Porn Out Of Purdah: Yes, Women Do Watch Porn, But....

바카라�That figure of 30 per cent is among the ­highest in the world바카라�with the exception of the mighty Brazilians and Filipinos, our women are watching more porn than anyone else,바카라� says Meghna Pant, feminist writer from Mumbai. 바카라�And yet, I remember some erotica writers ­telling me that women from small towns thought the G-spot was short for Gold Spot and facials involved Veet bleach. They didn바카라�t know what an orgasm was. Some of these women had been married for decades.바카라� She feels it바카라�s time we normalise the fact that women not only watch porn, but are often also turned off by it, even bored, because female pleasure or desire are completely disregarded in porn. Want ways to broaden the male mindset? Why not give a shot at improving porn for women?

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It was just out of curiosity that film and theatre actress Aahana Kumra stepped into watching porn. 바카라�I remember I was in college, 16 then,바카라� she recollects. 바카라�One of my girlfriends and I smuggled a CD from one of our male friends. My parents were going out somewhere바카라�. But that first time, I found it disturbing. We had to shut it down immediately because we didn바카라�t want to watch anymore. Honestly, it made me feel uncomfortable.바카라� But when Kumra started travelling around the world, she started seeing new things, liberating sights. 바카라�I remember going to the Moulin Rouge in France바카라�there were at least a hundred women on stage dancing naked. After the initial bit of shock, I realised they were just beautiful bodies. There was a touch of art to the sight. Again, when I went to Amsterdam, I saw women out there for sex. Porn is a huge, thriving industry, and India logs a very high consumption of it, just that we aren바카라�t acknowledging it.바카라�

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Kumra feels she didn바카라�t get much chance to watch porn probably because her group of friends was conservative. What about erotica? For her, the difference is merely that erotica is for the elite, while porn is for anybody and everybody. 바카라�Erotica is art, and I paid money to watch that art form in Moulin Rouge. If you can afford that kind of sexual spectatorship, it바카라�s erotica. But if you바카라�re just watching content ­online, that바카라�s literally for everybody.바카라� Thing is, it바카라�s as easy for women to access porn as it is for men, and many women feel it바카라�s just a choice whether they wish to consume it or not바카라�what바카라�s the harm, they ask, and how does it matter whether you like it or not.

All this, of course, runs up against that old question of female sexuality and its repression in India. The minute you broach the topic, ­people get uncomfortable바카라�in an endlessly hypocritical way. Why go too far, just look at our films. It reduces women to doing item songs. Isn바카라�t it weird how we often so openly ­celebrate those, but have a problem with women watching porn? 바카라�When my film Lipstick Under My Burkha was banned, I felt our society had a problem with women talking about sexual liberation through their own bodies,바카라� says Kumra. 바카라�The way sex is represented in our films is very demeaning. Lots of OTT shows too have pornographic content. And we still don바카라�t talk about sex! That puzzles me.바카라�

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Especially because Indians come from a ­culture where women actually had equal agency. If you see our temple sculptures, we have women using objects that resemble sex toys. In the Kamasutra, the woman is also ­initiating certain positions where she is the ­recipient of pleasure, not just the provider. 바카라�We바카라�ve had so many elements disrupting that liberated female agency, like the purdah ­system, the 바카라�andar mahal, bahar mahal바카라� ­system, the Victorian corset,바카라� says Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, Calcutta-based erotica writer. 바카라�If we look back, Indian women never covered their breasts. They were completely regal in their ­female form and sensuality.바카라�

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There are of course caveats. Much of porn is male-oriented in a way suffused with power, often toxic power. Porn is the first exposure to sex for most Indian boys. And much of the toxic masculinity we see around us stems from men fantasising about certain porn movem­ents, activities and gestures. 바카라�Unfortunately, porn is mainly done from a masculine point of view,바카라� says Kundu. 바카라�Most porn videos begin with the man getting a blow job, quickly ­progressing into anal sex and then ejaculating all over her face. These are the fantasies of most Indian men and this is why there바카라�s so much infidelity and perversion; men don바카라�t even have an idea about what women want, the concept of consent is not even taught. Otherwise, I don바카라�t understand the whole hoopla around porn. If you see our sleazy, double-meaning Indian songs and OTT shows, we바카라�re exposed to sex all the time. So why are we pretending porn doesn바카라�t exist? Women too watch porn. I know friends who masturbate watching porn. It바카라�s perfectly ­natural to view an externally stimulating form of sex visually. It바카라�s just that our viewing of women as sex objects unfortunately stems from porn. The harshness of sex and dominance of men comes from porn. So does the idea that a woman has to go down on men.바카라�

