Filmmaker and writer Paromita Vohra speaks on themes of sexuality in India, the effect patriarchy has on it and why there is liberation in folks filming themselves having sex.
Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker and writer associated with the much-acclaimed Khamosh Pani. She is working on Agents of Ishq, a multimedia project about love, sex and desire. She spoke with Outlook바카라™s Siddhartha Mishra on themes of sexuality in India, the effect patriarchy has on it, why there is liberation in folks filming themselves having sex and the associations we make with commercial porn.
How do sex and sexuality play themselves out in a patriarchal society like India?
It바카라™s not just Indian society; most socÂieties think about sex as a concept more than an activity. Concept and activity become intertwined, they impact each other. From my experiences on Agents of Ishq and a long engagement with the themes of sex, love and desire I see parallel narratives in sexual culture. The blanket narrative바카라”one projecÂted by patriarchy but also certain market processes바카라”is based on peno-vaginal intercourse. People use penetrative intercourse and sex interchangeably. The idea of the entire universe of sex, love, lust, kissing, longing, cuddling, love and affection and the many ways in which human beings interact is reduced to one act.
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This narrow definition of sex is boxed in to being something that counts or has validity only when it happens inside of marriage. Thus, every other sexual desire is invalidated, marginalised or made into a source of hesitation, doubt or shame. So you have people being shamed for having sex outside marÂÂriÂÂage. Queer people for being bisexual or gay or lesbian. Young people shamed for masturbating, shamed for having crushes. There have been instances of teachers punÂishing students for expressing attraction, hugging their friends and so on.
Our entire sexual selves, all sexual feelings, are under constant scruÂtiny and judgement by certain elemÂents of culture. The idea is that sex only happens at the genitals reduces sex to that narrative. You may have heard people saying 바카라˜He only wants that바카라™, as if to say women don바카라™t want sex. All sexual desire is centralised in the heterosexual male. Even that is only one form of desire바카라”conquest driven, numerical바카라”any other form of tenderness or sexual intimacy is discouraged. Women are talked about as if they don바카라™t want it and if they do they must control themselves somehow. The world is portrayed as a sexual threat to women; they are expected to internalise this idea and protect themselves from being seen in any kind of sexual light.
This kind of idea that feelings are on a higher plane and that the body isn바카라™t is not true. It바카라™s tied to the idea of controlling us emotionally and at a gender, caste and class level. However, the more you try and control desire, it tends to push through boundaries, despite shame or guilt.
Why is sexuality not 바카라˜mainstream바카라™ despite the coming of the liberation that is the internet?
How do we decide what is the mainstream narrative? The mainstream conforms to patriarchy and capitalism, so it is pointless to continue to define that. On Agents of Ishq, once we started telling people바카라™s stories, many others wrote in, wanting to tell their stories. And those stories point to a far more complex reality than the so-called mainstream is capable or structured to see. People wish to celebrate their bodies, their experiences, they want to find space, a world that tells them it is okay to be that way. This need is physical, emotional, intellectual, social and political. The need to share it is also strong; it is a celebration of one바카라™s lived wisdom, a search for confirmation that they are not alone like this. I don바카라™t think we are ever what the so-called mainstrÂeam says we are. Each journey is different and has to be respected as valid바카라”as long as we don바카라™t violate other people바카라™s consent. To say that you shouldn바카라™t have sex, or that sex the way you like it, with whom you like it is wrong, is the biggest violation of consent.
We have thus grown up confused about sex. However, I do think society is changing. When people push to have their desires acknowledged, laws change, practices change and eventually, perspectives change. What is 바카라˜normal바카라™ undergoes a shift. Look at the laws and the changes in the marriage acts over time. Take the example of Hadia, her fight to choose religious identity and a marriage of choice.
We tend to categorise exhibitionism as porn. Is that fair?
One person바카라™s porn is another person바카라™s erotica. I wrote a story in a collection of erotica once which had explicit sex in it. Some loved it and said 바카라˜thank you for writing this, it was so pleasurable to read바카라™, while others said it was porn, like I did a bad thing. So the definition of porn is random, and shot through with the idea that pornography is wrong.
Porn fuels technological change, even algorithms learn a lot about us through it. Many porn categories like 바카라˜anal바카라™, which were marginalised, are now common categories. Of course, this also impacts what we see as normal, because we are seeing it more commonly. To say that porn is bad simplifies the issues to the point that it becomes harmful. Nobody really knows the difference porn and erotica. We categorise it to feed our idea of a virtuous, higher self. Commercially produced, 바카라˜mainstream바카라™ porn is often misogynistic, violent and not always strong on consent.
Given the impossibility of clear definitions, we need to agree that it is not sex or type of sex we should use to determine if something is okay바카라”it is consent. If porn depicts consensuality, is produced without exploiting its workers바카라™ rights and does not feature those who are not in a position to give consent (for instance, children) that would be a valid critique. The fact that porn is about sex is not a critique one can take seriously, no?
What have been your observations, interacting with folks who film themselves or put themselves in front of the camera?
Patriarchy, the market, the government with its desire for UIDs and digital intervention scrutinise us against our desire and consent. When people film themselves, they find it liberating and joyful. It is so happy, sweet and tender. It is their privacy that they choose to share, to find communities like themselÂves. Some people will feel this shoÂÂuld be 바카라˜private바카라™. What does that mean? Privacy means that part of our lives that we decide to share or not share at our will. If there are people who wish to share their intimacy, that is their private choice. The only real question even there is whether those within that sexual act are consenting to being in it and to it being shared online or in any other way.
The only sex education people get to see is Western commercial porn. People have got used to seeing unreal breasts, unreal bodies, penis sizes, the time of the sexual act and its fragmentations. While it바카라™s fine as entertainment perhaps, it is muddling if they think that바카라™s how sex really is. It creates a mechanistic, disconnected, fragmented relatiÂonship to sex, in the absence of any other narratives or depictions of sex in media and culture. It also creates a feeling of inadequacy.
But, people filming themselves is, in a sense, a celebration of the sexual act and of the miracle of the human body. Imagine바카라”we are blessed with a body full of nerve endings and minds that imagine infinite desires. Here are those desires as people actÂÂually live them out바카라”not as other people tell you they are. It may not be to your taste and that바카라™s fine, you should choose something else that arouses you, not stigmatise those who choose this. The violent gaze of some commerical porn can only be countered through lived sexuality.