sexual practices and preferences of India’s men and women.

There is a wonderful collection of Hindi
short stories by Prabhat Ranjan that
carries the title Bolero Class. The
stories—and the title—brilliantly capture
the aspirations that have made
their way down new highways and toll-ways
that pass through a variety of small towns.
Beyond the bitumen, there are virtual highways
too that criss-cross India. These push their way
through more intimate spaces: Drawing rooms,
studies and bedrooms. But highways that
transport new ideas (and, of course, new commodities)
to the bazaar and home do not completely
sweep away older structures of belief
and practice. Technology changes far more
quickly than belief systems, and where the two
meet is an arena of conflicting desires, uncertain
wishes and simmering anxieties. The small
town that emerges from the 2012 INDIA TODAYNielsen
Sex Survey of four metros (Delhi,
Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai) as well as 12
towns (Hisar, Moradabad, Kota, Kolhapur,
Jamnagar, Ratlam, Salem, Kottayam, Guntur,
Asansol, Baleshwar and Aizawl) lies at that
juncture where rapidly changing times meet
beliefs that yield only slowly.
In INDIATODAY’s 10th annual sex survey,Indians
from parts other than the North-east tend to look
upon the latter region as another country. In
some aspects of inter-personal relationships, it,
quite clearly, is. Thus, a remarkably high level

35% MEN
IN METROS AND
30%MEN IN SMALL
TOWNS WERE
SEXUALLYEXPERIENCED
ATTHE TIME
OFMARRIAGE.
70%
SMALLTOWN MEN
AND 65% MEN IN
METROS WANT
THEIR PARTNER TO
BE AVIRGIN ATTHE
TIME OFMARRIAGE.
ONLYVIRGINS PLEASE

20 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
of respondents (79 per cent) from
Mizoram’s capital, Aizawl, report a satisfactory
sex life. While raw numbers
cannot tell us what people mean by ‘satisfaction’,
it is worth contemplating
that Aizawl—located in a region that
has experienced a great deal of disruption
to normal life—also reports much
higher levels of happiness with regard
to everyday social life and financial
situation, compared to small towns in
other parts of the country. The troubles
of the North-east do not seem to have
changed traditions of relatively liberal
interaction between genders. Hence,
Aizawl has the highest percentage
of individuals who nominate their
boyfriends/girlfriends as the first sexual
partner. It also reports the highest percentage
of live-in relationships, as well
as those with multiple sexual partners.
Fantasies of desire can become realities,
either through socio-cultural
rules of engagement or through transgression
of such rules. But the latter
needs spaces where transgressive acts
can take place without an overwhelming
risk. In this context, whereas
Aizawl returns a high figure (89 per
cent) for those who have dated members
of the opposite sex, Moradabad
and Guntur clock in at 3 per cent and 2
per cent respectively. While the high
figure for Aizawl reflects, once again, a
different set of social and cultural
mores, the situation in other Indian
towns also tells us something about the
nature of public spaces within them.
The lower rate of dating in smaller
towns reflects the fact that such interaction
is public activity, and spaces for
such activities are limited. This is a situation
that will change with new
spaces such as malls, multiplexes and
public parks, where courting couples
METHODOLOGY
INDIA TODAY, in association with The
Nielsen Company, conducted an
opinion poll on 5,246 respondents
(2,623 women,2,623 men) across
16 cities.The survey focused on
sexual awakening in small towns.
Street corner sampling was
used to find eligible respondents.
The study was divided in two
phases. In the first phase, recruitment
interviews were done where
respondents were asked basic
questions mainly regarding their
demographics and their consent
was asked for participating in the
survey anonymously (by promising
that their identity will be protected).
This was followed by the
second phase in which they were
asked to complete a self-administered
questionnaire.
Among metros, the cities covered
were Delhi,Mumbai, Chennai
and Kolkata. In small towns the
cities covered were Hisar,Kota,
Moradabad,Kohlapur,Jamnagar,
Ratlam,Salem,Kottayam,Guntur,
Asansol, Baleshwar and Aizawl.
The target group consisted of
single and married respondents in
the age group 15-50.While women
were invited to a central location,
street corner interviews were done
for men.Questionnaires where
more than 15-20 per cent questions
were not answered were
treated as invalid.
SURVEY 2012
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
can roam without fear of harassment.
The desire for another life—that of
boyfriends, girlfriends and dating—is
unambiguously expressed, and in most
towns (in fact all of them, except
Moradabad), a significant number admit
to having fallen in love with someone
from the opposite sex. This is not
surprising, for love and romance have
important dimensions of expressing a
cosmopolitan identity as well as being
an important part of contemporary consumer
culture. Both these aspects feed
into the world of aspirations that define
new ways of being. It is also interesting
that Kota reports a relatively high percentage
(50 per cent) of those who admit
to have gone on dates. The high proportion
of young people that the town contains
as a result of its coaching industry
might explain this result. For, the desire
for worldly success and aspirations of
modern intimacy often go hand in hand.
In India, the act of kissing has had a
particularly important role in ideas
about modern intimacy. More than
just modern, it was considered ‘too’
western and out of step with ‘true’
Indian culture. Our films found the
most extraordinary ways of suggesting
the kiss without ever showing it.
The survey provides important evidence
of change in this attitude. In
fact, the percentage of those who admit
to having kissed is higher for
smaller towns than for the metros (for
example, 89 per cent for Kota compared
to 81 per cent in Mumbai). In
response to another question, respondents
attached considerable importance
(90 per cent in Jamnagar and 78
per cent in Salem) to kissing as an act
of emotional significance. Changing
attitudes towards the kiss are part of
changes in ideas about the self. While
they indicate changing ideas about
displays of affection, they also tell us
something about new notions of selfhood
in another regard. The desire of
romance is part of the imagination of
being modern, and is linked to ideas
about being able to take one’s own
decisions (in choosing a partner, for
example) and lead the life one wants.
What are the qualities that people
look for in their partners? This question
elicited an extremely interesting
response. Maturity and openness
were the most preferred qualities of
potential dating partners. ‘Sexual appeal’
is lower down in the scale. Is
there a sense in that in these volatile
times—and, should the dating partner
become a spouse—what is required is
a mature head? And that people take
rational rather than emotional decisions
when thinking about the kind of
person they would like to spend their
life with? Perhaps it is because of this
that friends and peers, rather than,
18% MEN AND
WOMEN IN METROS
AND 13% IN SMALL
TOWNS ADMIT
TO HAVING
EXTRAMARITALSEX.
52% MEN
AND WOMEN IN
METROS AND 33%
IN SMALLTOWNS
THINK SEXIS USED
AS ASHORTCUT
TO PROFESSIONAL
SUCCESS.
MEN IN METROS
AGREE THAT
INCREASING
ACCESS TO SEX
CONTRIBUTES
TO INFIDELITY,
40%SMALLTOWN
MEN THINK
LIKEWISE.
58%
AFFAIRS TO REMEMBER

22 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
say, the Russian roulette of the
Internet, constitute preferred ways of
searching for suitable partners. But it
would appear that ‘beauty’ is differentiated
from ‘sexual appeal’. A significant
number mentioned beauty as
a quality that attracted them to their
partner. Perhaps, beauty is in the eye
of the beholder.
Despite the evidence of change, the
survey also reminds us that small
towns are also anchored in long-standing
belief systems that have not
changed. And that, notwithstanding a
changing geography of the imagination,
our actions are also limited by the
actual worlds where we live. So, the
majority of respondents indicated that
they had one sexual partner and that
their spouse was their ideal sexual
partner. The pace of change has
clearly not altered attitudes towards
the significance of married life. It has
also not changed views people hold
towards some other aspects of intimacy
and relationships. So, an overwhelming
number, both of men and
women, expected their life partners to be
virgins. And, while attitudes towards sex
may be changing—56 per cent in Guntur
admit to having sexual fantasies—the
overwhelming majority reported themselves
to be virgins at marriage. Once
again, the actual state of affairs is not
as important as the attitude towards
virginity. Ratlam bucks this trend: Just
11 per cent reported that they thought
their partner was a virgin at marriage.
There are also other significant
ways in which the winds of
change brush against edifices of longheld
cultural beliefs. A very small
number indicated that it was okay to
remarry in case of unsatisfactory sex
life, and there was fairly strong (84 per
cent in Moradabad and 73 per cent in
Baleshwar) rejection of live-in relationships.
Also, while dating is both acceptable
and desired, premarital sex
found little acceptance. However, 22
per cent of respondents in Kota admitted
to ‘consensual affairs’. Kota also
had a high percentage of those admitting
to sexual fantasies, role-playing
during sex, and sex with the same gender.
Kota, while a place of pressurecooker
competitive aspirations, is also
a site of experimentations in intimacy.
However, notwithstanding experimentations
in sexual life—Jamnagar
reports 27 per cent as having used sex
toys and 59 per cent of Kottayam’s respondents
have watched pornographic
films—there are some forms of sexualities
that are still considered beyond
acceptable limits. Hence, the levels of
acceptability of homosexuality and
bisexuality are low, as is that of sex between
heterosexuals and transgenders.
This tells us more about public attitudes
rather than actual practice, since there
is a great deal of empirical evidence
that, for example, married men do engage
in bisexual relationships. This is
also true for many small towns.
Lodged between imaginative worlds
that break old boundaries, and belief
systems and other constraints that dictate
everyday life, the sexual life in
India’s small towns tell us a great deal
about the complexities of social and
cultural change. Perhaps, the most remarkable
aspect is that residents of
towns such as Hisar, Kolhapur and
Salem are willing to talk about it.
Sanjay Srivastava is a professor of sociology
at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
Is sex important
after a few years
of marriage?
32%
YES
NOTSPECIFIED
48%
20%
NO
WOMEN IN
METROS
47%
YES
NOTSPECIFIED
35%
18%
NO
WOMEN IN
SMALL
TOWNS
FUN IS FOREVER
SURVEY 2012 BETWEEN THE SHEETS OFSMALLTOWN INDIA
IMAGES BAZAAR
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Beyond the Fafa Mau bridge
stands Govindpur, a small
suburb of Allahabad in
Uttar Pradesh. On a normal
day, cycle rickshaws and
three-wheelers crowd the narrow
streets, scattering cows, children, dust
and pebbles. Men urinate nonchalantly
on the sidewalks. Women browse
through stalls overflowing with petticoats,
pyjamas and cheap cosmetics. In
this colony of government officers and
small-time traders, people get back
from work by 6 p.m. and go off to bed
by 9 p.m. What happens once the lights
are out? Hush. Sex is something they
don’t talk about openly.
This year, the 10th annual INDIA
TODAY-Nielsen Sex Survey lifts the lid on
the love life of the nation’s small towns.
If one considered them to be the landscape
of sexual taboos and inhibitions,
where young lovers are reprimanded
regularly on Valentine’s Day, this survey
will force a rethink. India’s small
towns are opening up. And at the centre
of this topsy-turvy tale are women.
Of the four metros and 12 small
towns surveyed, Kota in Rajasthan
tops in sexual fantasies, voyeurism and
detaching emotion from sex. Kolhapur
in Maharashtra consumes pornography
the most, reaches orgasm most frequently
and has maximum pre-teen
sexual experience. Jamnagar in
Gujarat tops in blind dates, masturbation
and oral sex. Aizawl in Mizoram
falls in love the most and leads in sexual
activity before marriage. Kottayam
in Kerala has the most liberal take
on extramarital affairs and use of
sex enhancers. Moradabad in Uttar
Pradesh is second to none on incest
awareness. Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh
peaks in getting a high out of watching
partners undress. Salem in Tamil Nadu
searches social media for partners and
fakes headaches to put off sex the most.
Guntur in Andhra Pradesh marches
ahead in saying yes to one-night stands.
Asansol in West Bengal scores highest
in considering wife swapping an
acceptable adult game.
Coming up an alley in Govindpur
is a young woman in T-shirt and
jeans. Eyes slide off her high heels and
parlour-straight hair. Let’s call her
Ms X, a 28-year-old marketing professional
who left the town seven years
ago in search of better opportunities. A
matronly woman greets her with
exaggerated pleasure. How is big city
Mumbai treating the former colony
girl? Has she found a man? “Chahe
kahi bhi pahunch jaye, reh to gayi akeli
hi (Whatever heights you may have
By Damayanti Datta
SURVEY 2012 SMALLTOWN WOMEN
PORNOGRAPHY, PRE-TEEN SEX,WIFE SWAPPING.
SMALLTOWN INDIA IS EXPERIMENTING LIKE NEVER
BEFORE.AND ATTHE CENTRE OFTHIS ARE WOMEN.
BOUNTIFUL
BODY BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
24 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012

