Prasoon Joshi, Advertising professional
Greater Expectations

There is a growing consciousness to acknowledge individual sexuality .

It is the land of Kama Sutra but a discussion on sexuality is taboo in most Indian homes. Sexually bold movies are doing well at the box office, yet there is a mass obsession for a virgin bride. The metro girl wears nothing less than spaghetti straps but there is a ban in small town India on college girls wearing jeans. Urban India feels free to discuss G-spots, but in rural India there are stories of men wearing condoms all day long in the belief that it will "cure" aids. Live-in relationships are becoming acceptable in cities but then so are teenage brides in small towns.

Unlike many other nations, India attaches a lot of importance to maintaining and upholding the structure of a family unit. The traditional household, both in ideal and in practice, remains the primary social force in the lives of most Indians. And for a well-oiled family unit, individual needs usually take a back seat. No surprise then that society has time and again attempted to rein in individual sexuality. Typically, though, it is female sexuality that has been sought to be tamed, while male sexuality has retained its pre-eminence. Indian society is only too ready to bestow the title of mother on a woman. Her sexual desire, a potent force, is repeatedly doused with maternal instincts and her awareness as an individual, her potential and self expression in all dimensions, sexual or otherwise, is buried before it has had a chance to grow.

A small but telling example-in most middle-class homes, a woman was, and still is, not allowed to call her husband by his name. The sexual act gets the seal of approval only for reproductive and not recreational purposes. Take the example of a suhaag raat, which is given a "social grant" by the family and becomes a staged act in which the entire family is involved. The groom's sisters or brothers decorate the room and "marital bed", the friends go to great lengths to procure the aphrodisiac-laced paan, the sister-in-law places a glass of milk with an all-knowing smile, an older male relative closer in age to the groom's is given the honour of initiating the groom into his "role" even as younger giggling cousins are a permanent fixture around the room.

Education and economic freedom has led to a growing awareness about her individuality and identity. The woman has started to expect more than just the basics from her man. Today she demands to know what is happening in her man's life outside the four walls of the house. But the complete breakdown of the stereotypical codes even in modern "metro" India is a complex issue. More importantly, even in metros there is a divide, with a significant part of the population coming from smaller towns and villages. For them, the growing sexual individualism is too radical and alienating. They go into a denial mode, become defensive and protest change. The coexistence of this line of thinking along with the liberating forces is ever-present in urban India. There is, however, a growing consciousness there that if individual sexuality is not acknowledged there could be a forced breakdown of societal control and of the family unit.

The small but telling phenomenon of the growing "love-cum-arranged marriage" and even in the case of an arranged marriage, the acceptance that the boy and girl should get to know "each other better", are signs that society is starting to change. Will it keep its hold delicately enough for the individual to carve out his/her expression of sexuality? Therein lies the crux.