In modern, liberal India, you never know what ‘virtues’ are lurking under your bed, behind your laptop and under that neighbourhood park bench.The virtues come in many avatars – Aunty Moral Police, Baba Gay-Phobic, Ma Pure-Pious, Netaji of No-Sex-Sene, Tau Love-Kill or the police – you know, the regular cops.
This moral brigade comes with polyphonic chants on a deafening audio track, ensuring that you just can’t hear yourself think.
Indecent. Behaviour. Public. Porn. Ban.
Valentine. Immoral. Operation. Majnu. Ban.
Boy. Girl. Maryaada. India. Sanskaar. Ban.
Gotra. Same. Bhai. Behen. Honour. Ban.
Gay. Sex. Woman. Leggings. Sexy. Ban.
It is the loony fringe taking centre stage on matters of honour and purity. Crawling into the bedrooms of young Indians. Creeping into the minds of rational parents and seniors. Killing liberal thought.
Sex and Sexuality are being dragged naked and humiliated on the streets. Video taped to go viral.
Then shrouded and shamed into dark corners.
Why this Sex Shaming?
The Quint is now launching a Make Out In India initiative. And here is a listicle of recent episodes that triggered this campaign.
‘One-Metre’ Rule
A high end co-ed school in Kerala’s Kottayam district has a rule that girls and boys must walk one metre apart, with the belief that this will lead to a “healthy relationship and progressive thinking”. The irony? The founder of the school was Mary Roy (the mother of Man Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy), known for her fight against gender discrimination.
Trans Man – What’s That?
It started with a fight over a haircut. 19-year-old Shivy (Shivani) wanted it short – and his mother wanted him to look like the girl she believed Shivani was. The fight led to Shivy’s mother flipping through his phone, only to discover that her child was transgender. Shivy was duped into coming back to India from California, beaten up, denied access to his green card and passport and forced into an educational institution in Agra – in the hope that this will exorcise the MAN out of “him”.
Finally rescued by friends and activists, Shivy is looking for avenues to fund his education back in the US.
Love has a Religion
A Hindu man was spotted accompanying a woman in a hijab to a movie in Mangalore in August this year. The moral brigade stripped and paraded him naked. The lesson – don’t even think of loving outside your religion.
Coitus Interruptus
The raid on unmarried couples in a private hotel in Mumbai. Adult, consenting couples arrested, insulted. Their parents humiliated. Mumbai police thought a “sorry” would undo and delete. Not quite.
Really?
We know that India’s ‘relationship status’ is COMPLICATED. With nosey parkers like politics, caste, religion playing spoilt sport.
But what are WE doing about it?
How many of us educated, uber-liberals are comfortable talking to our 14-year-olds about sex (we all read about the study that said that they get sexually active at 14, didn’t we?).
How many of us are truly comfortable when friends/children open up about their sexual preferences?
These issues lose their way into shrill women empowerment rhetoric, or get reduced to 140 characters of rage.
While the world applauds Prime Minister Modi a year after he launched the Make In India initiative, The Quint is preparing to celebrate Make OUT In India. It is a platform to bring all taboo topics on sexuality out there – no beeping out, no brushing under, no cliches of the “land of Kama Sutra and Khajuraho”. Just an open celebration of all matters of sex.
Come rap with us as we #MakeOutInIndia.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)