reached, you are still single).”
Ms X stands there thinking, this is
the same woman who always bragged
about her bed behaviour. “I have
never initiated sex in 30 years of my
married life,” she would say. Ms X
sighs to herself: “Nothing has changed
around here.” She needs a rethink,
like the rest of metro India, about sex in
the small town. Govindpur is changing.
It is evident in the Bajaj Chetak scooters
and Maruti Alto cars that have
started appearing on the roads. A
brand-new shopping complex now
adds a punch of urban modernity to the
old-fashioned landscape and to
women’s clothing: The dupatta on girls
is no longer de rigueur just as jeans are
no longer off-limits.
For the first time in India, Tier II
and Tier III towns are leading the demand
surge and shopping like the metros.
Brands are multiplying, start-up
ventures are opening malls and multiplex
chains are screening the latest
movies. From personal grooming to
60% WOMEN IN SMALLTOWNS
AND 49%WOMEN IN METROS HAVE AN
EQUALSAYIN SEXUALMATTERS.
AFINE BALANCE
49% WOMEN ENJOYWATCHING
PORN WITH THEIR SPOUSE/PARTNER IN
SMALLTOWNS,WHILE ONLY34%
WOMEN IN METROS DO THE SAME.
54%MARRIED WOMEN
IN METROS AND 43%SMALLTOWN
WIVES AVOID SEX,ALWAYS OR
SOMETIMES,BYFAKING AHEADACHE.
38%
SMALLTOWN WOMEN AND 24% WOMEN
IN METROS NEVER USE CONTRACEPTIVES
DURING OR AFTER SEXUALINTERCOURSE.
26 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
SURVEY 2012 SMALLTOWN WOMEN
health foods, lifestyle spending is the
new mantra. And small towns are loosening
their purse strings as well as
their sexual mores.
Ms X grew up hearing how vital it
was to have sons (“Ladka bahoot zaroori
hai”). Theirs was the only family
in the colony with just two daughters.
With a railway trade union leader for a
father and a schoolteacher for a
mother, she was the only girl in the
colony who had boys as friends.
“Nobody else did,” she says. “Girls
would go up to the terrace on the sly
to chat with boys next door or pass on
love letters. But they would never
speak to boys openly.” That social restraint
seems to have become a thing
of the past. Over 67 per cent small
town women admitted to kissing members
of the opposite sex. For 74 per
cent, the first kiss came between the
ages of 12 and 21. And for 18 per cent,
it was not an expression of love and romantic
emotions.
Ms X first fell in love in college,
with another 19-year-old.
“It was driven purely by passion, but
did not last long,” she says. She
also came to realise the boy did
not have what she valued most in a
partner: Brains. She quickly fell out of
love and in love with a series of
boys more suited to her sensibilities,
until she left for big-city Mumbai. She
was a rarity, she thinks. Seven years
later, she no longer stands out. About
21 per cent of women in the survey
claim to have “dated someone of
the opposite sex”—40 per cent out
of them with more than one man.
Does dating lead to deeper intimacy?
Yes. About 19 per cent women
have had their first sexual experience
as teenagers and 2 per cent even before,
as pre-teens. What do they
look for in a partner? Over 51 per
cent women look for laudable virtues
like “honesty and integrity” but 64
per cent are ultimately won over by a
partner’s “beauty”.
Ms X has not found her Prince
Charming yet but 67 per cent of
her sisters in the survey claim to
have found their “ideal” sexual partner:
The husband (Ms X says
“Huh” to that). About 42 per cent engage
in sex at least three times a
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21%SMALL
TOWN WOMEN
HAD SEXFOR THE
FIRSTTIME IN THEIR
PRE-TEENS AND TEENS
COMPARED TO 13%
IN THE METROS.
SMALLTOWN
GIRLS HAVE HAD THEIR
FIRSTKISS BETWEEN 12
AND 21 COMPARED TO
60%IN METROS.
42% SMALL
TOWN WOMEN
HAVE SEXATLEAST
2-3 TIMES AWEEK;
ONLY33%IN
METROS HAVE SEX
AS FREQUENTLY.
74%
MEETING & MATING
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
week, with 38 per cent reaching orgasm
“always” or “mostly” and 52 per
cent feeling “fulfilled”. “Do they even
know what fulfilment means?” asks
Ms X. “Sex for most is a five-minute
ritual and only with the lights off.
Women talk all the time about husbands
scolding them, shouting at
them or poking fun at them.” There
could be some truth in it: The survey
shows that small town women have
very little time for themselves: 55 per
cent devote “every bit of free time”
and 30 per cent “more than 50 per
cent” of their time to the family.
Is the image of swinging small
town India a fantasy or reality? Is
sparkling sex more a man’s world? Are
women really enjoying themselves,
caught as they are between old-fashioned
buttoned-up sexual mores and
conventional marriages? Why do the
numbers show them to be less satisfied
than metro women—from social life
to emotional life? And why, for that
matter, do small town ‘virgin’ respondents
report greater satisfaction with
life than the ‘non-virgins’?
At a time when Indian metros are
busy celebrating the hook-up culture,
the body seems to matter more than the
heart even in the small towns.
‘Arranged love’, the foundation of
small-town romance for long, is being
overtaken by sex and free-spirited adventure.
Ms X’s good girl/bad girl tugof-
war may soon just become the
default mode of self-expression for the
upcoming generations of women. ¦

28 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
Ilived in Lucknow for many years.
Adolescence in a small town in the
1980s and 1990s meant I needed
to wear a dupatta at all times and
try not to take panga with the boys.
While I was a geek trying to master
Shakespeare for my Class X exams, my
classmates were already experimenting
with sex. We didn’t know anything
about “safe time”, morning-after pills
or other contraceptives. Abortion was
looked down upon as girls in my convent
school gossiped, “Haww… do you
know who visited the doctor for a youknow-
what recently?” And I used to
think it was for mental illness. That was
then. Flash forward to 20 years later
and not much has changed.
Girls experiment with sex and are
still very cautious about discussing it.
They don’t want to declare they aren’t
virgins. Boys hardly know anything
and even though sex education has
been introduced in some schools, it’s
biological, clinical and doesn’t tell you
anything except “Always use a condom.
And try and abstain!” Youngsters
are experimenting. With porn on their
mobile phones and erotica on their laptops,
the new generation has access to
every possible form of sexual data.
What they still don’t know is how to get
it right. Sex is not just an act. It’s an
emotion. A very complicated emotion
that is burdened with tradition, surrounded
by a repressed culture and a
judgemental society. There is a mild
difference between the small town
man and the metro man. And the
women do not lag behind.
According to the INDIA TODAYNielsen
Sex Survey, small town men do
not date. That would explain why most
of the boys in Lucknow would stand at
the tea shop and ogle at a girl rather
than ask her out. In India, we don’t talk
about sex. It’s a topic that we’re supposed
to keep to ourselves. We find out
about sex from the Internet and our
By Madhuri Banerjee
SMALLTOWN MEN ARE
STILLTRAPPED IN THE
CYCLE OFCONVENTION
INHERITED FROM THEIR
FATHERS.THEYWOULD
RATHER OGLE ATAGIRL
THAN ASKHER OUT.
SURVEY 2012 SMALLTOWN MEN
FOR YOUR
EYES ONLY 
peers. Peers who hardly know anything
themselves. Therefore, we grow
up with a skewed vision of what the
opposite sex needs.
By 19, most men and women, whether
in small towns or metros, have
“fallen in love” and want to marry that
person. Most men continue to do so until
their early 20s and experience their first
sexual encounter on their wedding
night. Others go through heartbreak
and marry the second woman who
comes along. Trying to find multiple
partners doesn’t feature high on the
wishlist of small town men. They don’t
know how to woo a woman. So it becomes
difficult to keep doing so repeatedly.
They will do what they know
best—imitate their fathers, by giving
money for the household and keeping
peace by agreeing to what the wife says.
It is a myth that men like to have
many partners and are commitmentphobic.
They’re not. They want nothing
more than to find the perfect woman
who wants to settle down with them,
with all their flaws. Beauty and brains
ranks high on the list of qualities a
man looks for, sometimes even more
than understanding and compassion.
56% MEN
IN SMALLTOWNS
HAVE NEVER HAD
ORALSEX,COMPARED
TO 44%
MEN IN METROS.
31%SMALL
TOWN MEN HAVE
HAD MORE THAN
ONE SEXUAL
PARTNER,
COMPARED TO
38% IN METROS.
HOME TRUTHS
31%
SMALLTOWN MEN
FANTASISE ABOUT
WATCHING OTHERS
HAVING SEX. IN
METROS, 24 %
MEN ADMITTO
THE SAME.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
30 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
That’s because they like to flaunt their
women. They would be the envy of
several people if they had a beautiful
and intelligent wife.
Most men in small towns will remain
virgins until they get married.
Their spouse is their only sexual partner
and if she is ready, they are
satisfied. Surprisingly, their ideal
sex partner is their spouse and not
some film star or sportsman. Imagination
isn’t the strongest point
in a small town man.
Even when we see tremendous
progress all around us and think that
we are liberated, the majority of small
town or metro men still expect their
spouse to be virgins. This is probably
the reason the girls won’t declare that
they’ve had sex with their college
sweetheart before they get married.
And they will go to any lengths to protect
their “reputation”. I remember
the good girls in Loreto Convent labelled
me “loose and fast”. That’s because
I would pick up my brother from
his boys-only school, St Francis, and
chatted with the opposite sex. Even before
I had kissed a boy and understood
what was happening, to them I had lost
my virginity and no one would want to
marry me. Secretly I thought that was
wonderful, but my mother was aghast.
The survey only reiterates what I
know: Sex is always important to men.
Even after a few years of marriage, sex
is important, even though it doesn’t
matter if they don’t get it often enough.
The majority of men in small towns and
in big cities have sex two or three times
a week. Even then, using contraceptives
is rare among small town men.
Perhaps because they feel monogamy
should have certain privileges?
For small town men, live-in relationships
are not appropriate and even
some metro men would rather date
and then marry rather than live in with
their partner. People cannot dissociate
emotion from sex even today. That’s
why it’s even more difficult to have multiple
sexual partners. A majority of men
in non-metros have not had extramarital
affairs. Both metro and non-metro
men do not believe in premarital sex.
I wonder how important, then, passion
is to a relationship? Maybe we’re
all brought up to believe that marriage
is about companionship in old age.
That’s the assurance of marriage. So
31%SMALL
TOWN MEN WATCH
PORN FILMS OR
VIDEOS ONCE AWEEK,
COMPARED TO 42%
MEN IN METROS.
TAKE TWO
32% SMALL
TOWN MEN SAYCOUPLES
CAN REMARRYIN
CASE OFAN UNHAPPY
SEXLIFE; 36%MEN IN
METROS AGREE.
SMALLTOWN MEN
SAYTHEIR FIRST
SEXUALPARTNER
WAS SOMEONE
OTHER THAN THE
SPOUSE,COMPARED
TO 57% IN METROS.
49%
SURVEY 2012 SMALLTOWN MEN
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
everything else is simply unacceptable
—wife swapping, one-night stands,
orgies and other games.
Vatsyayana would not be proud. As
a country it seems we have regressed
from the 4th century of Kama Sutra to
the 21st century of censorship. So
while “touching” is completely out for
the Indian male, both small town and
metro men have no problem with
voyeurism. Many men enjoy watching
someone undress, bathe and even
have sex. Voyeurism is simply porn to
them. And porn is considered healthy!
It releases stress and helps men stay
faithful. The Internet has opened many
doors to assist men. It’s completely
acceptable to surf and download porn,
or even watch it in real life. In their
minds, it’s all right as long as they’re
not “touching”!
Boys in small towns from the age
of 14 are naturally curious about sex
and the female species. Their limited
understanding comes from their
friends and peer groups. What they
hear, they acknowledge and accept as
the whole truth. There exists a huge
gap of information and segregation.
There is no systematic sex education
programme for children in the small
town. Bollywood, with its item songs
and man-chasing-woman formula,
further fuel this altered universe. The
result is shocking cases of molestation,
rape and sexual misconduct of every
possible sort. This gives birth to a culture
of women as sex objects.
With a population of one billion
people, we still believe that sex
is bad. It’s fine to talk about
marriage, companionship and friendship.
But as soon as there is talk about
virginity, sex and orgasms, people will
leave the room. Why are we so scared?
Conversation is the best way to understand
sex better. Reading, discussing
and sharing are the correct methods to
become an open society.
The survey indicates that both men
and women think it’s unacceptable to go
to a sex therapist for guidance though
they will if there are any medical problems.
I firmly believe that all marriages
need it at some point or the other.
Sex is put on such a pedestal that
the stereotypes around it remain. Many
metros still have men who have come
from the small towns and reinforce
their thoughts on their peers and
women. If men don’t progress in their
ideas, sexual abuse will continue. We
need a healthier education system
where respect for the opposite sex is
inculcated from a young age. We also
need stronger laws against any form of
sexual harassment. Moreover, we need
a media that stands by women at all
times. Only then can women take
panga with a man and not be afraid of
the consequences.
Madhuri Banerjee is the author of
Losing My Virginity And Other Dumb Ideas
as well as Mistakes Like Love And Sex
Do you have sexual
fantasies?
38%
NO 55%
7%
YES
MALES IN
METROS
17%SMALL
TOWN MEN
ACCEPTTHE
CONCEPTOF
HAVING PAID SEX
AS AGAINST27%
MEN IN METROS.
6%SMALL
TOWN MEN ARE
COMFORTABLE
WITH THE IDEAOF
WIFE SWAPPING
COMPARED TO
10% IN METROS.
35%
NO
57%
8%
YES
MALES IN
SMALL
TOWNS
INTO THE WILD
Don’t
Know/
Can’t Say
Don’t
Know/
Can’t Say

32 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
SURVEY 2012 CITYREPORTS
THE HINTERLAND IS WHERE THE TRUE CONNOISSEURS OFPLEASURE THRIVE.FROM Tadapti Ladkiyan, playing in Moradabad, is a skin film, or “sacksy
(sexy) film” as a theatre manager puts it. It has two kinds
of posters. Outside the cinema, a topless blonde shields her ample
bosom with her left hand. In others across town, her chest is
blacked out, while her face and legs are visible. “It always happens,”
says the manager. “Just outside the theatre the bare breasts are
okay, but in the city it is not.” The precinct of the cinema is private; the canvas
of the city is public. Skin show is welcome. But it all depends on location,
location, location.
Sexuality in India is like a bikini: It’s a battle between what you can
reveal and what you conceal. At a sex education talk in Kolhapur,
Maharashtra, a sexologist thinks his audience is too shy to talk about sex.
So, he tells them to write questions anonymously. The first question a Class
X asks the doctor is if she can contract HIV. Her quandary: She has two men
in her life and a thing for threesomes.
Indians may shed their clothes, but not their traditions. A mother-ofthree
commercial sex worker in Salem wears her mangalsutra while doing
business. Kottayam folks in Kerala (which literally means the land of coconuts)
love refined coconut oil for their rub-downs. In other settings, sex
departs from the grid of custom. Mizo society has a courtship ritual called
‘in rim’, in which a suitor can call on a woman at her home and spend time
with her under an elder’s watch. Now, men and women meet in Aizawl
without parental guidance. Guntur’s lovers lured their sweethearts with
jasmine flowers once. Now, they watch porn together and hook up at the
Suryalanka beach. Are we living in an age where individual anxiety surrounding
sex is finally over? After all, ours has been a culture where mainstream
films had no problem with depicting rape, but were coy about
kissing. It is the same culture in which you could be killed for loving a person
of an unacceptable caste or religion. Is lust okay, and love isn’t?
The 2012 INDIA TODAY-Nielsen Sex Survey is now out. The respondents
include 5,246 men and women from four metros and 12 towns. At 63, Kota
has the highest percentage of those who have tried anal penetration.
Jamnagar has the highest rate of people going on blind dates and tops the
charts for oral sex. Ratlam has the highest number of people who have attempted
threesomes. Kottayam people use sex enhancers the most. Ten
per cent in Asansol think wife swapping is an acceptable adult game.
Guntur folks love the French kiss: 76 per cent have tried it, the highest
among all towns. Do small towns beat the metros as the heroes of India’s
Real Dirty Picture? Skim these pages and find out. by Rahul Jayaram
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
TOO JUICYTO MISS
IN MANGO CITY
There are several profiles
to choose from on
Cyberdating.net.The
sexually repressed:
“Hi, I am Mani and am
looking for sex with
you... only for sex...bcz
i am sex lover... so contact
me soon for real sex or video
chat...my mailbox,”reads one.The
sensitive lover: “Hi Girls, I am
Charming,Sexy,Handsome Man.I
want 2 make friendship with girls. I
want to Mindblowing Sex with girls. I
Respect Girls Feeling, I Understand
the Girls Feeling, try to make her
happy with Friendship and Sex,”
goes another.And, even swingers:
“We are straight couples 36M 36F.
Looking for another couple 30 to
40yrs for soft swinging, swinging,
naughty talk, Cyber Sex etc.”Each
profile is accompanied by a phone
number or an option to directly
message them.Some have blurry
pictures,most don’t.
What may surprise you is these
promises of mind-blowing, naughty,
swinging, sexcapades all come
salem
BHARATSURPRISES INDIAWITH SEXY SECRETS

