It’s all in her head

If the recent spate of popular web and TV shows are anything to go by, the darkest recesses of a woman’s mind make for compelling drama. And sometimes, it is here, in that seemingly inaccessible corner of her mind, you are likely to find the wildest fantasies and most powerful ideas about sex and relationships than anywhere else. Right form most intense characters in Game of Thrones, to The Handmaid’s Tale to Alias Grace, The Sinner, and The Fall, and even The House Of Cards — the shows that are inspired by a woman’s deepest, darkest secrets.

In The Sinner, for instance, a regular housewife suddenly stabs a stranger in a scenic picnic spot with the knife she had been using to peel a fruit for her toddler. It is great tabloid moment for the sleepy town as people try to connect her bizarre behaviour to a possible history of drugs and abuse. What keeps the narrative on its dark course is the exploration of her mind, a deeply scarred personal history with abuse, incest and orgies.

While popular entertainment, especially the ones from the Bhatt camp where women are equal parts lusty and equal parts murderous, often paints such women in broad strokes  — calling her a nymphomaniac, a vamp, a sex kitten, a vixen, the hot bhabi and so forth — it is interesting to see a new narrative emerge, even if for purely commercial reasons. There is perhaps an effort to get a better understanding of the cogs and wheels of a woman’s mind in the context of her sexuality, which has always eluded the other gender. An acknowledgment of the fact that sex and power can also be bedfellows in a woman’s world. It’s just that she may not always talk about it.

Several surveys and columns about sex tell us how we tend to get surprised and shocked when a woman gets vocal abut her sexual fantasy. Especially if it is a woman who is seemingly ordinary — read a house wife, a plain Jane, etc.

Recent anthologies of erotic stories show a sexually charged landscape of the woman’s mind that is teeming with bisexual encounters, kinky sex, and some really bold acts of intimacy that would make the most adventurous of men blush.

There is also a small problem here. On the one hand we tend to treat women as sex objects, on the other we are uncomfortable with her most desires. Across cultures, women have always had problem expressing their sexuality.

You could blame it on social conditioning and fear of consequences. You could never really talk about your sexual desires without being branded, harassed. This could also explain our renewed obsession with investigating the connection between crime and sexuality, power and seduction.

Some of the most formidable fictional female character have used their sexuality as power — Claire Underwood, or even Irene Adler in Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes with tragic consequences, at others on a note of triumph. But what is common to all of them is how much such a woman inspires awe. She will forever be an enigma, a mystery, and will continue to grab us by our eyeballs.

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(Scribbler, scribe, traveller Chandrima Pal takes you through the sexual landscape of today)