Most Indian women, even the liberal ones, are uncomfortable talking about sex. In reality, ‘the talk’ often feels more crippling than liberating. Especially when there have been multiple lead heroes in the love story, ‘the talk’ can be met with quite a few judgemental nods and even some fervent gossip.
One Partner Is Okay, Two Are Too Many, Three Is Just ‘Slutty’
In an animated telephonic chat, the snappy Pooja Bedi, who has famously – or infamously, if you’re one of those – worn her heart on her sleeve, told the author that if ending a relationship and moving on to the next is bad, then she has no problems in being accused of serial monogamy. Bedi has always been open about her relationships and believes in being true to herself.
But Not Everyone Can Take the Snide Remarks
A 23-year-old girl, who studied at the prestigious Modern School, Barakhamba Road – and has had lovers from all over the world – was recently diagnosed with depression.
This girl never cared about conventions. But years of snide comments finally began to weigh on her and became impossible to ignore in her mind.
Even the thickest of skins on the most feisty of women begins to wear down and the judgement about being involved in multiple sexual relationships begin to pierce through.
Yohana*, who graduated from Delhi’s posh Springdales School a few years ago, still remembers a humiliating incident when someone wrote the word ‘slut’ on the back of her backpack. She had many boyfriends in school and had been physically involved with a few of them.
Sometimes the Humiliation Gets Too Much
In January this year, a 15-year-old girl committed suicide from the top of her 10th floor house at an upscale apartment on Hosur Road in Bangalore after being suspended from school for getting caught with a boy with whom she had developed a “friendship”. National Public School, where the girl studied, allegedly suspended her after the incident.
Thrown out of a ‘Family’ Area
Three girls invited three of their guy friends to their flat in Malviya Nagar, New Delhi. At midnight, one of the neighbours, in a drunken stupor, banged on the door of these twenty-somethings and said demeaning things about the girls – loud enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear. There were no men in the house at the time and the girls, horrified by the incident, vacated the house within a week.
What Comes First: The Relationship or Sex?
Of all of Carrie Bradshaw’s open-ended questions, this one is my favourite.
You could call a woman’s years of ‘devout man-hunting’ an experiment, a search or just plain ol’ slutty behaviour. But as relationships are becoming shorter, the number of partners is automatically increasing.
Slut shame all you want, but what were once Indian women’s love novellas, are now becoming an endless number of short stories.
Aren’t we the land of the Gandharva Vivaah? A marriage purely based on mutual attraction which was practised in ancient India, where the woman selected her own partner and the man and woman consensually decided to stay together. It was sensual passion that consummated their relationship.
Mind you, Gandharva Vivaah needed neither any parental consent nor any approval from society. And if you flip through the pages of the Kamasutra or Adi Parva in the Mahabharat, you’ll find that Gandharva Parva is the most prominent of all forms of marriage.
You see, we women, descendants of the cool men and women who practised Gandharva Vivaah, are just following the cultural path. Committing ourselves to the old sanskriti feels like the best way to do it.
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