KOLHAPUR TO KOTTAYAM,VIGNETTES OF LIFE ON THE SEX LANE.
from a city located 340 km
from Chennai: Salem.Also
known as Steel City or Mango
City,Salem’s official website
states it is surrounded by
hillocks—a geologist’s
paradise. Clearly, there is
more to the city.
Who would be the most
shocked to find out that these
profiles were from Salem? The
people of Salem themselves.
There’s an outward innocence
about the people, still too shy to
openly talk about dating, let
alone sex.Rebuffed by stammering
men and blushing
women,we turn to the professionals.
Rohini A., 32, has a
deadbeat husband, three children
and has been a commercial
sex worker for five years.
She still wears her mangalsutra
and doesn’t sell sex at night.
Her children might suspect
something wrong, she explains.
She calls her trysts with men
‘meetings’—she has about 10 a
week.“I always have to be
naked for them.They ask me to
remove my clothes one by one,”
she says. Sumathi G.,29, says
they come to her because
she gives them what they
want: Blow jobs.“They tell me
their wives never do it for
them,”she says.
Some men prefer male sex
workers.Ramu M.,36, a male
sex worker since he was 16,
says most of his clients aren’t
closet gay men in unhappy
marriages.“Actually,most of
them are straight, I can tell,”he
says.So,why do they come to
him? “Because they want to
have anal sex with someone
and their wives don’t let them,”
he says.So,why not go to
female sex workers? “I’m not
sure. I think this does not count
as cheating on their wives.Or,
maybe, oral sex from me is
better than getting it from a
woman,”he says with a giggle.
He gets clients through mobile
phone as well as online.“It
scares me a little,because all
the info is right there. But work
is work,”he says.
Just to make sure the profiles
online are real,we decide
to call a few of them.The one
who promised mind-blowing
sex does not pick up (probably
busy having mind-blowing sex)
and the swinger couple’s phone
is off. Finally, the one who called
himself a ‘sex lover’picks up.“I
created that profile in college. I
work at a software company
now. I’m not married,”he says.
“Do you live in Salem?”we ask.
“Yes.Do you?”Needless to say,
we hang up.
by Lakshmi Kumaraswami
INDIVIDUALS
SURVEYED
IN SALEM
PREFER SOCIAL
NETWORKING
SITES AS AMEDIUM
TO LOOKFOR A
DATING PARTNER.
8%
DON’T
EXPECT
EQUALPARTICIPATION
FROM THEIR
PARTNER
WHEN THEY
HAVE SEX.
48% INDIAWITH ITS
SECRETS
Illustrations by SAURABH SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
34 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
SURVEY 2012 CITYREPORTS
The survey shows 41 per cent people in
Kottayam think it is fine to have flings outside
marriage as long as the spouse does not
get to know.One person in 10 uses sex enhancers,
and half the people think sex is
hugely important in life.The percentages of
such responses are higher than those from
the other centres surveyed.
But their apparent vigour between the sheets finds no
vocal articulation from the townsfolk,mostly tradition-loving
Syrian Catholic Christians. Incidentally,Kottayam’s
Meenachil was where Arundhati Roy anchored her Booker
Prize-winning novel,The God of Small Things, and invited the
community’s wrath.Roy was sued for obscenity by local
lawyers Sabu Thomas and G.M. Idikkula, who felt the book
“excited sexual desires and lascivious thoughts”, with pages
devoted to the sexual love between a Syrian Catholic girl and
an untouchable Hindu man.The author was able to obtain a
favourable court order.
Kottayam is known for other peculiarities too. It is called
the town of letters, lakes and latex.The hub of Kerala’s media
and publishing industries has many of the state’s beautiful
lakes and a flourishing rubber trade crucial to its economy.
Some of the rubber ends up at Hindustan Latex a couple of
hours away in Thiruvananthapuram.Nirodh condoms are
made for the country there.
Affluence,however, has not changed Kottayam’s conservative
face.Sex is not something one could expect to have a
casual conversation on.Achemist on the bustling KKRoad
says there is nothing to suggest people in the town use significantly
more sex enhancers than others.“We have customers
for Ayurvedic aphrodisiacs just as in any town.Some use
even refined coconut oil as a lubricant for sexual purposes.
But it’s hardly anything special here,”he says and directs
further queries to two neighbouring pharmacists, who express
similar nonchalance.
What about sex outside marriage? “Unbelievable,”says a
senior priest, who has been hearing out the laity’s private
confessions for two decades and would be privy to some of
the town’s intimate thoughts.“I would not have hesitated to
say so if there were signs adultery was catching on. It is preposterous
to say more than one-third of the people think
adultery is okay, if discreet,”he says.
That gets some endorsement from the medical world
too.“I have seen no signs of Kottayam people putting sex
higher than others elsewhere among life’s priorities,”says
Dr K.Pramodu,chairman of the Institute of Sexual and
Marital Health in neighbouring Kochi, claimed to be the
country’s first multi-discipline centre for sexual health.
He maintains a database of more than 10,000 patients,
including from Kottayam.
“There are no signs of extramarital sex rocketing there
either.Kottayam is still fairly conservative and we have not
seen big changes in sexual behaviour or concerns there. If
anything, Malappuram and Kozhikode, about 200 km
north of Kottayam,might fit the survey findings about the
emphasis on sex better.Sex still has near-sacred cultural
connotations in those parts, even for people in their 60s,”
says Dr Pramodu. by Rajeev P.I.
SEX ON THEIR MINDS, BUT MUM’S THE WORD IN PUBLIC
Kottayam
9%RESPONDENTS IN
THE TRADITION-LOVING
KERALATOWN ALWAYS
USE SEXENHANCERS
WHILE HAVING SEXUAL
INTERCOURSE.
41%
RESPONDENTS SAY
EXTRAMARITALSEXIS
ACCEPTABLE AS LONG
AS ONE’S SPOUSE DOES
NOTGETTO KNOW

There was time when a husband bought a
jasmine gajra (flowers for the hair) for the
wife as a gesture requesting sex that night.
Things have not remained that subtle in
Guntur any more.Asource from a well-known
medical college, who requests anonymity,
says sexual indulgence is definitely on the rise.
Atown with a number of educational institutions, Guntur
sees students coming in from everywhere.“While earlier, students
would live mostly in hostels on campus, these days
more and more opt for apartments.Easy access to the opposite
sex is a big factor.Many of these institutions are on the
outskirts, with several not-so-frequented
areas around.The students
don’t feel inhibited; kissing
and heavy petting are quite common,”
the source says. She says
another significant factor is that
even now there aren’t many entertainment
spots in Guntur.There
are no discotheques or pubs and
only a few shopping malls.
“Theatres and parks have become
the perfect destinations for sexual
indulgence.Besides this, they either watch porn extensively,a
big influence in itself, or amuse themselves by hanging out together,
which eventually leads to kissing, touching, romancing
over the phone and cyber sex.”Libraries open 24 hours are hot
hangouts at night and used condoms lying outside hostel
doors are seen at times.Says IT professional Susheel Jain,38,
from Guntur, now settled in Hyderabad,“Youngsters from
Guntur frequent Amravati and Suryalanka in the vicinity.
These destinations, especially Suryalanka, a beach getaway,
are perfect spots for private time.And also perfect for
sexual encounters.” by PVB Bhaskar
guntur
FROM FLOWERY FOREPLAY
TO USED CONDOMS
STREWN ON DOORSTEPS
PEOPLE IN GUNTUR
THINK ONE-NIGHT
STANDS ARE OKAY,
MUCH MORE THAN
IN OTHER CENTRES.
48%
36 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
SURVEY 2012 CITYREPORTS
Twenty-one-year-old
Anulekha made the
somewhat convoluted
train trip from Raipur 15
months ago to discover a
delightful anonymity
amid thousands of bright
young people like her in Kota. Finally
free from her protective family back
home, the charming youngster found
herself a boyfriend by the end of her
first week at a coaching centre.“I took
a whole year to discover myself.This
year, I am going to study,”she declares
much to the dismay of her friends,
many of them evident suitors hoping
to replace boyfriend number four.
Folklore has it that the Chambal infuses
rebellion in men and women
who drink from its placid waters. But
the mighty river that once spawned
bloodthirsty brigands like Man Singh,
Nirbhay Gujjar, Sultana and Phoolan
Devi is now engendering a new kind of
insurrection, the kind that bucks the
straightjacketed conservatism of
long-standing social mores. It’s a quiet
but happy explosion into a new sexuality
willing to give just about anything
a go minus the frowns.
Every year, a tenth of Kota’s million-
strong population renews itself,
with 100,000 fresh footfalls from
Delhi,Punjab,Haryana, Bihar,Uttar
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The two-decade-old coaching industry
is the cumulative force that drives
the city’s economy.Allen Careers
Coaching Centre, the largest such establishment
in town, enrolled nearly
50,000 students this year, earning
roughly Rs 250 crore. It is estimated
the students contribute twice of what
they pay in tuitions (Rs 1,000 crore)
annually to the local economy in
rentals, food bills and transport costs.
It is hardly surprising then that the
townspeople—residents, shop owners,
politicians and policemen—go out
of their way to “protect the kids”.
There are numerous stories of
auto drivers bringing drunk girls safely
home and policemen thrashing local
hoodlums trying to take advantage of
a coaching student. Shop owners at
City Mall, the essential evening hangout
place for young couples, are more
than indulgent.The guards at
Chambal Garden, a green haunt along
the river bank, happily look the other
way while the young surrender to raging
libidos amid the shrubbery.
During a sex education
talk,Dr Rahul
Patil, a well-known
sexologist in Kolhapur,
was confronted with
this problem written
anonymously by a
Class Xgirl: “Sir, I have two boyfriends. I
have sex with both of them at the same
time. I go down on one of them, while
the other goes down on me. I am scared
I will contract HIV. Please help.”The
times they are a-changin’in Kolhapur.
After Baleshwar,Kolhapur has the
highest percentage (59) of people who
are open to visiting a sex therapist.
Dr Rajsinh Sawant, a sex therapist who
sees 60 patients a week,says,“Many
men are worried they have small
penises and want a bigger size.”
He explains the Western penises
they see in porn films are exaggerations,
with participants having had implants.
Female patients regularly seek advice
for bigger and shapelier breasts.
Amedicine shop owner says,
“Women regularly ask for lubricants.
We didn’t have them, but we have
started stocking some now.”
“Through pornography, people have
become more aware of how to satisfy
themselves and their partners,” says
Patil, who is doing a PhD on the subject,
wherein he will defend the use of porn
for sexual and psychological healing.
Kolhapur is a city known for its
sharp, hot cuisine. It’s not averse to
spicing up the hot stuff between the
sheets either.
by Rahul Jayaram
44%
RESPONDENTS IN
KOLHAPUR SAYTHEY
ALWAYS HAVE AN
ORGASM WHILE
HAVING SEX.
WHERE BIGGER IS BETTER
Kolhapur
ANONYMITY GIVES SWOTTING
STUDENTS LICENCE TO THRILL
KOTA

