When talking about sex, some whisper, take a suggestive pause or skip the word altogether. Violent slang like bang is used in everyday conversations lightly. Others don’t share their intimate stories even in close circles. Why is it exactly important to normalise and talk about sex you may ask? To fill the vacuum created by morals, cut the misinformation and take the sex-positive movement forward.
Sex and sexuality need not be taboo, a stigma, secret or vulgar. After all, most people have sex, but not most people have access to healthy, consensual and safe sex.
Humour as a tool
When stand-up comedian Preeti Das, co-founder of Mahila Manch, does sets about sex and intimacy or the lack of it in marriages, the audience gratefully reach out to her sharing that they have lighter ways to talk about their desires with their partners now. Sex and sexuality are the core of her shows. She says, “As Indians, we are cool to comment or laugh about it. But my content is not easily shareable. There’s still apprehension and taboo around the real talk unless you are a condom brand. The conversations at the moment are surface level. That sex is not only for procreation but for pleasure too. Or if one has arousal difficulties and hasn’t experienced an orgasm, go get it checked out.”
Dr Tanaya Narendran, more popularly called Dr_Cuterus on social media, infotains with her easily digestible sexual health content like how it is normal to have saggy breasts, you don’t need to lighten and whiten your vagina, busting myths like 1-2 mins is an average time a man lasts in bed, advises using dental dams for safe oral sex and more.
Somewhat echoing the sentiments, Dr Tanaya shares, “Thanks to OTT platforms normalising sexual relationship and the rise of casual dating culture in our country, people are more accepting of diversity in sexual interactions, identities and discourse. I do see a more free space for such conversations but I might be living in a sex-positive bubble and the outside reality may be different.”
An artist’s way
Artist and author Indu Harikumar recently won the Laadli Media Award for gender sensitivity in the social media category. Right from her first crowdsourced project #TinderTales in 2016 to #LoveSexandTech that she got recognition for, which is about gender-based violence in intimate relationships and how it changes the space that women occupy online, she notices a change in herself and around her. “I was a children’s book author before this. When I started my first project, I was apprehensive about drawing naked bodies. Like a big city offers anonymity, there was comfort in talking to strangers online for the projects. I didn’t want the family to see my work. Then I realised we have a very narrow way of seeing and doing things. We can learn so much from each other. In my questionnaire, a lot of people mentioned wanted to talk about sex but they would be perceived as ‘not nice’ and hence scared to do so. This needs to change. People are already more willing to talk online.” When one normalises intimate learnings, especially through stunning, effective art like this, it stays.
Guilt & shame no more
A few weeks ago, Asmita Ghosh, a communications and digital advocacy specialist, took to Twitter to share a positive, non-judgemental experience she had with proactiveforher.com for an STD/STI panel test. “Up until now, sexual health testing would be hidden somewhere in the bottom of a pamphlet in small fonts. Many labs did not do that whole range. It just wasn’t this straightforward. Me, not testing is actually me being unsafe and increases my risk of carrying or passing diseases. Being sexually active is the first step. You need people to know how to have sex safely, with consent and other such nuances. These institutions are missing. Sex education in schools is a hit and miss. People don’t understand what sex means for genders other than them.” She affirms. For her, talking about sex is a personal and political act.
Raksha Bharadia, the founder at Bonobology Media, a dedicated space for discussion on the entire gamut of relationships, dedicated a chapter to sexuality in her book Chaos. She feels there is a lot of misinformation out there. Her venture provides information and takes it a step further offering counselling with the experts.
“How many times per month does an average couple have sex, leaking of nudes and cyber security, boredom in the bedroom… let’s take a step back from posting obsessively happy posts online and reflect why we Indians, the land that gave the world the Kama Sutra, shy away from owning up our sexuality or pay a price for our emotions.”
Here’s hoping for a more liberated future.. to dissolve stigma and cultural taboo around sex!
SEX FOR PLEASURE
“I do think there has been a rise of women and men and people of all genders talking about their sex lives and the fact that they are sexually active and I think that’s a huge step of progress honestly because the stigma and secrecy and taboo of sex even though everybody has sexual desires and want to act on them is one of the vehicles with which patriarchy and gender-based violence and rape culture propagate in our country. For me, talking about my sex life is both a personal and political choice because I think it’s important to break this taboo around it. It’s just individual people who are not ashamed, who are liberated and feel the power to talk about it but if there are no accompanying resources and institutions that support then it’s just a few people finding independence. You don’t have resources for sexual health testing, sexual health information and all things that make safe sex possible, then it’s a huge lack.”
– Asmita Ghosh
THE NEXT STEP
“A very interesting development that happened in early December is that the Madras High Court questioned the NCERT over the exclusion of the training manual on trans inclusion (due to protests). A few months back, Justice Anand Venkatesh had made some recommendations to address queerphobia in medical education, after interacting with the LGBTQIA+ community in India. So we are seeing a policy level impact of this awareness campaign that has largely been led by social media. Of course, we are way far behind where we need to be, but this is a step in the right direction! I’m hoping to see more pleasure inclusive, non-judgemental, and queer-friendly advancements. Particularly in the medical education field, and legal jurisdiction. Policy level changes can stem from there, hopefully.”
– Dr Tanaya Narendran
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