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Nandita Puri, Mumbai-based author and chairperson, Om Puri Foundation, offers the same qualified endorsement. 바카라�I don바카라�t find porn inherently degrading. If the women who feature in porn choose of their own volition, I do not want to stand in judgement of them. But ours being a predominantly patriarchal society, it바카라�s but ­natural that men will use women for their benefit. If it were the other way, it would be fine. We must understand, some 90 per cent of our rural women are repressed. The 10 per cent of 바카라�liberated바카라� urban women are also not truly liberated. As I always maintain, each to her own and that includes porn or erotica or whatever we may label it.바카라�

Mumbai-based journalist and author Anindita Ghose concurs, 바카라�Some kinds of porn are degrading for women, but to say porn ­itself is degrading to women is to say women are not sexual beings and have no agency in their sex lives. The problems of the porn ­industry바카라�exploitation of actors, especially minors바카라�are well known and need to be ­addressed. But if you바카라�re asking about the ­morality of viewing porn, I have no problem with it so long as it does not engage in ­paedophilia or bestiality, as then you바카라�re ­engaging with non-consenting parties.바카라�

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What about erotica? Some women believe its treatment of sensuality, passion and ­desire are naturally bound up with equal ­participation and consent. It invests in ­atmospherics and build-up, rarely shows penetrative sex, and stimulates more senses than just the visual바카라�it evokes an aura of ­mutuality in love-making. 바카라�As a proud author of Sita바카라�s Curse, India바카라�s first feminist erotica, I believe erotica goes beyond titillation or ­hedonism,바카라� says Kundu. 바카라�We are the land of Kamasutra, of Khajuraho, with all those beautiful images of love-making. We actually taught the world what erotica is.바카라�

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Some believe the erotica/porn distinction (and preferences) can vary on a subjective level. 바카라�Erotica done tastefully can be an art form,바카라� says Swati Bhattacharya, communication leader from Delhi. But again, the ­바카라�aesthetics바카라� has to be a means to an end바카라�India has to free itself from viewing the act of sex as essentially male-oriented. 바카라�Sex and sexuality go beyond just male orgasm. Society must recognise it. The mindset right now is all messed up,바카라� Bhattacharya adds. Here, Kundu brings in the spillover to real life. 바카라�What I don바카라�t like about porn is it ­encourages men to want kinky, violent, dirty sex, which they think is pleasurable to women. And when they are in a relationship, they don바카라�t even feel the need to ask whether the woman is actually enjoying it or not. Honestly, I바카라�m yet to see porn made from a woman바카라�s pleasure point of view.바카라�

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Women바카라�s exposure to porn actually brings home the realisation of how male-driven it is바카라�a lot of it also espouses rape fantasies, like the man choking the woman, or other forms of aggression. This moment of understanding, and their voicing of this fact, should itself be a step towards liberation바카라�for the male. But how? 바카라�Pornography often shows women as props for men, which of course dehumanises women,바카라� says Calcutta-based journalist Arshia Dhar. 바카라�The only way to battle this is to make more and more feminist porn.바카라� The idea here is to see pornography as a ­transformative, sex-positive, empowering tool바카라�as distinct from the often degrading porn spun out of the male gaze.

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There are many avenues through which people can consume sex-positive porn that바카라�s respectful of women and focuses on the pleasure of both the parties involved. Now more and more female adult filmmakers바카라�­pioneers in body-positive, feminist porn like Shine Louise Houston, Courtney Trouble, Tristan Taormino, Madison Young바카라�are showing the way. 바카라�There are certain female porn actors I like. Tera Patrick is one of them,바카라� says Ghose. 바카라�She has a way with the camera and I like her for the same reason I would like any actress. She바카라�s a great perfor­mer. The audio is very important to me in pornography and Tera Patrick does that well.바카라�

Women watching porn, then, is naturally leading to a desire for women-oriented content바카라�not the sort where there바카라�s a lot of gagging, choking, slapping, pulling the woman by her hair, calling her bitch. This is thus related, in many ways, to how real-world relationships are evolving. 바카라�Indian porn often shows women in a regressive role, ­always having to give in to the demands of the man to make him happy. I don바카라�t think contemporary women like such representation,바카라� says Mumbai-based psychiatrist Dr Anjali Chhabria. 바카라�There needs to be equality in love-making too. A man needs to understand that he has to be giving too.바카라�

Of course, it바카라�s hard to generalise for all of India바카라�or limit the generalisation to India. While it바카라�s true that much of our 바카라�tradition바카라� and 바카라�custom바카라� is in place specifically to control women바카라�s sexuality and their agency at large, says Ghose, 바카라�whatever we think of as regressive beliefs ailing Indian women are also issues that ail society in general. Men being told that an aggressive, proactive ­attitude towards 바카라�submissive, sex-averse women바카라� is the norm harms men universally.바카라� This is where the phenomenon of porn coming out of its purdah may have a healing role.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Porn Out Of Purdah")