Forty-eight year old Congress leader
and former district NSUI chief Naresh
Hada is not in the least surprised with the
survey findings. Not even the one that
says 63 per cent of the respondents have
tried anal sex. He says,“Marriages are delayed.
Boys and girls are well in their 30s
by the time they want to settle down. But
their hormones kick in on cue.”ARajput,
Hada is straight-faced when he says,
“It would be unfair to insist on a virgin
bride for my son.”
Sachindra Singh,27,Amit Patni,37 and
Amit Singh,28, three old friends at the
mall’s coffee shop,admit Kota is unrecognisable
from the years when they were in
school.Dating and long drives down Bundi
Road or Baran Road are common.But the
real change, they say,“is happening behind
closed doors”.
In the old days,Kota was mythically
described as the spot where “a goat and a
tiger could coexist in harmony”.Coaching
students have rediscovered the city as
the place of the ‘Kiss Of The Angel’,where
despite appearances,anything’s possible.
by Asit Jolly
40% SAY
THEYWOULD
FORGIVE THEIR
SPOUSE FOR
HAVING AN
EXTRAMARITAL
AFFAIR.
58%
RESPONDENTS ARE
OKAYWITH THE
IDEAOFDETACHING
EMOTIONS FROM SEX.
Aizawl is the only centre
surveyed with more than 10
per cent people who have
had more than five sexual
partners.Expectedly, the
percentage of those who
have had only one sexual partner is the
lowest (34) in small town India.Aizawl
also has the highest percentage of individuals
(33) who have been in live-in relationships.
The narrow, winding roads of
the town buzz with the macho aggression
of young men in their twenties, zipping
across on motorbikes, bodies
revealed in tight sleeveless undershirts
showing off fancy tattoos. Girls are absent
as pillion riders inside the town area.
But make no mistake; just 20 minutes
from the main town on the boozy stretch
towards Lenpui airport is Rangvamual,
where female pillion riders are seen
aplenty.Local community groups are not
amused with that.The most influential
such group,Young Mizo Association,
often raids sexual hotspots and rounds
up ‘women of the street’. But that’s no deterrent.
At pharmacies, the morningafter
pill is the most sought-after item.
Youngsters use fake names and
Facebook profiles to hook up on fantasy
group pages. Mizo society used to practise
the ‘in rim’custom,where suitors
could call on young women and interact
under a chaperoning elder’s presence.
That has given way to private dates,and
even casual sex. by Chitra Ahanthem
MULTIPLE PARTNERS COCK A
SNOOK ATMORAL POLICING
aizawl
HAVE HAD MORE THAN
FIVE SEXPARTNERS; 34%
HAVE HAD JUSTONE. 11%
RESPONDENTS IN
KOTASAYTHEY
HAVE TRIED ANAL
SEX,THE HIGHEST
PERCENTAGE
ANYWHERE.
63%
38 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
SURVEY 2012 CITYREPORTS
IN CITYOFSLEAZE,ORGIASTIC DELIGHTS COME WITH EASE
ratlam
11%
RESPONDENTS IN RATLAM
HAVE TRIED THREESOMES,
THE HIGHESTAMONG ALL
SMALLTOWNS.
14%
RESPONDENTS
ARE OKAYWITH
HOMOSEXUALITYEVEN IF IT
INVOLVES ONE’S SPOUSE.
Pornographic movies have been
banned from the talkies in Ratlam
and tawdry blue-film DVDs are
available only at select stores,
but scratch the surface and a
netherworld of amateurs indulging
in furtive pleasures makes itself known.From homosexuals
who meet surreptitiously to eye young lads
to 13-year-olds watching hardcore porn in seedy
cubicles, as reported by a cyber cafe operator in
Do Batti market, this sleepy town in middle India surprises
with its sinful libido.
Over two years,Dr Abhay Ayohri, nodal officer for
HIV/AIDS at the district government hospital, has come
across at least 900 cases of men who have sex with
men.He attributes the trend to the city’s proximity to
the opium belt.“The highway stretching across
Ratlam,Mandsaur and Neemuch in the Malwa region
of western Madhya Pradesh is home to acres of
legally produced poppy.Men engage in homosexual
acts after drug use,often by force,”he says.
Sunny,40, a cycle store owner who performs at
Ram Leelas, discovered he was gay at the age of 18.
Afather of two, he talks with comic exaggeration
about his escapades with men.He claims to have
about 150 ‘friends’and says they wait like college
students for someone’s house to be available for some
action.“These sessions are not restricted to two men.
Some prefer anal sex,some like oral sex,some keep it
at fingering and kissing,”he adds casually.
The quiet junction town put on the map by
Imtiaz Ali’s film Jab We Met in 2007 was derided
as the city of sleaze. But Pawan Sharma, bureau
chief at an evening Hindi newspaper, trashes his
hometown’s fleshpot image.“Such activities are
limited to the highway stretch near Neemuch, 35
km from the city, where sex workers line up on the
road,” he says.However,Vitthal Rao Bele, a worker
with local NGO Samarpan Sanstha, cites an
increasing number of domestic maids reporting
HIV-related issues.“They are gradually succumbing
to consumerist aspirations and straying into
prostitution.They expand their web of clients
through word of mouth and service colonies they
are employed in.”
Within this community,most people have worked
out ways to realise their fantasies.As per the survey,
at 95,Ratlam has the highest percentage of
people who have had their sexual fantasies played
out in reality.And the lowest percentage (13) of
those who have shared these fantasies with their
regular partners. by Sanhita Sinha Chowdhury
40 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
For many boys growing up in the India of
the 1980s, the iconic Richard Avedon
photograph of an 18-year-old Nastassja
Kinski wrapped around a python was a
gateway to sexual heaven and a lifetime
of appreciation of the female form. But the equivalent
visual touchstone of raw, provocative and
nakedly lyrical celebration of beauty and lust in
my childhood happened when I came across in an
annual number of Life in my Patna home, left behind
by a friend of my elder brother, a devastating
photograph, by Annie Leibovitz, of a topless
Debra Winger cavorting on the floor with a stunned
Alsatian, in White Sands, New Mexico. Since
I already loved dogs, it was only natural that after
my perusal of this childhood shattering snap, I
would start adoring women too.
I am often asked whether my parents read my
books or not, pointing to the fact that often my novels
contain explicit and disturbing sexual content.
Well, they do, and even if they are embarrassed by
them, they have never let it on to me. Only thing,
whenever anyone related to the family or their
friends ask about the novels, whether they are
available in Patna or not, they quickly mention it
as being “out of print”. So well, you never know.
Like in most Indian families, sex was never
openly discussed in mine too, and I am very glad
about it. One inflicts so many injuries on one’s parents
while growing up that at least they should be
spared dinner-time discussion on the birds and
the bees. One could, after all, learn more from
one’s contemporaries and Mastram out in the
wider world. Like the fact that nine-inch penises
were de rigueur for men and Mamiji always
bathed with the window open.
Well, my parents may have been stiff upper lip
about sex, but there were never any restrictions
on me. I could read, watch, play and hear anything
I wanted to. The only book ever confiscated
was my beloved copy of The Betsy, found in my
Class V school bag by my brother. I got it back, covered
in brown paper, when I reached the Class X.
“You will appreciate it more now,” my brother told
me pointedly and I did. The right book at the right
time, you can say.
The well-read Indian of the 1970-1980s was
not the one who had read all of Saul Bellow, but
of the other Jewish master, Harold Robbins. I am
sure the same is true even today. And so, it was
from trawling in oceans of porn that I developed
my intense love for literature and cinema.
Marlon Brando and the butter dish in Last
Tango in Paris made me realise how to accentuate
realism using talismanic props. People remembered
the props. The rumour that The World
According to Garp was full of salacious content,
led me and four of my friends to pool Rs 80, buy
the novel and read it with awestruck minds.
Hain? Was this really possible? Our eyes couldn’t
believe it, to say nothing of our testes. Sure, the
graphic sexuality was life affirming, but the
storytelling was brilliant. That is what stayed in
my mind. I would never miss a novel by John
Irving in the years ahead.
Sexuality, when used by a serious writer in his
novels, can say as much about the socio-cultural
space that his characters inhabit as a well-laidout
dinner scene in a Satyajit Ray or a Luis Bunuel
movie. A woman who shouts “Jai Mata Di” or “yes
please”, or better still, “aur tani jor se” in throes
of sexual congress, is worth pages of description
of the furniture in the bedroom.
Or a feisty girl, who demands in a languorous
yet philosophical tone of her Maoist lover, in
a landmark story of the same name by Ritwik
Ray, “Could You Kindly Please Stroke My Lotus
With Thy Hand, Could You Kindly Please?”, can
say as much about the mango republic she
inhabits, surrounded on all sides by banana
Trawling oceans of porn helped many in the 1970s and 1980s discover literature
Does porn
play an
integral role
in sexual
activity?
The writer is
the author of
Day Scholar,
shortlisted for
the Man Asian
Literary Prize,and
Patna Roughcut
SURVEY 2012 GUESTCOLUMNPORNOGRAPHY
By Siddharth Chowdhury
36%
NO
YES 45%
*Across metros and
small towns
19%Not specified
HOWDEBRAWINGER
ENDED MYWORLD OF
INNOCENCE
SPICE ITUP

men, than reams of print which describe the
compromised polity that is India.
In my lifelong quest for exhilarating sexual content,
I would discover Vladimir Nabokov and Günter
Grass. In spite of myself I would get culture
through sex. I would discover the great Philip Roth,
in whose novel Indignation, a young man would lose
his life because of a perfect blow job, or Everyman,
where a man’s obsession with the other woman’s
bottom would make him give up his marriage and
the most secure part of his life. How we have sex tells
a lot about us. It is as basic as food and as important
as religion. Writing about the sexual act is not easy
and many have faltered at its altar, but the key to it,
I guess, lies in giving the reader the impression that
you yourself derive great pleasure from the act.
From their writing, it would seem
that Roth has sex all the time and
Naipaul never. And what Salman
Rushdie’s hugely entertaining new
memoir Joseph Anton proves above
all, is that you can never stop a great
writer from being a perennial chickmagnet.
Fatwa or no fatwa.
And in the midst of all this, as
recent sex surveys by modern-day
Vatsyayanas prove, Indians are having
more sex than ever, and how.
More women on top in Delhi, more
rear entry in Kota, more threesomes
in Ratlam, more hand jobs in
Jamnagar. And Kota, well they are
really pushing the envelope over
there, as students from all over India
descend to the dusty little town to
play out their desperate middleclass
dreams of joining IITS and AIIMS,
and bringing with them unprecedented
prosperity.
Well, all this may be great news
for us, but it is absolutely shattering
for the world. What? One billion
more Indians by 2030? Get out of
here. The day is not far away, when
Indians will have to pay congestion
charges every time they forget to
slip on a condom. There is also
some talk of a UN embargo on
Indians under 40 having sex; and to
pop a Viagra, you will need special
dispensation from the president of
the United States. Oh, dear! What
will we do on Karwa Chauth?
Well, dear countrymen, forget
about Viagra and all artificial mood
enhancers, we do not need them.
After all we invented sex, among so
many other ancient things. We are Indians. Our traditions
run deep. Let us go back to nature, to lyricism,
to poetry, to literature. To the redoubtable
Kashinath Singh, in one of whose short stories, if I
remember correctly, the hero reads from The
Communist Manifesto to his young bride on their
wedding night to get into the mood. On second
thoughts, let us not go back to Singh, he sounds a
bit extreme. Let us go back to Ramdhari Singh
Dinkar and his Veer Ras. Try Rashmi Rathi, preferably
‘Krishna Chetavani’. Works for me all the time.
“Yachna nahin, ab rann hoga
Jeevan jai, ya ki maran hoga.”
(“No pleading now, [dear girl], but absolute
war/ Triumphant life or glorious death is
what “I wish for.”) ¦
AMONG
INDIVIDUALS IN
SMALLTOWNS,
65%
IN RATLAM FEEL
PORN HAS AN
INTEGRALROLE
IN SEXUAL
ACTIVITY,
FOLLOWED
BY61% IN
MORADABAD.
82%
MEN ACROSS
METROS AND
SMALLTOWNS
HAVE WATCHED
APORN FILM
OR VIDEO
COMPARED TO
33% WOMEN.
83%
OFMETRO MEN
WATCH PORN,
BARELYLEADING
SMALLTOWN
MEN AT82%.
MALE THING
Photo Imaging SAURABH SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
DECEMBER 10, 2012 . INDIA TODAY 41
42 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
Open letter from: Kamini Motwani, friend,
marriage counsellor and interrogator nonpareil
(from Drop Dead, A Niki Marwah Mystery)
To: The Bashful Bridegroom
Darrrrling! You’re getting married!!
Congratulations!!! I love a good marriage!
It’s the perfect combination of
the two most important things in life:
Sex and fashion! The lehengas, the
suhaag raat, the kangans, the kesar doodh, the
polki sets, the silk boxers and lace negligees…
Oh, you and your gharwallas have got the
fashion part all covered? That’s great!
But what about sex? Have you thought about
that? I mean, really thought about it? About how
you’re going to knock her socks off and leave her
screaming and begging for more? Because that’s
what it’s all about. Giving as good as you get…
I can see from the way your eyes just glazed
over that while it is exactly the result you so very
badly want, you have no idea how to get there.
I’ve seen that look many times before; it’s the
same look that comes over contestants on KBC
after they have exhausted their last lifeline
before the final padaav. The look that says I want
it. I’m almost there. I’ve no idea what to do now.
Help me, someone!
Luckily for you, darling, your lifeline is sitting
right in front of you! Go ahead, ask the expert,
ask me anything.
¦ I can’t decide where to take my bride for our
honeymoon. What is the sexiest place to go?
1. Beach resort 2. Hill station
3.Wildlife sanctuary 4. Disney World
ANSWER The jungle, my friend. Awaken her animal
instincts. The beach has too many competing
bikinis, the hills have too many puffy jackets. Disney
is for kids, but the jungle is where you go wild.
¦ I want to give my bride a gift on our suhaag
raat. What would make the sexiest pre-sex gift?
1. Chocolates 2. Sexy lingerie
3. Perfume 4. Diamonds
ANSWER Lovely sentiment, a little something at the
right moment can make a lot happen. But do you
really have to ask which one? Believe me when I
say this, diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
¦ I’m not sure what to wear on our wedding night.
1. Boxers 2. Briefs
3. Pyjamas 4. Sleep shorts
ANSWER I am so glad you’re thinking about this.
Your wife of course will have a suitcase full of
lacy nothings to entice you with. Shouldn’t you
entice her back? Get that smooth shave, that
sharp haircut, that sexy wardrobe… and for your
special night, go with something special and flattering,
like silk boxers or low-slung pyjamas
in black... mmmm!
For both men and women,a stable marriage scores over everything else
By Swati Kaushal
Do you agree
that with
more married
women
working,
incidence of
extramarital
affairs is
increasing?
The writer is the
author of Piece of
Cake,A Girl Like
Me and Drop
Dead, A Niki
Marwah Mystery
SURVEY 2012 GUESTCOLUMN MARRIAGE
50%
YES
19%
NO
*Across metros and
small towns
11% Not
specified
ANIGHTTO
REMEMBER
WORKHAZARDS
Neither
agree nor
disagree
20%
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
¦ Everyone tells me I need a good opening move.
What do you recommend?
1. Nibble her ear 2. Tell her she really turns me on
3. Kiss her softly on the lips 4. Bite her shoulder
ANSWER 1, 2 and 3 are all good ones, I say; go for
them all! Careful with the neck biting though. We
don’t want her to think you’re a vampire!
¦ This may sound very basic, but what am I
supposed to do with the lights?
1.On 2. Off
3.Dimmed 4.Psychedelic?
ANSWER I love the way your mind works! The fact
that you’re thinking it through is half the battle won.
I’d start with dimmed lights; it looks romantic and
sexy. As the action heats up, you can go either way.
Save the psychedelic lights for later though…
¦ What is the best position to give her pleasure?
Do women like to be on…
1.Top 2.Bottom
3. Sideways 4. Sixty-nine
ANSWER You’ll have time enough to try them all out,
darling! Do you know the Kama Sutra mentions 64
positions? When it comes to positions, there are no
wrong answers! Just make sure she’s just as willing.
¦ Where does one stop?
1.Once 2.Twice
3.Thrice 4.As soon as she starts to feel uncomfortable?
ANSWER 4, darling, always, and without exception.
¦ I hear everyone is reading Fifty Shades of Grey
now. My friends tell me BDSM is what all women
secretly crave. What would you recommend?
1.Ties 2. Handcuffs
3.Whips 4.Rope
ANSWER On your wedding night? Shudders! Your
wife may have read Fifty Shades, even enjoyed it,
but in real life, BDSM is not for everyone, my friend.
I’d say check with her before investing in any of the
above. In the meantime, how about a good oldfashioned,
time-tested shower for two?
¦ Um… I’m an average sized guy…
ANSWER I know exactly what you mean. You’d be
surprised how many guys have asked me that
question. But believe me, it’s not just about size.
Size is good, but performance is even better!
¦ What’s the best thing to do after we have sex?
1. Chit chat 2. Watch TV
3. Eat 4. Go to sleep
ANSWER None of the above. Spoon, cuddle, pillow
talk; go for seconds or thirds… When it comes to
great sex, and a great marriage, you need to stay
the course, my friend. ¦
53% MEN AND WOMEN IN
INDIA PREFER THE MAN
ON TOP. 91%OFTHEM IN
BALESHWAR AND 82%
IN GUNTUR LEAD IN
THEIR PREFERENCE
FOR THIS POSITION.
50% MEN ACROSS
METROS AND SMALL
TOWNS SAYTHEYHAVE
TRIED NEWPOSITIONS
WHILE HAVING SEX. 51%
WOMEN SAYTHEYHAVEN’T
TRIED TO EXPERIMENT.
POLE POSITION
25%
RESPONDENTS IN
JAMNAGAR PREFER
THE WOMAN ON TOP.
DELHI FOLLOWS,WITH
22% OFRESPONDENTS
PREFERRING THIS
POSITION.

