Why don't SC judges read this article for a bit of enlightenment?
Porn OK, please : By Anup Kutty
(This article appeared in the TOI on April 21st, 2013)
Porn OK, please : By Anup Kutty
(This article appeared in the TOI on April 21st, 2013)
Like most men from my generation, I did not learn about sex from my parents or teachers. It was my neighbourhood video rental man who was responsible. I believe he is no more. God bless his soul.
All those years ago, when he was alive, my friends and I would troop into his parlour every week. After some pointless nudge-nudge-winkwink we would be rewarded with a videotape that contained the secrets of adulthood. My first porn movie was a '70s classic featuring the mature Kay Parker who, with her chipped tooth and ample breasts, seduced teenage boys. Like most first times, it wasn't a pleasant experience. I threw up during the money shot and swore never to watch porn again.
It took me just a couple of days to be back at the video rental store. By then a whole new world had opened up along with fresh facial hair and a change of voice. My new teachers — the brunette Racquel Darrian, the oriental Asia Carrera and the blonde Jill Kelly — taught me that a woman's genitalia looked nothing like a cow with horns and that it was capable of far more than just "receiving the spermatozoa discharged from the male organ". With cable TV came the secret 11.30pm slots for "double X" flicks. If one was in a mood for local flavour there was always Surya TV's late night Malayalam and Tamil porn. My schooling was now complete.
In the hallowed student residence of St Stephens' College, we had a term for smut. "Pondy", in the form of graphic literature, was generally stashed under mattresses and circulated in times of dire necessity, especially during exams. A lot of it was handed down to juniors and I believe some stash from my time is still in circulation.
The internet happened around this time. That ghostly sound of a modem connecting to the www was music to our ears. It meant getting to watch Pamela Anderson pleasure her husband who's driving a car. At times, the girls secretly borrowed from our collection. "Go watch some porn and get off, asshole!" was a standard line they used (and still do) to fend off aroused men.
All this happened while my parents still fumbled for the remote control each time a sanitary napkin or condom commercial came on TV. I finally came of age the day my mother discovered that my VHS tape collection was more than just guitar tutorials. That was the day my father began discussing household finances and politics with me.
As cliched as it sounds, times have changed. The trickle of broadband has made learning life's important lessons so much easier. I envy today's kids. They don't have to smuggle bulky videotapes in and out of their homes. They don't have to smother a bellowing modem with a pillow in the dead of the night. They don't have to wait till everyone's asleep, tiptoe to the living room, switch on the TV and press 'mute' just in time.
Not for long though. If this PIL that's proposing to make viewing porn on the internet anonbailable offence goes through then we are suddenly surrounded by a lot of criminals — young twisted minds with broadband access who have wronged society by giving vent to their otherwise suppressed selves. Huddled in cyber-cafe cubbyholes across the country, these are apparently future rapists who are sharing their devious ideas through little pen drives and mobile phones. They are watching their favourite pornstars enact their deepest, darkest fantasies and relishing it. They are creating alter egos on Facebook to follow pages dedicated to Hot Aunty Breasts. They are doing this because at home they have to reach for the remote during condom commercials and watch sterile movies with words like "crap" and "sex" bleeped out.
The petitioners for the PIL, just like those who opposed the Playboy club in Goa, have claimed that pornography treats sex as a commodity and exploits it commercially in turn provoking violence towards women. In a society where repression and hypocrisy are ways of life, this is as absurd as claiming that vaginas look like cow heads. Criminalising the whole thing instead of regulating adult content, taking strict action against brutal forms like child porn and snuff, and then channelising it to the right section of society is about as regressive and ridiculous as blaming a woman's sense of style for the trauma she faces on the streets. The trauma that she can't even try to wriggle out of by asking the pervert to get off on some porn. It would be criminal to do that.
