‘My Desires Are A Pandora’s Box’: Confessions From A Sex Workshop

‘Boy Inserts Indian Culture Into A Girl’s Values’

Yes, the state of Sex Ed in India is a joke, says the hilarious parody film by “East India Comedy”. But the women who met on a muggy afternoon at a cafe in the NCR were at the 'right to pleasure’ workshop to talk about the very things they were brought up not to discuss. Sex.

‘My first Orgasm was at 34’

I come from a small one post office town near Varanasi where if there was a kissing scene between two ‘flowers ’on television we would all look away. I always thought that intimacy was something that only happened after wedlock and never did I ever think that pleasure was my right. I have had relationships but it was not until I turned 34 that I opened up about what I wanted, and finally had an orgasm. Before that I didn’t even know that such a thing could exist for me.

Smita Sharma, model

While Smita discovered her big ‘O’ at 34, the story was quite different for Meera, who, when she was thirty three and still a virgin, found that she simply couldn’t go ahead with the act of having penetrative sex.

What Happens Between the Sheets in Indian Marriages?

I was married quite late, at thirty three and had never had sex before. The first night we tried to have sex, I screamed in pain when my husband tried to penetrate. For the next five months, we kept trying to have sex but I just could not.

Meera, Filmmaker

But Meera’s sex story had a happy ending. After five rough months in bed, she and her husband saw a doctor, who advised her to relax, watch porn with her husband and lose her inhibitions. Finally sex happened and her husband from then on out made sure that she had an orgasm every time they did it. Woo hooo.

Turns out that India is having lots of sex but are Indian women enjoying it? And do Indian men even know what they are doing? “Were it not for porn I would know even less,’’ says one of the few men in the cafe. Sex for men becomes performance pressure and for women it has become pressure to "pleasure’’ the guy, of course. It’s no wonder then, that women have not exactly been feeling very ‘satisfied’ lately.

Shouldn’t Women be Longing to Have Lots of Sex After Marriage?

According to Dr Preeti Singh, middle class Indian women need sex therapists more than ever but simply don’t know where to go looking for one. Being brought up to feel they need to be modest, sit ‘properly’, cover their legs, and being taught that self pleasure is a taboo, women are hardly in touch with their bodies, let alone with what gives them pleasure. If they have not been in touch with their bodies for years, they can’t turn on arousal and sexual exploration overnight.

‘Libido Nahin Hai , Desire Nahin Hai’

Couples avoid talking about problems. After a while they just decide to do without those things they have not even experienced. Libido nahin hai , desire nahin hai, they say.

Dr Preeti Singh, Sex Therapist

So what exactly is happening in the bedroom?

Not enough. Couples are trying to find the time, the same energy. Or couples go somewhere and make a threesome where the husband watches the wife make out with another man.

Dr. Preeti Singh, Sex Therapist

Can You Put a Finger on What a Woman Wants?

Is monogamy a dying model, asks Pallavi Barnwal, emcee and intimacy coach? A fair question, one would think, given all that one has heard about Indian marriages? Turns out however, that monogamy may not be a problem, it is just that polyamory according to some people, could just be a bit better.

There is nothing wrong or pathological about polyamory. You can have a compassionate relationship with one person, you can love them and you can also have a passionate relationship with another person, in a different way. It is important to build that bridge and tell both people about it. There is nothing pathological about loving more than one person at the same time. I have always been polyamorous. I can’t remember ever being in love with just one person.

Ruchi, Writer and Therapist

Just when you think you have the Indian woman all sorted out in terms of her sexuality, you realise that you have seen and heard nothing yet.

My wants are like a pandora’s box. What do I want...is a question that has always troubled me, sexually too and in life. There is something that I might not want today, that I want tomorrow.

Pallavi Barnwal, Intimacy Coach