44 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
Mom! Seriously.” I huffed, my lip curled
in the know-it-all condescending
smirk of a pompous 20-something
adult-child. “You just wouldn’t understand.”
I can’t remember what we
were arguing about. I just knew I was right. “You’re
25 years older than me!” I rolled my eyes and turned
away with the glory of my stinging, closing remark.
I didn’t make it out of the kitchen before my fatal
mistake unleashed the wrath of the reality-check
gods. My mother cleared her throat. With the confidence
of an all-knowing sage, she answered. “23.”
She smiled. No further comment.
I froze, acutely aware of my sudden impotence. I
had no cutting remark. No retaliation. Nothing. The
ground stubbornly refused to swallow me up. The
words left unspoken taunted me with the stark
contrast of our realities.
She had been married at 22, pregnant the next
year, and completed her master’s degree with me as
a breastfeeding newborn on one arm. I, on the other
hand, was 24, unmarried, single, over-educated,
recently unemployed, and had just moved back
home with my parents. I believe the politically
correct term for my condition was simply, loser.
I might have considered leaving the suburbs of
Chicago, away from all the gossipy, nothing-betterto-
do aunties, and moved to Africa where no one
knew me, if it wasn’t for another unavoidable
truth: I was not alone.
My social condition, in other variations, was
quickly becoming the norm for 20-somethings
in major metros. Most of my friends were unmarried,
had been dating since they were teenagers,
were focused on their careers, hell-bent on finding
happiness, and drinking away the weekends in
the pursuit of fun. Responsibilities like marriage,
children and mortgages seemed like academic
By Tulika Mehrotra
86%
RESPONDENTS
IN MUMBAI
DON’TTALK
OPENLYABOUT
SEXWITH
CHILDREN.53%
IN DELHI ARE
OKAYWITH THE
IDEA
OFLIVE-IN
RELATIONSHIPS.
64%
NO
Are you in
favour of
live-in
relationships?
The writer is the
author of Delhi
Stopover and
Crashing
B-Town
SURVEY 2012 GUESTCOLUMN FAMILY
Our parents found solace in their structured
lives.The buffet of pleasures has bred the
independent, still-searching singleton.
22%
YES
*Across metros and
small towns
AN EMBARRASSMENTOF
CHOICES
TIME TO TALK
Don’t Know/
Can’t Say
14%
64%
RESPONDENTS
THINK CHILD ABUSE
IN FAMILIES NEEDS
TO BE REPORTED TO
THE POLICE. 73%
DON’TTALK OPENLY
ABOUTSEXWITH
THEIR CHILDREN
AND FAMILY.
SEALTHE BOND

concepts that we would “deal with” when the time
came, one hundred years later, for sure. Not as freeloving
as the long haired, unwashed hippies of the
’60s, my generation was playing with a different kind
of fire: Money plus independence.
Just one generation earlier, in a “small town”
called Lucknow, my parents had neither. Responsibilities
like putting food on the table, educating
siblings, and getting sisters married were issues of
real consequence. Obedience to parents’ wishes
wasn’t questioned. Family obligations, cultural
traditions, and building a secure future on a meagre
salary trumped any idle ponderings of the meaning
of happiness. Their lives had distinct structure. Roles
were defined and rarely questioned. Women
managed the house and children; the man brought
home the bread. Dissatisfaction was tolerated
like annoying weather; it will pass or else we’ll adapt.
But were they not happy?
I’ve seen enough pictures of my dad in Beatlesstyle
bellbottoms and my mom laughing with her
friends after visits to the salon, to know they were
just normal youngsters like us with the same ideas
of immortality. But with no Internet or cellphones,
the world was smaller and things seemed simpler.
Today, the big bad cities are different. Where
arranged marriages were the norm less than
30 years ago, love marriages are not only
expected in the metros, but also come with a buffet
of options for experimentation, before the need
to settle down. Commitment phobia is delaying
marriages, as we explore ourselves in each other,
seeking “perfection” in a partner, a mirror to all our
wishes and none of our flaws. Child bearing is
invariably losing priority, as we battle our fear of
divorce. We want to be settled in our careers,
explore our sexuality, know who we are before
another person enters the frame.
Divorce. Our parents’ generation has already
started this trend. They may have had children in
their 20s but they also discovered happiness. More
importantly, its acute absence in a marriage.
Isolation in a relationship, depression, restrictive
gender roles were issues that often didn’t get the
necessary personal or medical attention and
were juggled while putting kids through college and
paying off a mortgage.
Did women of my parents’ generation get a
chance to reach their personal potential? Their college
diplomas collected dust, as they planned family
meals for decades. Did our fathers ever resent the
responsibility that came with their breadwinner status?
Despite these necessary sacrifices, I wonder
today if they would switch places with us, for all our
freedom and financial savvy.
Today, without as much cultural pressure to
marry, the fear of a marriage’s dissolution and
money to spend on anything we desire, a new breed
is emerging: The independent, still-searching singleton.
Late into their 30s, driving gas-guzzling
European cars, adorned in designer accessories,
living in flats that they have purchased in the
best parts of town, their definition of family is now
a close circle of carefully curated friends, rather
than a spouse and children. The responsibility of
caring for ailing parents has crept up on this generation,
but hasn’t had the side-effect of cornering
them into happily married procreation.
Is this the new happiness?
As early as a decade ago and still into present
day, late 20s was nearing expiration for a woman to
be married. Today, age is becoming a number rarely
discussed. Physical fitness is keeping us all young
and healthy longer. Science is allowing for later
child bearing. Sex is more a connection with someone
or a social sport, more than a reason to reproduce.
Orientation is explored as we decide where
we fall in the gay-straight spectrum. Varying degrees
of acceptance to everything is allowing us to
go where our parents never did, unintentionally
breaking their hearts along the way.
For those in this generation who are choosing
our parents’ path to building a nuclear family,
the definition of marriage and gender roles are
evolving as well. Both partners generally earn,
while occasionally the breadwinner is the woman.
Dissatisfaction within a relationship is leading to
affairs or open marriages. Resistance to divorce
has already begun in the form of delayed marriage,
but is further attacked with marital counselling,
sometimes prior to the wedding. Arranged
marriages still exist in the bigger cities, but are
more the exception than the norm. Inter-race, inter-
faith, inter-gender relations are all categories
our generation is diving into without hesitation.
Our parents may not have had a chance to explore
as much as this, but they did find their identities
with pride. I recognise the look in their eyes, the
hope for our happiness. The truth is, this generation
can’t control the fire we’re playing with. Loneliness
is a new concept that the last generation didn’t often
have to deal with. The buffet of infinite choices has
given us too much. But there is truth that comes from
the darkness. We’ve burned our fingers and learned
our lessons, if not continue to do so.
In the years that have passed since that argument
with my mother, I have found my path in the
alchemy of words. Like many of my friends in the
major metros, I know that wife and mother is right
around the corner for me as well. Every generation
walks through a storm. It’s just that our umbrellas
change along the way. ¦
44%
RESPONDENT
S IN AIZAWL
WHO HAVE
CHILDREN
HAVE
TALKED TO
THEM ABOUT
SAFE SEX.
KOTA
FOLLOWS
WITH 29%.
IMAGES BAZAAR
DECEMBER 10, 2012 . INDIA TODAY 45
46 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012 SURVEY 2012 GUESTCOLUMN
In Chandigarh,you
mark your lover.
Doesn’t matter if she
doesn’t love you back.
Bollywood has always romanticised love in
the small town. And I am blessed to have
lived it. I have witnessed and, embarrassingly,
been part of many such love stories,
life-and-death matters every time! In my hometown,
Chandigarh, love is often ‘filmy’, so to speak.
If Mumbai is work-oriented, Chandigarh is entirely
love-oriented. Why else would Punjabi musicians
spend countless man-hours singing praises of Chandigarh’s
women under the influence of love?
The urge to love has much to do with the way
the city is built. The vast parks, the idyllic surroundings,
the hills in the backdrop and the inbuilt feeling
of leisure make it so difficult to stay out of love.
Having lived and loved in a town as well as that
quintessential big city, Mumbai, I can tell the difference.
In the town, there are no sapping distances
to travel, no weekends to limit romantic meetings
to, and no jostling in local trains before a sweatstained
date with one’s love, having cursed about
20 people on the way.
Young men with time, money and love to spare
in my hometown are known to mark strange
women as their own. Nobody else in their group
then has the right to admire the marked woman,
let alone have a crush on her.
They can, of course, remain part of the group
as long as they show enough respect for the
official ‘bhabhi’. It’s deemed of no consequence
if the ‘bhabhi’ herself is romantically inclined
towards some other man!
I have been part of groups of boys all in love with
one girl. I have, like in the movies, got the girl and
been heartbroken too.
I must mention the town’s famous ‘geri route’:
A stretch between sectors 10 and 11 frequented by
young people looking for love. The word geri is
Punjabi slang for a short trip or ride. Traffic on this
stretch consists almost entirely of open-top jeeps
ferrying strapping young men, shiny cars with windows
wound down and helmetless eye candy straddling
atop zippy two-wheelers. Many love stories
are made by whizzing past attractive others on the
route and making eye contact. I can’t imagine such
a thing in a busy big city.
The Panjab University is the other great
nursery of love. That’s where my love with Tahira
Kashyap, my wife, blossomed and, incidentally,
that’s where her parents fell in love with each other.
As much a place of soulful yearning as a seat of
higher learning, the breathtakingly beautiful university
offers matchless avenues at every step to
give away your heart.
One could be forgiven for failing to identify the
women’s hostels on campus, being greeted outside,
in all probability, by more men than the actual
residents. In the main shopping
plaza of Sector 17, however,
one is always greeted by the
heartwarming sight of lovebirds,
young and old, bonding over
softies—yes, those ice creams in
wafer cones. We still get those,
and my favourite remains the
plain vanilla.
But some old world charms
are indeed withering away, with
greater influence exercised by the
media, movies and consumerism.
Much like success, the nature of
love is turning fickle as well. I
hope Chandigarh retains its aura
and keeps us in love with that feeling
of being in love. ¦
MAKING
LOVE OUTOFNOTHING ATALL
WHATMEN WANT
The writer is
an actor and
television anchor.
His debut film was
the sleeper hit,
Vicky Donor.
31% 67%
SMALLTOWN
MEN HAVE
MORE THAN
ONE SEX
PARTNER,AS
COMPARED TO
10% SMALL
TOWN WOMEN.
SMALLTOWN
INDIVIDUALS SAY
THEYCAME TO KNOW
ABOUTSEXWHEN
THEYWERE TEENS,
BETWEEN THE
AGES OF 14 AND 19.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
By Ayushmann Khurrana
DECEMBER 10, 2012 . INDIA TODAY 47
Pleasure for women
has less to do with
anatomy and more
with autonomy
Three weeks ago I stood on a bridge across the
River Tiber in Rome and saw something
amazing in the sky. Starlings—thousands of
them, flying from one side of the riverbank to
the other like a dark tapestry with no discernible pattern
to their choreography. These birds, more fluid
than the best of any Bolshoi ballet troupe, moved
back and forth across the Tiber, taking refuge for a
few seconds in the branches of the sycamore trees
before taking flight again. I watched hypnotised. At
the time I knew nothing about the migratory habits
of starlings, or their motivations for doing what they
do. I only knew that watching them filled me with an
intense sense of pleasure.
I have been thinking about the idea of pleasure
for a very long time. I love the word—pleasure—the
way it rolls off the tongue, implying everything it is
and should be. Pleasure. Not please, or pleasant, or
pleasing—words that fall flat on the ground. Not
happiness either. Pleasure is more than that. It involves
the body—a leaning in, a receiving. Breasts,
fingernails, stomach, neck, thighs, heart. It fills the
body in a way sex can, or food, or a full moon.
Pleasure is both sexual and spiritual.
When I decided to write my first novel, all I knew
was that I wanted it to be about characters who go
on individual quests to pursue their desires. Before I
wrote a single word, I had a title: “The Pleasure
Seekers.” Friends would teasingly ask: How’s the
soft-porn project going? I had to explain my notion
of pleasure wasn’t the same as theirs. I was following
the philosophy of my favourite dead Greek—
Epicurus, for whom pleasure was a virtue, not a sin.
Satisfying one’s desires rather than trying to detach
from them was, in his view, the path to a tranquil life.
The thing I love best about Epicurus compared
to other great dead Greeks was that he allowed
women into his school. He lived 2,500 years ago
and was far more enlightened than many are today.
Do men and women receive pleasure differently?
It’s hard to say. I think it has less to do with anatomy
and more to do with autonomy. A recent TrustLaw
poll ranked India as the fourth most dangerous
place in the world for women to live in after
Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan. Does the average
Indian woman, when she is not being raped,
mutilated, or abused, have the same access to
pleasure as the average Indian man?
Before leaving Rome I went to visit an 86-yearold
friend who is a psychoanalyst—Lucio Della
Seta, whose speciality is the treatment of anxiety.
Lucio told me that most people think the heartbeat
increases because of anxiety, when in truth, it’s the
other way around. We are anxious because our
heartbeat increases. In other words, the body
already knows—receives fear and danger into its
skin, fibre, blood. The brain processes afterwards.
I think it’s exactly the same with pleasure.
Still later, I found out that every winter, millions
of starlings migrate to Rome. The spectacle they
create with their aerial acrobatics is called a murmuration,
which comes from the sound of their
wings rippling through the flock. The physics of
what they do is still unclear. The fact that they never
collide is a miracle. Their coming together though,
has nothing to do with showing off (my original
thought). It has to do with survival. The beating of
their wings keeps them warm, and by moving together
closely they confuse predators like the peregrine
falcon who cannot penetrate the flock. It
makes me wonder about women in India and the
notion of pleasure; whether there’s something we
can do collectively in order to survive, and while
we’re at it, whirl a few feathers in the sky? ¦
37%
WOMEN ACROSS
METROS AND SMALL
TOWNS PREFER
BRAINS TO SEXUAL
ATTRACTION (22%)
IN APARTNER.
THE PLEASURE
OF PURSUIT
WHATWOMEN WANT
The author is a
poet and a writer.
She wrote her
first novel,
The Pleasure
Seekers, in 2010.
By Tishani Doshi
22%
WOMEN ACROSS
INDIAARE
ALWAYS
FULFILLED
AFTER SEX, 27%
ARE SATISFIED
SOMETIMES.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com

