India, Sex and its lucrative history

“The reactionary of any kind condemns sexual pleasure because it stimulates and repulses him at the same time.”

- Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism

It 2021 and we are at our peak. We have mastered technology, theorized ramifications, bridged every gap that kept us apart and have so far achieved wonders. Naturally, it is expected from us as a society- to be above prejudice, oppression, and fascism.

Of course, that’s not the case.

'Moral policing caught on cam: Girl harassed, abused for sitting with a male friend at an isolated spot'

This is exactly the sort of news I read every day as soon as I open my phone.

This constant need for exercising morality on others has reached phenomenal heights. The news of honor killings, 'love jihad' and abandonment has all made its place quite known in the country spiking major debates across all platforms.

Our society has always told us that talking about sex is crass. Especially when it comes from the mouth of a woman. We’re not supposed to talk about sexual pleasure as something we enjoy and crave. Indian society and culture rejects what does not fit and absorbs what fits in. With all that is happening around us, one can only assume that Indian sexuality will remain deeply conservative, if not puritanical, lacking the erotic grace which frees sexual activity from the imperatives of biology, uniting the partners in sensual delight and metaphysical openness.” In one spectrum girls are ordered to remain chaste and on the other hand, men are allowed to showcase such perversity in the public domain and not face repercussions.

I keep on asking myself what could be the reason for such hypocrisy to prevail in a community. And the only answer I can come up with is the sexually repressed nature of society. The biggest perverts are usually the guys who "try to" show extreme moral restrain. This is why most eve-teasing is usually done with the pretense that the girl was "asking for it".

The other reason somehow coincides with the previous one. Our society doesn't want to acknowledge sexual repression as a problem. This will mean acknowledging that the desire to have sex is a powerful force. That will mean people should be socially allowed to have sex before marriage. No one wants that to happen. This also might mean we have to finally acknowledge prostitution as a necessity and make it legal. Men in their tight collars and firm ‘pagdi’ can’t simply let this happen.

To think of it, India wasn’t a country that was sexually repressed for many centuries. Eros and ascesis (asceticism) have been two dominant strands of the India mind and way of life over centuries. Both have struggled for domination of the Indian spirit. On the one hand, there are temples of Konark and Khajuraho that show the pleasures of oral sex and on another hand, you have that hypocritical attitude towards kissing in Hindi films, which is only insinuated and rarely shown.

In ancient India, at least among upper castes, there was no sexual repression. The upper caste rich, the intended audience of Kamasutra, celebrated sexuality and regarded nothing as taboo in their uninhibited expression of sexuality.

SO WHATEVER CHANGED?

The recent abolishment of Section 377 stands as a great example of the colonial roots of this repressed sexuality. It was under the British Raj that sodomy was criminalised. It became a weapon for our colonisers, an excuse to deem us colonisable.

Regardless of what everybody thinks white culture is the most sexually oppressive and its spread to third world countries through colonization led to sexual repression. It acted as a colonizing tool to repress the colonized. ‘They are heathens and they need to be tamed’ and this rhetoric justified the Christianization of colonized bodies.

Paradoxically, while this new consciousness led to the promotion of education for women and (eventually) a raise in the age of consent and reluctant acceptance of remarriage for widows, it also produced a puritanical attitude to sex even within marriage and the home.

As a result of that India has been a sexual wasteland for the last two centuries. During an interview, Sudhir Kakar- a proficient psychoanalyst-stated that, "Sexual repression was adopted by the upper classes in what may be called an 'identification with the aggressor', and our deep-seated strain of Brahminical asceticism, and is held aloft through the centuries by the Hindu version of the poet William Blake’s priests in black gowns…binding with briars my joys and desires.” Our society enjoys taking control of a woman’s body which includes restricting her sexual autonomy. The Indian woman’s sexuality, her ability to speak about the pleasures of sex becomes a direct threat to the respectability of the nation and its long-standing patriarchal history that intersects with the identity of fallen womanhood.

I am not trying to paint a bleak picture where everything is black and blue, where our society never obtains sexual liberalization. But it is my small attempt in suggesting that these values are somewhat colonial/borrowed and if we trace ourselves back to our roots- sexual liberalization could no longer be a mere myth.

For that to happen discussions are to be made and blogs are to be written.

So, let’s talk.

Reference material:- http://www.indiawrites.org/in-conversation/indians-are-erotic-people-but-sexually-repressed/#:~:text=In%20ancient%20India%2C%20at%20least,their%20uninhibit

https://scroll.in/magazine/817637/india-has-been-a-sexual-wasteland-for-two-centuries-an-interview-with-psychoanalyst-sudhir-kakar

https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1d9dh4/why_is_it_not_obvious_to_anyone_that_sexual/

https://feminisminindia.com/2018/09/12/decolonising-sex-india-sexual-repression/