We live in a world where three letters can make life or destroy life, ravage someone's pride or create someone's dignity, sell a tennis ball or buy a jetliner. You might be wondering what these three letters can be (or for the fast thinkers, you might have figured it out already). The letters are S, E and X. Put together it forms a word that is powerful than the most lethal weapons on the planet. It can bring the most powerful to their knees and put other meager beings on a higher pedestal of things. So why do we feel the need to keep it under wraps? This is a question that has bothered me ever since I was of the "ripe" (it's ripe, not right, guys) age. Talking about it is as taboo as watching anything about it. Learning about it is regarded as falling off "grace" (what??), while practising it is like comitting the ultimate sin. "There is a time for all that, beta", the elder and the "wise" tell you. And you at your most impressionable age you keep on pondering about what is it about the "time" that everyone keep referring to? The fun starts when you start knowing that there never was a time about it in the first place and all and everyone you know are "screwing" ( sorry for the pun, but couldn't help it) behind you yet keep a straight face when asked about it. You though, are left thinking if the elders are better off without this knowledge or you are damned to have been left behind in the rat race.
Fine, so not everyone gets to have sex before the "time". But one can surely talk about it, right? I mean what's wrong in people talking about sex and porn? It's not like you were here without it. I can understand the point of the time being sacred, but if "it" in itself was sacred, then shouldn't talking about it be considered as holy? Why the hell is talking about sex considered vulgar and obscene? And where is the line we draw that demarcates what is obscene and what is knowledgable? If I were to be discussing about my sexual experiences (or inexperiences for that matter) with my friends why would it be considered as obscene or vulgar? Half of us have questions about it while we never get to ask anyone about it. And what is it about porn that gives everyone the hijibees? Heck, even 12-year olds are watching porn these days. Now that isn't really a healthy age to watch porn, I admit, but if everyone was watching it, why should it be a taboo? India doesn't even have a specefic law that deals with pornography as such. It has an "obscenity" Act, which in itself is a joke. It's cyber laws are so weak that it took a certain "Savita Bhabhi" to make the legal system wake up and take notice of the glaring loopholes that are exploited to distribute content on the net. My questions stem from a certain conversation that I was having with a friend of mine the other day. It was about a relatively "unknown" movie called "Dev D", a movie that went on to become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed movies of the past year. Now this friend of mine regarded this movie to be vulgar while I consider it to be brilliant. Now I am not going to defend this movie with all my might just to prove someone else wrong. But I did want to know what was it about this movie that is considered as vulgar? There aren't any skin shots in the movie, no boob shots, no bareback shots. I can't even recall if there was any lip-to-lip kisses in the movie (correct me if I am wrong in any of these). Then the answer came about the scene in the field which shows a simulated sex scene. At this point I would like to point out that I fully accept the fact that the movie is not suitable for family viewing and parts of it might be considered as vulgar if it was watched with family; elders and the "wise" in tow. Now my point is that when I watched this movie in a packed theater surrounded by atleast a few hundred couples no one raised any objection to the scene, in fact people seemed to be enjoying what they saw - boys and girls alike. A movie doesn't become one of the most profitable movies of the year if only testosterone-charged males watch it. I know girls who went out in groups to watch Dev D although not many seemed to have a higher opinion of it. To most female folks I have known, the reactions ranged from "Hmm, it was ok" to "Cheee, how can you make a film like that?" which is weird when you consider that the same people and the "family" will go out in droves and ceetee-bajao Aamir khan smooching Kareena Kapoor and "enjoy" it. Dev D asked a very imp question in my opinion, it was about whether both the sexes enjoy "intimacy" as much as the other one. And the answer to it even if some of us wish to close our eyes and be silent about it is yes. Physical intimacy is craved for by both sexes equally and I suppose this is a point which makes a lot of people uncomfortable simply because it starts raising a lot of uncomfortable questions about the so-called social myth that exists in Indian society regarding this issue. One sex has to be docile while the other needs to be aggressive to keep the balance of the myth in check. Another important question it raised was about the level to which sex can be displayed as a socially-acceptable commodity in the entertainment sector. For all the talk about " Sex and SRK selling in bollywood", sex is still promoted on a passive-agressive scale to sell products. In-your-face sexuality has always been frowned upon in Indian society and this is another area where it broke barriers by promoting an aggressive sex-and-drug laced and alcohol-fuelled re-imagining of Saratchandra's beloved classic. Anyway, to make a long discussion short, the point of keeping sex as a topic confined to the bedroom really doesn't make sense as long as the so-called barriers keep falling down everyday in an ever-changing and a sex-fuelled youth underbelly of the Indian society. Maybe we are a couple of dicks after all. ;P