48 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
Shekhar Kapur’s The Bandit Queen,
when screened in India for the first time
in 1994, generally received bad press.
One sexual sequence which came in for
special criticism depicted Phoolan Devi
on top of her lover, Vikram Mallah. In a review of
the film, critic and filmmaker Pankaj Butalia remarked
that the representation was unconvincing
because it was unlikely that a “rustic” woman
could have made love in that manner. While the
debate on sexuality has moved on since the controversy
erupted over The Bandit Queen, benefits
of the shift have largely accrued to women of the
urban middle class. Popular perceptions, while
granting a measure of sexual agency to women
from the metro, continue to stereotype women
from small towns as being inhibited or coy about
taking the initiative in sexual activity.
The INDIA TODAY-Nielsen Sex Survey contributes
to the study of heterosexual desire and practices
of Indian women, especially from non-metropolitan
areas. In the process, it counters some of the
stereotypes of Indian women generated over the
last century by colonial perceptions and policies,
but also nationalist narratives of authenticity, and
scholarship on gender in the post-colonial era. No
longer figures of piety whose main job is to affirm
the self-representation of western (or westernised)
women as sexually liberated, women from
the small towns of India here come across as sexual
agents in their own right.
Not much is known about the nature of premarital
relationships in India except that they are
greatly frowned upon. But, as the findings of this
By Ira Raja
SURVEY 2012 GUESTCOLUMN STEREOTYPES
Small town women are anything but the
inhibited, coy types in popular perception.
Their active interest in sex is only masked
by a reluctance to talk about it.
The writer
teaches English at
Delhi University.
85%
SATISFIED
Are you
satisfied
with your
sex life?
*Across metros and
small towns
DESPERATELYSEEKING
SATISFACTION
HAPPYFEAT
DISSATISFIED
6%
Don’t
Know/
Can’t Say
9%

survey suggest, despite the strict supervision
of young women’s sexuality,
relationships are formed, with at least
a percentage of them being sexual.
About 21 per cent of all women in small
towns, for instance, have dated a member
of the opposite sex. The number of metropolitan
women is nearly twice that figure
at 38 per cent.
The gap between metro and small town
diminishes considerably among unmarried
women. Thus 22 per cent of the unmarried
women surveyed in small towns
have dated a member of the opposite sex
compared to 30 per cent in metros. As the
intimacy level increases, the gap declines.
Data on unmarried women who had
kissed a person of the opposite sex and
those who kissed for the first time between
the ages of 16 and 18 shows that women
from non-metros are on a par with their
metro counterparts in pursuing romantic
interaction with the opposite sex.
In fact, when it comes to the age at
which women begin dating, nonmetro
women appear to be ahead
of their metro counterparts: 30 per
cent of all small town women who dated
did so for the first time between the ages of
16 and 18, compared to only 19 per cent of metro
women in the same age group. The picture, however,
shifts when we compare data on married
and unmarried women: The figure for unmarried
women dating for the first time at that age is tied
at 31 per cent for both metro and non-metro. But
the figure for married women in small towns who
dated for the first time between 16 and 18 years
is nearly 33 per cent, as against a mere 13 per cent
in the metros. What do we make of this discrepancy?
One can speculate that small town women
tend to marry early, but are keen to suggest that
they too had ‘dated’, in as much as the custom is
seen as a sign of being modern, and therefore
count going out with their spouse as ‘dating’.
While the phenomenon of premarital relationships
is visible across the spectrum from metro to
non-metro, a monogamous marriage still remains
the accepted frame of reference for sexual activity.
For 80 per cent of the respondents, their first
sexual partner was their husband; 82 per cent
only ever had sex with one person in their lives,
and 90 per cent have never had extramarital sex.
Yet, conventional wisdom about small towns as
being unable to accommodate the possibility of
sexual self-expression for women does not hold up
to the scrutiny of the survey, with a majority of the
women expecting and receiving equal participa-
22%
UNMARRIED
WOMEN
SURVEYED IN
SMALLTOWNS
HAVE DATED A
MEMBER OFTHE
OPPOSITE SEX
COMPARED TO
30%IN METROS.
24%
IN KOTACLAIM
THEYHAD SEX
WITH THE
SAME GENDER.
SATISFACTION
RULES DON’TAPPLY
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
DECEMBER 10, 2012 . INDIA TODAY 49
50 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
SURVEY 2012 GUESTCOLUMN STEREOTYPES
tion from their husbands in sexual
matters and a substantial majority
of 60 per cent claiming to have
an equal say in sexual matters.
Even as expression of sexuality
outside of the frame of marriage
remains slim, the marital bed in
small town India is by no means a
staid space. The survey is remarkable
for its clarity on the significance
attached to sex in the lives
and minds of women in small town
India. Sixty-six per cent considered
sex to be important in their relationships.
Twenty-three per cent speak of having sexual fantasies
and 30 per cent had watched a porn film at
some point. At least half of those who had watched
a porn film saw one at least once every couple of
months. Although most women did not show much
inclination for experimentation in sexual positions,
at least 10 per cent reportedly preferred to be on
top. Incidentally, this figure is the same for women
from the metros.
This active interest in sex and sexuality is only
matched by a reluctance to talk about sex. Up to
76 per cent respondents did not discuss sexual
matters with their family and the number of people
willing to consult a sex therapist, either alone
or with spouse, remains quite low. Friends and TV
emerged as the chief source of information about
sex. Given this hesitation in talking openly about
sex, perhaps it is not surprising that at least 34 per
cent of all respondents in small towns agreed that
porn could play some role in sex education.
Incest and homosexuality emerge as the great
taboos of small town India. While reports of
incest in an abusive setting emerge from time to
time—Pinki Virani’s Bitter Chocolate being a
case in point—there is very little in the survey to
challenge the popular perception of ‘home as
haven’. Homosexuality is another ‘no-go’ area.
While 17 per cent women said they would forgive
their spouse for having an extramarital affair
in order to keep the family together, 63 per
cent of these were willing to forgive a heterosexual
affair but only 14 per cent were willing to forgive
a homosexual affair. In the opinion of 80 per
cent of women bisexuality was not acceptable at
all and 79 per cent rejected homosexuality.
These figures drop slightly for metro women to
67 per cent and 64 per cent respectively.
Generally speaking, in surveys about sexual attitudes
and practices male respondents are found
to inflate the figures to suggest their greater attractiveness
to women. Sometimes higher figures
of dating for men suggest that men have greater
opportunities for sexual play than
women. But data generated in this
survey strongly indicates that men
and women are neither inflating
or underplaying their experience,
and that opportunities are more or
less the same for both. Data on
dating for men and women in
small towns is thus repeatedly
found to be consistent on a range
of issues. Even the break-up of
who was their first sexual partner
matches exactly for non-metro
men and women (5 per cent
friend, 1 per cent casual acquaintance, 8 per cent
boyfriend/girlfriend, 80 per cent spouse, 1 per
cent stranger, 1 per cent colleague).
The clear articulation of women’s sexual expression
as it emerges from this survey conflicts
with received images of Indian women as either
pious and chaste or erotic and fearsome. But the
image of small town women, as thrown up by this
survey, points to an infinitely complex picture
that resists such polarisation. If total figures appear
to invite easy generalisations, these are
quickly contested by the detail that follows.
The survey is significant for an additional reason:
Although sexuality studies in India have
steadily gained legitimacy in the last two decades,
as social anthropologist Manuela Ciotti notes,
knowledge about lived heterosexual practices,
especially in non-metropolitan areas, has been
limited. The necessary critique of ‘compulsory
heterosexuality’ has sometimes confused heterosexual
norms for heterosexual practices, while
neglecting the kinds of critical, comic or otherwise
confronting perspectives which practising
heterosexuals may bring to normative heterosexuality.
That this survey opens the door on a whole
new area of possible enquiry must surely count
as its chief achievement. ¦
31%
UNMARRIED
WOMEN IN
BOTH SMALL
TOWNS AND
METROS DATED
FOR THE FIRST
TIME BETWEEN
THE AGES OF
16 AND 18.
80%
SMALLTOWN WOMEN
SAYBISEXUALITYIS NOT
ACCEPTABLE ATALL.
THE FIGURE DROPS
SLIGHTLYFOR METRO
WOMEN TO 67%.
EARLYBIRDS
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
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52 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012 SURVEY 2012 TEN YEARS OFSEXSURVEY
ADECADE OF
2003
The Sex Report
87%RESPONDENTS SAYTHEY
NEVER HAD KINKYSEX,WHILE 75% SAY
THEYHAVE NEVER MASTURBATED.
2004
What Men
Want
Most men say theywant
sex with coy, virginal,
beautiful, sari-clad women who
should then become their wives.
And once wedded, these women
should neither fantasise in bed,
nor ask for oral sex or deny sex
to their husbands.”
—Shefalee Vasudev, author
72%MEN EXPECTTHE
WOMAN THEYMARRYTO BE A
VIRGIN,AND 40% MEN DON’TWANT
TO USE CONDOMS BECAUSE THEY
FEELITAFFECTS PLEASURE.
MAPPING INDIA’S JOURNEY FROM RETICENCE TO EXUBERANCE
Sexually bold movies
are doing well.Yet there
is a mass obsession for
a virgin bride.”
—Prasoon Joshi, advertising guru
India’s first
ever,comprehensive,
allfemale
survey
looked at what
the Indian
woman wants.
It involved
interviews with
2,305 women
across 10 cities.
To understand the sexuality
of the urban Indian
unmarried woman,the
survey was conducted
among 2,035 single
women across 11 cities.
Over a quarter had no inhibitions
in admitting they
had their first sexual
experience by 18.
Actor Kushboo’s comment
in a column in the Tamil
edition of INDIATODAY dated
September 28,2005 that
“no educated man would
expect his wife to be a
virgin”drew a tsunami of
protests besides
defamation suits.On April
28,2010, the Supreme
Court finally dismissed all
22 cases registered
against her.
The survey of 2,499 married and
unmarried men between the ages
of 18 and 55 was conducted across
11 cities.For 89 per cent of them,
sex was important. Fifty-four per
cent had not had sex before marriage
and fortunately for women,a
majority of men were sensitive to
their partners’fulfilment.
54%WOMEN IN
KOLKATABELIEVE THAT
LOVE IS NOTNECESSARY
FOR SEX,WHILE 33%,
WHICH IS THE HIGHESTIN
THE COUNTRY,SAYTHEY
HAVE TRIED SWAPPING
BOYFRIENDS.
DESIRE
The modern
woman’s sexuality is
nowalmost completely
released
from Victorian prudery
that dogged the
post-Independence
generation.”
—Prasad Bidapa, image
and fashion consultant
2005 Sex and the Single Woman
DECEMBER 10, 2012 . INDIA TODAY 53
2010
Women Want More
Most people would cheat if they
could get away with it and I think they
do cheat even when the risk of being
caught looms large.”
—Pooja Bhatt, filmmaker
“There’s nothing wrong in
fantasising. It’s the action that makes
the difference.”
—Hussain Kuwajerwala, TV anchor
Awoman’s sexuality is
much more complex than a
man’s.The brain is the crucial
sexual organ in a woman.”—Shelja Sen, clinical psychologist
57%
OFTHE RESPONDENTS
PREFER
THE MISSIONARY
POSITION,WHILE
16% PREFER TO
HAVE THE WOMAN
ON TOP.FOR ALMOST40%
OF
MARRIED WOMEN,
THEIR PARTNER’S
PLEASURE IS
MORE IMPORTANT
THAN THEIR OWN.
13%MEN AND 4% WOMEN SAY
THEIR FIRSTSEXUALENCOUNTER WAS WITH A
NEIGHBOUR.20% ADULTEROUS COUPLES
HAVE TRIED SWAPPING PARTNERS.
81%WOMEN COMPARED TO 68% MEN
REPORTTHATTHEIR PARTNERS ARE COMFORTABLE
ABOUTLISTENING TO THEIR FANTASIES.MOST
ASSERTTHATTHEIR PARTNERS ARE QUITE
UNDERSTANDING WHEN THEYREVEALTHEIR
FANTASIES TO THEM.
20%
RESPONDENTS
FEELREPEATED
SEXWITH THE
SAME PERSON IS
AMAJOR
TURN-OFF.
2009
The
Fantasy
Report
2007
Sex and Marriage
2011 Bold and Bored
Boredom has set in because of endless distraction.”
—Dr Aniruddha Deb,Kolkata-based psychiatrist
44%
OFWOMEN SAY
THEYWOULD
TALK ITOUTIF
THEYFOUND
THEIR PARTNER
HAD BEEN UNFAITHFUL;
22%
WOULD TELL
HIM THEYHAD
THE RIGHTTO
DO THE SAME.
The survey on urban marriages involving 2,563
couples across 11 cities focused on sex in a
marriage—are men seeking thrills outside their
marital bed,is sex a chore for women?
The survey conducted on 5,353 respondents
across 11 cities was carried out to understand
the different facets of sexuality of single
and married people.Underage sex,sex
with prostitutes,kinky sex,adultery,incest
sex,homosexuality,fantasies,favourite positions,
attitudes towards role-playing and
other sexual activities—nothing was taboo.
The survey, involving 5,369 respondents
across 11 cities,was carried out to
understand perceptions of sex among
women and their expectations from it.
The survey of 5,365 respondents across
11 cities focused on the changing norms
of marriage, family matters, sexual games
and the contrast between private practices
and attitudes in public. It turns out that all is
not well on either side of the bed in a typical
middle class home.
2008 Sexy Secrets
There are teeming hordes
of dildos and vibrators arranged
on the ground near Flora
Fountain
in Mumbai,
pointing to the
sky, sold under
the lovely epithet
‘massage toys’.”
—Samit Basu, author
42%MEN IN DELHI DO NOT
EXPECTTHE GIRLS THEYMARRYTO
BE VIRGINS.
The survey was done to understand the
sexuality of the Indian men. It was conducted
among 2,559 men in the age
group of 16-25 to delve deeper into the
sexuality of the unmarried man that
shows they are less confident and more
confused about sex, surprising in today’s
social and economic environment.
2006 Single Young Men
Secret Desires
The young
man is still not
a man in full,
unable to
resolve his
sexual identity.
Placidly confused today, he
looks headed for moral
dilemmas tomorrow.”
—Shiv Visvanathan,
sociologist
The main emphasis
was on sexual fantasies
and desires.
The survey was
conducted among
5,371 respondents
across 11 cities.

