The naked truth

A plea filed in the Supreme Court to ban pornography in India about two weeks ago sparked howls of protest and some humour online. It was perhaps coincidence that the filing of the petition coincided with the rape and mutilation of a five-year-old girl by two men who apparently confessed to having watched porn before the assault. The plea makes a connection between pornography and an increase in cases of sexual assault and has called for an outright ban.

While the usual guardians of Indian morality have come out in support of the plea, others view it as an unwelcome intrusion into an individual’s privacy. While others still say that there must be a way to differentiate between erotica and pornography. It doesn’t help that the chief petitioner Kamlesh Vaswani seems confused about the difference himself (see box).

Having said that, Vaswani’s petition has ignited a debate on porn in India that was long overdue. The spread of mobile phones in India (861 million active connections at last count) has ensured that many people have access to the internet 24x7. Thus, porn is just a Google search away. Much of it is horrendous videos and images of child molestation, rape and violence.

No wonder then that pornography is no longer the surreptitious, muted activity it once was. “I remember when I first saw porn, I had sneaked some old issues of Playboy from a friend’s father,” remembers Alok Trivedi, 34, a software engineer. “It was soft-core porn, with almost no visuals of genitalia. Now people are watching it in legislatures or on a bus!”
While this petition might seem overreaching or even absurd to some, Vasav Jain, a judicial activist in New Delhi, argues that it is time India had this conversation.

“The Indian Information Technology Act, at this moment, does not specify any particular punishment with regard to child pornography. This means that each time, a sexual predator has escaped.”

Jain feels the issue of containing child pornography is more important than the debate about the invasion of privacy. It’s a question of priorities, he says. “Screams about the invasion of privacy lose potency when we’re faced with the increasing number of sexual assaults on children. This petition needs to be reshaped by the courts to address these threats,” he argues.

Porn and aggression
The jury is still out on the connection between pornography and sexual assault.

“The connection between pornography and sexual violence is not valid,” says Mumbai-based sexologist Prakash Kothari. But he admits to its negative effects.

The effect of porn-watching on a sexually repressed population that almost completely lacks sex education can be very negative. “While not directly linking to sexual assault, this kind of porn can and does perpetuate a pre-existent warped attitude to sex. Porn like bestiality, pedophilia and that depicting incestuous relationships should be banned,” says Kothari.

He says when a male population without sex education accesses porn, it can increase sexual aggression because the porn will play on two aspects – his sexual repression as well as the guilt associated with masturbation. “Porn is the archetypal double-edged sword. In the hands of a murderer, it can kill a person, and in the hand of a surgeon, it can heal,” he adds.

Sexologist Rajan Bhonsle agrees that porn can never be the only reason for sexual assault. “It’s never about the porn, it’s about the kind of person who is watching it. A potential rapist already has a long history which leads to violence and assault.”

But he supports some kind of regulation. “Watching pornography as a substitute for a healthy understanding of sexuality is like sedating a child so that the parents can go out and have fun,” says Dr Bhonsle. “Over the 25-plus years I have worked with patients, I have seen everything from depression to feelings of inadequacy and frustration caused by viewing porn.”

Does it have an upside?
Couples often admit to watching porn to increase sexual satisfaction.

Porn can be an igniter, a sexual interest peaker, an initiator, or just something that makes the sex life of a couple more exciting. “For single people, even women, porn can be a welcome stress-release at the end of a long day,” says Shweta Chopra, 45, a marketing executive. “Sometimes people don’t have a partner, and then porn can work as a great outlet for sexual energy.”

Dr Kothari admits to having encountered many couples who have watched pornography together. “They watch or read a passage together as a form of foreplay. It’s saved many marriages by re-igniting the spark,” he says. But he emphasizes that one needs to differentiate between good and bad porn. “If the pornography is weird or perverted, it can harm an individual’s psyche.”

But what is good porn and does it exist?

‘Good’ porn can be classified as that which doesn’t depict the woman as an object. “In some porn, women don’t have agency,” says Namrata Ghosh, a professor with a Delhi University. “That is the most deeply-embedded message you can communicate. But when you show pornography which shows the woman’s pleasure and acquiescence as imperative, which show sex to be a loving, healthy and pleasurable activity, it can only be good.”

However, most porn available online depicts women as objects to be used and abused whose only aim is to pleasure the man with little or no demands for themselves. And then there’s the matter of child porn whose proliferation online should give our Supreme Court judges something to think about when they take up  responses to Vaswani’s petition sometime this week.