many patriarchal notions. It has come to symbolise women’s fight for agency over their bodies – including their right to pleasure, says Mumbai-based German Ute Pauline Wiemer, co-founder of Lovetreats, a “safe and open sexual wellness” digital platform focussing on women. “On a work-trip in Amsterdam my husband Balaji and I encountered sex-positive shops catering to women in an open, non-judgmental space. We wanted to that empowering sexual wellness for Indian women, without playing on fears and insecurities.”

Outreach to women

After interviews with over 300 Indian women saw over 70 per cent of them curious to try sexual wellness products, Wiemer says they had found their niche. “Women were unaware of how and where to buy these products safely and legally when we launched four years ago.”

India’s first adult online sex shop ThatsPersonal not only started it all, but has already established in a survey, that while men give them 26 per cent of their page views, it is women who indulge in bulk buying as evidenced by their 18 per cent larger shopping baskets. The study (which spoke to 400 women across India except Jammu and Kashmir and the North East) found Baroda, Pune and Thiruvananthapuram lead the charge with women outnumbering men to buy sex products, topmost among which are intimate massagers and the role play costume of a nurse.

Mumbai buys the most sex gadgets, while Delhi comes a close second says the study (Delhi could push Mumbai to second spot if Noida-Gurugram are included) followed by Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad. During Pujo, Kolkata’s ranking improves drastically as does Ahmedabad’s during Navratri, notes the study. It also shows how women in Tier-II cities have already caught up as Noida, Lucknow, Jaipur, Gurugram, Chandigarh, Kochi, Guwahati, Coimbatore, Indore and Surat are now among the top 10.

What’s more, this pursuit of pleasure is not limited to toys and gadgets, but also extends to erotica like self-nudes. Mumbai-resident photographer Andrea Fernandes, who’s worked extensively on nudes of women, had told this writer in the past about photographing a woman who wanted to gift her boyfriend sexy pictures. “She’d got along high-heels, fish-nets, negligee and red lipstick. Sensing nervousness I asked her to relax. She wanted to drink some wine. When she saw the trial shots, she kicked off her heels, pulled off her fishnets and negligee and even rubbed off the red lipstick.” A month later, when Fernandes wrote asking if her boyfriend was happy, she replied, “I kept them for myself. For once, I felt sexy for myself.”

Renowned gender and women’s studies expert, Dr Lakshmi Lingam of TISS explains: “As women prioritise education and career, the average marriage age is up. Women finding safer ways of sexual fulfilment without the burden of a relationship could be fuelling demand,” she says, adding, “Growing online sales could be connected to easy access and privacy. Even for married women, society has strict patriarchal norms. These frown on exploring sexuality outside marriage. Society continuously reinforces on women: Sex should be about procreation, not pleasure.”

(Istock)

Who needs men?

She further underlines how these gadgets and toys help women circumvent men to find pleasure. “And therein lies the rub,” she laughs. “This idea of women pleasuring themselves and the fear it’ll make them compare their male partners’ sexual prowess with that of the device seems to heighten fears of inadequacy among men.”

Dr Lingam – who has co-authored an exploratory study – Youth Subcultures and Smartphones: Exploring implications for Gender, Sexuality and Rights released last year – points out how the arrival of smartphones has helped level the playing field where men gave themselves a huge edge for eons. She remembers a young woman respondent borrowing the iconic Deewar line to tell researchers: “Aapke paas bungla hai, gaadi hai, sab hai lekin mere paas smartphone hai. (You may have a bungalow, a car and all of that, but I have the smartphone.)”

An independent filmmaker who echoes the young woman says, “If I can find an outlet for sexual pleasure of ordering [a sex toy] from the privacy of my own home, isn’t that great?” and adds, “This is just a need like buying groceries or a data recharge. It just means once I’m done I can clean and put it away.”

Dr Lingam also frowns on simplistic linking of films with this change. “Filmmakers are influenced by the changed women around. Their portrayals, in turn, influence more women to think differently about life and choices,” she says citing Alia Bhatt’s Safeena from Gully Boy.

Despite the hunger and demand, Weimer insists access is not easy even for those who don’t share Safeena’s circumstance. “The biggest challenge is awareness. Facebook/Google restrict advertising and the mainstream press is also uncomfortable, despite the products being positioned as liberating. Conventional posters/TV ads are out due to the risk of offending someone.” Offline sexual health and wellness workshops and physical pop-up stalls at events and word-of-mouth have helped, she says and adds, “Women find using WhatsApp and other private messaging services better, along with Instagram, which has emerged as a major customer acquisition channel for us.” Her platform still does not do any paid advertising, but relies on blogging, events and social media to reach women.

Non-threatening fun

Men’s Rights and Gender Equality activist Amit Deshpande feels the use of sex gadgets and toys by both women and men is just a phase. “This may take care the physical needs, but there are also psychosocial and emotional needs one has from a spouse. As long as that exists I don’t see any threat to the institution of marriage and family.”

His view is strongly echoed by Secretary-General of the Family Planning Association of India, Dr Kalpana Apte who says. “We’ll need larger studies and surveys to authoritatively say if Indian women are exploring more sexual devices and gadgets. In my interactions with women, even in rural interiors, I sense an awareness of their needs and a refusal to live in self-denial.”

She cautions how the ubiquitous female sexualisation should not lead to young women being pushed into unwittingly sexualised situations all the time. “Otherwise destigmatised sex will enhance women’s traditional patriarchal status as sex objects, instead of liberating them from it. While men are able to treat sexual events and episodes as non-life altering, women are made to carry the cross of these experiences. These gadgets and toys are changing that.”

We let the country’s most well-known nonagenarian authority on sex, Dr Mahinder Watsa, have the last word. “Sexual and reproductive health is an integral part of women’s empowerment. For far too long women and their desires have been repressed. If it needs them to use gadgets and devices for discovering how to pleasure themselves, so be it. As long as they keep it safe and healthy why should anyone have a problem?”