Male sexuality, and male attitudes
towards female
sexuality, have a great
deal to tell us about social
norms. It is interesting,
therefore, that while 66 per cent of
young unmarried men INDIA TODAY surveyed
in 2005 reported that they would
not marry a woman who admitted to
premarital sex, this percentage had
risen to 74 during the 2006 survey. And,
the percentage of those who had said
‘yes’ to the same question fell for the
above period. Unmarried men in the
same age group also expressed significant
change of opinion when asked
whether they believed in equal pleasure
for men and women in bed. The percentage
of those who had said ‘yes’ to
the question declined from 83 in 2005
to 67 in 2006. This shows that ‘sexual
equality’ continues to be an anxious
ground of negotiations between the
genders. It would appear that through
the last decade, young men have aspired
to partner with independent
young women, but also felt deeply ambivalent
about this independence. It is
therefore not surprising that in the 2012
survey, when asked about the qualities
they looked for in potential dating partners,
young men ranked ‘affection’ significantly
above ‘independence’.
The period over which INDIA TODAY
has carried out the surveys has also coincided
with significant public debate
about the great unspoken reality of
Indian life: Homosexuality. Colonial era
laws have helped to produce the fiction
of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ Indian sexuality.
However, this fiction has not
been sustained in the responses given
by men. So, between 2005 and 2006,
the numbers of young unmarried men
who indicated that they had never had
a homosexual experience declined
sharply from 79 per cent to 57 per cent.
This may explain the relatively liberal
attitude towards same-sex experiences
by unmarried young men. While the
percentage of married men who admitted
to homosexual experiences between
2004 and 2007 declined, the
percentage of those who said that they
talked about it with their spouses more
than doubled. Given the significant evidence
of married men’s homosexual
activities, this might suggest both an
embarrassment about their unmarried
past as well as the changing nature of
married life where it is ‘okay’ to talk
about such things. The fraught nature
54 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012
By Sanjay Srivastava
SURVEY 2012 TEN YEARS OFSEXSURVEY VIEWFROM MARS
Young men want
independent young
women,but they also feel
deeply ambivalent about
this independence
THE FEAR OF
FREEDOM
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com

of attitudes towards homosexuality is
further revealed in the 2012 survey.
While a significant number of men
said they would forgive their spouse
for an extramarital affair, there
was an overwhelmingly negative response
if the affair in question was to
be a homosexual one.
What emerges from data across
the years is that more and more men
have their first sexual experience at a
younger age. In 2005, 32 per cent of
unmarried men who took part in the
survey reported that their first sexual
experience was between the ages of
15-18, whereas in 2006 this percentage
rose to 52 per cent. This, of
course, reflects a changing youth culture
and greater opportunities for
young people to experiment sexually.
But with the results suggesting that an
increasing number of men would
think twice before agreeing to marry
an ‘experienced’ woman, perhaps
young women continue to bear the
burden of being ‘pure’.
Over the past decade, men continue
to subscribe to some sexual
taboos while others have weakened.
There is consistency of responses with
respect to questions regarding sexual
relations with a family member, with
an overwhelming majority responding
in the negative. On the other hand, the
percentage of young men who admitted
to having taken part in group sex
increased over the years.
There is one aspect that appears
to have remained constant across the
changing sexual landscape: The
value placed on maintaining a stable
relationship. So, while extramarital
affairs are common, the percentage
of men admitting to them in the INDIA
TODAY Sex Surveys over the past
decade does not reflect this. Indeed,
in the 2012 survey, ‘spouse’ ranked
highest as the ‘ideal sex partner’.
Perhaps men realise that negotiating
the sexual landscape is a fraught activity
and what is pleasurable in the
short term may not be so in future.
What is true of life in general is no less
true of sexual culture.
Sanjay Srivastava is a professor of sociology
at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
What is
your favourite
position while
having sex?
YOUNG,
UNMARRIED MEN
INDICATED IN
2006 THATTHEY
HAVE NEVER HAD
AHOMOSEXUAL
EXPERIENCE,A
SHARP CONTRAST
TO 2005 WHEN
79 PER CENT
ADMITTED NOT
HAVING SUCH AN
EXPERIENCE.
2005
MEN (18-30 years)
2006
MEN (16-25 years)
2012
MEN (15-50 years)
MAN’S WORLD
57%
37
MAN ON TOP
WOMAN ON TOP
28
41
35
13
28
56 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 10, 2012 SURVEY 2012
The INDIA TODAY annual sex surveys
have for years charted
the astonishing trajectory of
India’s sexual life. Each year’s
findings throw up an array of
interesting facts and figures. None of
these, however, is as startling as the
number of women who are now
comfortable with the idea of speaking
up when asked about their most
intimate wants and desires. For far too
long this wasn’t the case.
Way back in 2003, when INDIA TODAY
conducted the country’s first comprehensive
survey on sex, the aim was to
understand the average Indian
female’s sexual preferences. While the
survey showed the first stirrings of
independence, there were revealing
inconsistencies which only indicated
the conflict within the modern Indian
woman. Thankfully, the 2004 survey,
which focused on the sexual desires
of Indian men, showed that they
were equally conservative and confused,
with all claiming to want shy,
beautiful virgins.
The big change in attitude came
during the 2005 survey. One in every
four unmarried urban Indian women
seemed to have had sex. More than
that, there was less hypocrisy about sex
as several women admitted they were
now making significant demands in
their relationships.
The years 2006, 2007, 2008 rolled
on with countless eyebrows (and tempers)
raised with each new revelation.
By Sharla Bazliel
14%
WOMEN ACROSS SMALL
TOWNS AND METROS
FANTASISE ABOUTHAVING
SEXWITH TWO PARTNERS
SIMULTANEOUSLY.
TEN YEARS OFSEXSURVEY VIEWFROM VENUS
Women have learnt
to speak up for their
desires, but they need
to crank up the volume
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
SHATTERING
THE
SILENCE
DECEMBER 10, 2012 . INDIA TODAY 57
Women emerged as big viewers of virtual
porn in 2006. By 2010 it seemed
that the Indian woman had turned a
corner. Talking about sex was no longer
considered pornographic but was instead,
as the survey revealed, an act of
female affirmation. The 2011 survey,
which focused on sex in the family,
showed that all was not well on either
side of the bed in middle class homes.
Boredom reigned supreme with 49 per
cent of wives saying no to sex by faking
a headache and 33 per cent admitting
that sex became a snorefest after a few
years of marriage.
And yet, reading between the lines
of data collected over the last decade, it
is clear a lacuna remains. When asked
for their opinion, a significant number
of female respondents chose not to answer
or sought refuge in the ambivalence
of the ‘don’t-know/ won’t say’
column (in 2005 over 18 per cent of
women said they had no view on
extramarital sex at all). This silence
tells a larger story about the countless
women who remain out of touch
with themselves and their desires
or are more concerned with propriety
than honesty.
The fact that credible depictions
and descriptions of desire in Indian
films and literature, those trusty
cultural mirrors, are few and far
between speaks volumes as well.
Besides a one-off The Dirty Picture,
most female actors in Bollywood still
remain ciphers reduced to choosing
between playing the de-sexualised
wife/girlfriend or cunning vixen on-themake.
Over in IWE (Indian’s Writing in
English) territory, the situation is pretty
much the same. An avalanche of selfconscious
schoolgirl writing hits
bookstores in the form of chick-lit every
month but it would be interesting for
publishers (and readers) to ask why no
female Indian writer has produced
anything on a par with The Second Sex,
The Golden Notebook or The Beauty
Myth, or even The Vagina Monologues
as yet. Don’t know? Won’t say?
Perhaps some intrepid sociologist
will one day find a link between this
baffling silence and the slow death of
feminism on the subcontinent. What
was once a vibrant community of
activists has today been reduced to an
eccentric side-show, dismissed by most
as little more than an amusing sorority
populated mainly by women who wear
way too much kajal and look like they
cut their own hair. But what has gone
ignored is that for decades, feminist
activism provided countless women
with a sense of community, inspiration
and a booster shot of self-esteem. In
short, they were told their views
mattered and were encouraged to
speak up and be heard, consequences
be damned, no matter what the
situation—making a public speech,
standing up to an aggressor or simply
filling out a sex survey.
In The Fountainhead, author Ayn
Rand, herself no slouch in the department
of desire or activism, writes: To
say I love you, one must first know how
to say the I. As more and more women
join the workforce and gain economic
independence or choose to stay at
home and raise children, they are
slowly realising the necessity of creating
their own identities. The importance
of a healthy ego isn’t liberal
claptrap but fundamental in allowing
women to choose candour over coy
hypocrisy, in all aspects of their lives
from the profound to the mundane.
This will ensure that in the future, instead
of confused ambivalence or
uncomfortable silences, they will be
able to answer with a clear yes or a no
and say once-difficult words like
I want, I know, I think, I feel. I hope. ¦
Your Sexual Quotient
Are you the next sexual goddess or do you shy
away from the bedroom? One’s sexual quotient
indicates how willing one is to embrace
sexuality.Take this fun quiz to find out how
sexually-oriented your actions and decisions
really are, at www.indiatoday.in/sq
www.indiatoday.in/ss-covers
Take a sneek peek of the best INDIA TODAY
Sex Survey pictures at
www.indiatoday.in/ss-pics
Trace the Sex Survey findings from 2003 to
2011.Read selected extracts of the survey
at www.indiatoday.in/ss-extracts
For more on the 2012 Sex Survey
and the earlier ones,go to
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey
For previous
INDIA TODAY
Sex Survey
covers,go to
PLEASURE POINT
What is your favourite
position while having sex?
2003
WOMEN (19-50 years)
2007
WOMEN (21-50 years)
2012
WOMEN (15-50 years)
MAN ON TOP WOMAN ON TOP
53
60
59
12
10
12

On November 29, all roads in
Delhi led to the Blue Frog
club in Mehrauli. Touching
distance from Qutab Minar,
pretty people sipped cocktails,
slipped into gowns, revealed
sculpted backs, and spoke about sex.
INDIA TODAY celebrated its 10th annual
sex survey edition with Sexposition
2012, an event to remember. Neither
the November rain nor Delhi’s traffic
jams dampened the spirits of the
many present on the occasion; they
were all clearly excited to be part of an
unusual cultural evening, where sex
was discussed in fact and fiction.
Writer Shobhaa De sizzled. The
question she was asked was if success
bred infidelity. While she wasn’t supporting
the act of going astray, she
thought the social whirl and the corridors
of power were designed for the
male species. “One never hears anything
about the sexual peccadilloes of
powerful women,” she said. “That is
because as a woman you are made to
fit the demands of society. Whereas
if you are Bill Clinton, Dominique
Strauss-Kahn or Tiger Woods, women
come with the field,” she said. Men
could afford to stray. Women couldn’t.
De, who wore a blue James
Ferreira gown borrowed from daughter
Arundhati’s wardrobe, schmoozed
with Koel Purie Rinchet on a
red, velvet bed. If Koel drooled over
De’s 64-year-old sexiness, the latter
at one point egged Koel to do a little
jig. The expressions of mutual admiration
were greeted by the charged
crowd with whistles and catcalls.
This was Delhi at its naughtiest best.
Though De was candid, she baulked
62 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 17, 2012 SURVEY 2012 SEXPOSITION 2012
INDIATODAYCELEBRATED ITS
TENTH ANNUALSEXSURVEY
WITH ASTAR-SPANGLED
EVENTTHATMIXED INTIMACY
WITH EROTICISM,COMEDY
WITH CANDOUR
THE
PRATTLE
OFTHE
SEXES By Rahul Jayaram

