Psst! Shall we talk some sex: Gautam Adhikari

To promote safe sexual practices, the Prime Minister has urged everyone to discuss sex openly. But is it safe to discuss sex without inviting the fury of India's moral police?

Hypocrisy in matters sexual is worn like a badge of honour in this country. It has become ingrained in our belief system that sexuality, or any display of it, is alien to Indian culture. Sheer nonsense, but the belief is almost unquestioned. This is the land of sexually explicit temple architecture, of the ancient sexual manual Kama Sutra, of worshippers of sexual symbols like the shivalingam and of the sexually hyperactive Lord Krishna. Yet many, perhaps most, people believe that our sexual mores are pristine and therefore must be protected, violently if need be, from all external, meaning Western, influence.

In fact, it is the prudery which is a Western import. Indian culture, always hard to define except in broad pluralistic terms, was pretty open to sex. The procreative act is woven into our mythology. It adorns our metaphors and the Great Books, especially the Mahabharat. Literature right up to the pre-colonial centuries often included sexual imagery and Jaidev's account of Krishna's life positively sizzles with the stuff. Sex was not seen as something to be ashamed of, or to be spoken of in whispers. On the contrary, it was something to be celebrated since it was obviously life's central motive force.

Indian culture was also open, literally, on dress. For instance, the choli and the blouse are both Western imports, the former from the near West and the latter from Europe. Islamic people moving to India from colder climes brought their dress code along. And it was under colonial influence — from the early the19th century — that women living in the warmer parts of the country started wearing blouses, though upper body covering for women was common in the colder regions up north.

In ancient Bharat, women did not wear blouses, by all available evidence in art and architecture. There is no Indian word for blouse, just read the signs above tailors' shops for women. Even when written in a local language, they say 'blouses', not bakshabarani or any such unintelligible Sanskritised word. In parts of the country — in the central and eastern forested regions, for example — women still don't cover their breasts.

And yet, the moral police throw up their hands in horror if a female breast is shown on film or in a work of contemporary art. Why? The answer probably lies in our fractured self-identity. Once again, it was imported attitudes towards sexuality, not any ancient or home grown code of ethics that seem to have influenced our modern mores. Victorian values, imbibed through the Raj, affected the general behaviour of Indians, especially the upper crust. A prudish attitude towards sex — and an accompanying disapprobation of any display of female sexuality — infected Indian social intercourse as the elite began to mimic their masters.

The India that is emerging is an India less encumbered by any colonial hangover. To be sure, many young Indians too have imbibed phoney values from their parents about sex and parrot them mindlessly even as they support a variety of freedoms for their own generation. Take Sania Mirza, for instance. She is all for freedom when she is abroad or in Delhi, that is anywhere outside Hyderabad. Back in her home town, she turns demure and retracts everything she says about her right to wear what she likes or about her support for safe pre-marital sex. But, by and large, younger Indians are far less hypocritical about sexuality than their parents or grandparents were.

One reason why that is happening may be the steady expansion of female emancipation in India. Authoritarian codes on sexual behaviour or how women should dress are hallmarks of male-dominated societies. As women become free, they increasingly exercise their right to choose. That range of choice includes the right to display their sexuality if they so wish, by dress or lifestyle. India, a successful democracy for over half a century, allows — no, encourages — that freedom for its women. Saudi Arabia does not.

All things must pass, so shall we humans as a race. But men and women are designed to reproduce and extend the lifespan of the race as far as possible. Sex is the means to that reproduction. Display of sexuality, male and female, is thus necessary and natural. Obviously, there have to be some norms and qualifications governing public behaviour but there is no need for shame or prudery in discussing sex or in governing sexual mores.

Manmohan Singh correctly used the bully pulpit to ask for public frankness about sex. The more open we are about our natural sexuality, the less will be the risk of unsafe or irresponsible sex. And hypocrisy will be less prominent a feature of our social behaviour.

Email: gautam@dnaindia.net