A few months ago, in May, BuzzFeed India published an article by writer Richa Kaul Padte titled, ‘Why I Share My Favourite Porn With Other Women’. Out of nowhere, the timelines of urban Indians were inundated with gleeful posts and tweets, creating a repository of porn that women would appreciate. The floodgates had been opened and it was established that a liberal woman was allowed, nay, encouraged to admit that she watched porn. We didn’t think twice.
Sexuality, especially that of a woman, is not a topic for discussion in India. Regardless of our political affiliations or religion, we have an unwavering love for moral policing and disdain for the purported influence of Western culture, which includes promiscuity and homosexuality.
Digital India has only very recently started embracing and openly discussing gender and sexuality. “Relationships and technology have always changed each other, it’s a very dynamic relationship,” says filmmaker and writer Paromita Vohra, referring to how innovations such as text and chat, among others, are used by individuals as an added layer of their relationships and sexuality. “The only innovation explicitly meant for relationships are dating apps.”
Dating apps in India have unleashed India’s dormant eroticism. Apps like Tinder and TrulyMadly have legitimised and made dating more accessible for a country otherwise hung up on the façade of monogamy and virtue. Some may dismiss them for creating a ‘hook-up culture’ but the popularity of these apps only proves that urban India is moving away from traditional notions of courtship.
To explore this relationship between technology and the changing sexual landscape of India, Godrej Cultural Lab is hosting a panel discussion, ‘India LSD (Love. Sex. Desire.) — where technology meets the erotic’.
Vishnupriya Das, Godrej India Culture Lab’s scholar-in-residence from the University of Michigan, who researches dating apps and sexuality in urban centres, will be opening the discussion with a presentation. This will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by Vohra and independent radio producer and journalist Chhavi Sachdev. Also on the panel, Taru Kapoor (India Head of Tinder) and Sachin Bhatia (CEO and co-founder of TrulyMadly).
In addition to making films, Vohra is the founder of Agents of Ishq, a multimedia project that seeks to talk about love, sex and desire. “People want a place to talk about sex and love honestly, without feeling un-cool or ashamed,” the website says. Agents of Ishq was founded for that very purpose: to be a comprehensive guide for sex and sexuality, created as a space for open discussions.
While this increase in dialogue is undoubtedly a wonderful thing, Vohra says it also creates a certain stereotype for a liberated woman. “People assume a liberal woman is one who has a lot of sex,” she says. “But truly, real liberation is the freedom to decide how you navigate sex. That includes not wanting to have sex at all.”
The demographic least likely to engage in this conversation, according to Agents of Ishq’s analysis, is heterosexual men. “These men are least likely to discuss their vulnerabilities or discuss sex in anything but a joking manner,” Vohra explains. Which is not surprising, given the toxic notion of masculinity that we abide by.
Coincidentally, the panel’s co-host, Chhavi Sachdev, is the co-founder (along with her brother) of the LSDcast, a podcast about… you guessed it: love, sex and dating. “It was a wonderful coincidence,” she says, about being invited to the LSD panel.
Launched earlier this year, LSDcast has the radio journalist and her brother dissecting modern relationships and prevalent taboos. As a representative of the LSDcast, Sachdev will be discussing the intersection of desire and technology like movies, sexting on phones and the Internet. “People are afraid to talk about these topics,” she says. “The more you talk about a certain taboo, the less charge it has.”
All said and done, Indian sexuality and its relationship with technological innovation is an infinitely interesting topic. This is one panel discussion you shouldn’t miss.
The India LSD panel will be held at the Godrej Cultural Lab in Vikhroli (East), on July 15, 2016 at 5 p.m. The event is free and open to all. Visit indiaculturelab.org for details.