64 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 17, 2012
but at the end of the day it serves
to keep people at a distance. The real
Bipasha? Well, she is nothing but a
bookworm, she said.
Michelin star chef Vikas Khanna
found himself in a bind when the
Italian cultural attaché began to
pester him about which cuisine he
found to be the most erotic. Khanna
masterfully alluded to his time in
Italy and the warmth that he shared
with rustic Italian matriarchs. “In
the kitchen of an Italian mother
everything is measured in handfuls.
She judges how much to add depending
on how much she loves the family
that she’s serving.”
Comedienne Aditi Mittal pressed
for more openness on the topic of sex
and felt that “laughter was the best
aphrodisiac”. “There is no need to be
silent about sex. It’s just another
topic; we should be able to laugh and
discuss it freely,” she said.
Dressed in a light blue sari and
sporting a pair of geeky glasses,
Mittal had the crowd in splits with her
‘sex doctor’ act, which was called
‘The Comic Position’. It might have
been the last event of the night but
she still managed to keep the energy
levels high. Her 15-minute routine involved
tips for young virgins, foreplay
jokes and oral sex ‘advice’.
Mittal brought out the lighthearted
side of sex with her knowledge
of the latest sex fads, terms and
trends. She unabashingly cracked
one joke after another on ‘squishy
balls’, ‘draining lizards’ and ‘rolling
skin cigarettes’.
It was an evening of talking about
sex till it did people apart. Yet, passion
and commitment beat casual
action and serial philandering.
with bureau inputs
SURVEY 2012 SEXPOSITION 2012
(CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE) RANDEEP
HOODA,MAANANDASARITA,MODERATOR
NANDINI BHALLA; SHOBHAADE;
THE AUDIENCE ENCOURAGES THE SPEAKERS
PILLOWTALK
BACK TO ROOTS
Self-ordained “tantric sex guru”
Mahasatvaa Ma Ananda Sarita, who
claims to have a “direct transmission”
with Osho, raised a few eyebrows
when she said her ecstasy was to
“bring tantra back to India”.
WRITERS’BLOC
Shobhaa De found
a fan in fellow
writer Madhuri
Banerjee (in pic).
The two discussed
love, life,writing,
and to Banerjee’s
delight, even
clicked photographs
together
on her cellphone.
GRIN AND BEER IT
Carlsberg beer
sure has a serious
fan. Randeep
Hooda would
not part with
his bottle even
when he was
called on stage
for his session
on Scoring in
the Big City.
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SE COVER STORY SEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY 48%
The Great Indian Family secret is out:
33% wives admit that sex becomes
boring after a few years of marriage.
Husbands, are you listening?
‘We’re happy with life. Err…may be not
so much between the sheets.’ Just 27%
couples are ‘very satisfied’ with their sex
life, 36% are on top of the world otherwise.
of husbands say their ideal bed mate They fake a headache with their
spouse, but try out sex with people
they don’t know too well.Enter urban
India’s new world of marital bliss.
Responses regarding sexual experience are from 4,005 of 5,365 respondents who have had sex.
In the
Boredroom

“Is this all there is to marriage?”she
asked her married friends. Yes, they
confessed in the privacy of friendship:
“Sex is highly over-rated in marriage.”
In 2003, when the first INDIA TODAY
sex survey asked women, “Are you
bored with sex in marriage?” the
answer was a resounding “no”. For
the last eight years, men and women
painted a canvas of sparkling
sex on our pages. They opened up
their erotic lives, their sensual needs
and imaginings. But boredom lay
buried, unspoken. Were they afraid
to ask the silent question: “Is this
all there is to marriage?”
The ninth INDIA TODAY survey has
focused on the family. And the bedroom
whispers do not seem to be softened
by romance or sweetened by
embrace. Over 48 per cent husbands
confess: “My ideal bed mate is not my
wife”. About 33 per cent wives admit:
“Sex becomes unimportant after a
few years of marriage”. Nearly 14 per
cent men and women don’tknow/
can’t-say what turns them on in
the bedroom while 13 per cent have no
clue if they are “fulfilled” after sex.
Sixty-five per cent fantasise about different
sexual positions, yet over half
the couples questioned don’t try anything
but ‘man on top’.
Yet deep “satisfaction with life” is
at an all-time high, zooming from
25 per cent last year to 36 per cent
now. Job satisfaction has gone up
from 33 to 42 per cent. On health, finances,
family, emotional or social life,
Indians strike a happy note. It’s just
sex that’s the big pitfall. Sexual satisfaction
has dipped to 27 per cent for
the first time in eight years of the INDIA
TODAY survey series.
“It’s the boredom of endless distraction,”
says Dr Aniruddha Deb, Kolkatabased
psychiatrist. On the one hand,
there’s the relentless pursuit of fatter
paychecks, fancier cars or the next big
promotion that make people work
around the clock. On the other hand,
there’s the 24x7 intrusion of cable TV,
Internet, BlackBerrys and social
media. “It’s emotional absenteeism,
44 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
Do erotic thoughts whet
your sexual appetite?
BIGGESTTURN-ON
BIGGESTTURN-OFF
65% couples fantasise about
experimenting with sexual
positions.Yet over half of
them don’t bother to try out
anything but man on top.
Women hate being stared
at, even in the bedroom.
While 19% husbands find
‘looking at body parts’ a
turn on, a mere 9% of
wives is similarly excited.
Lies, damn lies and
statistics? 73% women
claim to have been
virgins at the time of
marriage. Ask their
husbands and just 48%
think so. Who’s right,
wives or husbands?
9% couples take pains to mention that disagreeable body odour is 51%
29%
Kissing &
Massage
Lack of
Interest
Asignificant 14% of couples say
‘Don’t know, can’t say’ to what
turns them on in the bedroom.
Models: NATASHA AND TANYA, Courtesy SARA MODEL MANAGEMENT; SIDHANT AND ALI, Courtesy PURPLE MODEL MANAGEMENT; Styling by SHAMALI SINGH; Lingerie by KUNCHALS; Hair and Make-up by PUNAM&AHMED AT VIDYA TIKARI STUDIO; For the Lehenga Shot: Choli 
METHODOLOGY
the biggest bedroom peeve. 25% are in Delhi.
INDIA TODAY, in association with
The Nielsen Company, conducted
an opinion poll on 5,365
respondents (2,680 males,
2,685 females) across 11 cities
to understand changing sexual
behaviour in the family.The survey
focused on changing norms
of marriage, family matters, sexual
games and the contrast between
private practices and
attitudes in public.
Street corner sampling
was used to find eligible respondents.
The study was divided
into two phases. In the first
phase, recruitment interviews
were done where respondents
were asked some basic questions,
mainly regarding their
demographics and their consent
was sought for participating
in the survey anonymously
(by promising that their identity
will be protected).
This was followed by the
second phase in which they
were asked to complete a selfadministered
questionnaire.The
cities covered in the survey were
Delhi,Mumbai,Ahmedabad
Chennai,Kolkata,Hyderabad,
Bangalore,Patna,Lucknow,
Jaipur and Ludhiana.
The target group consisted
of single and married respondents
in the age group 18-60
belonging to SEC A, B and C.
The total size of the sample was
was 5,365 with 2,680 males
and 2,685 females.
While women were invited
to a central location, street
corner interviews were done for
men.These respondents were
asked to complete a self-administered
questionnaire, which was
put in a ballot box to ensure
anonymity.Questionnaires
where more than 15%-20%
questions were not answered
were treated as invalid.
by ROZELLE; Lehenga by MANDIRA WIRK; Jewellery and Accesories by BG’S
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
46 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
mostly among men, that’s at the root of
urban India’s bedroom secret.”
This secret is a lifestyle of sexual
deviance and transgression: from fantasies
about women other than their
wives, voyeuristic and paid sex, extramarital
affairs, addiction to pornography,
wife swapping, incest to child
abuse. Boredom in men seems to be
cascading up the dangerous trajectory
of detached sex. Who cares for intimacy,
romance and love?
About 48 per cent men crave sex
with film stars rather than with
friends, neighbours, colleagues, relatives
or strangers (more than half of
the women weave fantasies around
their husbands.) If in 2004, 7 per cent
men owned up to wife-swapping, this
year more than double have expressed
their willingness to try it out (82 per
cent wives raised objection).
“People are experimenting with
their love lives like never before,” says
Dr Bir Singh, professor of Community
Medicine at the All India Institute of
Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Singh started
the sex counselling facility in 2002 and
is witness to an “astounding level of
marital discord and sexual disharmony”
among urban couples. “We also
get a significant number of queries
from married men, who are into multiple
relationships or are bisexual.”
Boredom can be damaging if left
unattended: he was bored and took to
watching porn for a thrill (like 50 per
cent of male respondents in the survey).
And just like 44 per cent men, he
watched porn alone. He would sneak
off to the bathroom in the middle of the
night with his lap top and watch. The
problem started when his wife discovered.
He promised to stop but couldn’t.
The marital crisis worsened as his
SE COVER STORYSURVEY
Who’s the sexiest
of them all? 56% wives desire their husbands the
most.Husband-worship reaches
its peak at age 50 and it’s
mostly among homemakers.
Film Stars
Politicians
In contrast, 48% men
crave sex with film stars.
Friends, colleagues and
even strangers are a
close second.
Undressing partners was a turn on for 16%women in 2003. It’s 7%now.
The prime objects of desire in
Chennai,Hyderabad and
Ahmedabad are film stars.
INDIA’S MOSTDESIRABLE
INDIA’S LEASTDESIRABLE
15%
1%
SEXAND THE FAMILY
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
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48 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
NRISINHA PRASAD BHADURI The author is a leading Sanskrit scholar and a bestselling writer
India is where the Kama Sutra
was created. To me, it is no less
relevant than the Vedas. The politics
and practice of sexuality in
India have always been perceived
through the prism of totality. Its manifestation
in literature has always
been richly textured, refined and
aesthetic. The hallmark of the epic
age was its entrenchment in cosmic
truths. The Kama Sutra, despite
its graphic sexuality, goes beyond
the rules of pleasure and into the
realm of spirituality.
In Indian epics, sex is a primordial
force—the source of all life. And
typically the epics integrate sexuality
and pleasure into the everyday life of
men and women. Even great sages
like Vashishth and Viswamitra, who
fell prey to the seductive charms of
the heavenly nymphs, apsaras, have
never been chastised by the poets for
not being able to restrain themselves.
Lopamudra, the great philosopher
and wife of sage Agastya, engages in
an exquisite dialogue with her
husband in the Rig Veda. She pleads
for sex, narrating the pressures of
passion unfulfilled.
Ahalya of Ramayana, a woman of
irresistible charm and character,
craves union with her husband, the
great sage Gautama. As she narrates
her desire, the epic transcends sexuality
and enters the realm of eroticism.
It is like the “double flame” of
Octavio Paz. In his Double Flame:
Love and Eroticism (La llama doble,
Amor y erotismo) the Mexican
thinker compares eroticism to the
red flame, above which quivers the
blue flame of love—both a notch
above the primordial fire of sex.
When Indra, the king of gods, comes
to Ahalya disguised as Gautama, she
sees through it all and yet makes a
conscious decision to engage with
him. The epic calls her, “debaraja kutuhala”,
one keen to experience erotic
bliss with the king of Gods.
But the epic poets never
expressly describe visceral sex or
put it above eroticism. Over centuries,
that philosophy of love and
sex has come to influence modern
Indian poets and their poetry.
Oriental poets, including Rabindranath
Tagore, have not traded off
aesthetics with cheap titillation or
crass sexuality. That portrayal of
sexuality marks out the poetic
sensibilities of the West and the East.
Just as every book needs a cover,
sexuality in Indian epics have
aesthetics as the armour.
Kunti, in Mahabharata, is a
queen whose husband Pandu is impeded
by a curse to practice sex. She
gets all her sons from different
Gods—an act permitted by the society
of the time. Pandu himself sactions
the unions and oversees the
acts. One might call this extreme
sexual perversion, where Pandu
gets voyeuristic pleasure by watching
his wife and her lovers. But in
the epic, the practical considerations
of ensuring a lineage and
quenching a woman’s thirst for
motherhood, come first. Sexuality is
the means by which the matrix of
passion of a nubile queen (rupajoubona
somponne) merges with the
desire for motherhood (putrakamecha).
The epics are replete with
instances of women taking sexual
initiative, a core issue of feminism.
The great Mahabharata character,
Bhishma, on the contrary, refuses
to get married. A protest
against the crass sexuality of his
father Santanu. Along with niyojan,
or delegation of fatherhood to another
man, there is the apparent
conservatism of Bhishma. Only in
the epics do we have this fascinating
dialectic of opposites.
One of the most striking portrayals
in the Mahabharata is that of the
heroine, Draupadi, wedded to all the
five Pandava brothers. When the
Kauravas plot a split in the Pandava
camp by belittling them for sharing
a single wife, Karna, the great warrior,
says it’s impossible: “It is natural
that a woman, who would get the
best of all the worlds from five able
men, would never leave them.”
Why did Draupadi really agree
to her mother-in-law Kunti’s inadvertent
proposal of accepting five
husbands? Classical scholars have
obsessed over Draupadi’s character
for long. What stands undisputed is
that, through her relationships with
her five husbands, she emerged as a
“complete” woman.
Social conditioning over generations
has made Indians accept that
women are exclusivists while men
look for sexual variety. The epics do
not tell that story.
as told to Partha Dasgupta
Sex is primal and creative yet aesthetic and refined.Epics spin a dialectic of opposites.
Love in the Time of Epics
Great sages who fell
prey to the seductive
charms of apsaras
have never been
chastised by epic poets
for not being able to
restrain themselves.
Indians routinely try out 5 love positions. Americans indulge GUEST COLUMN 
libido dipped. A sex therapist set him
right, but not the cracks in the fiveyear-
old marriage. She never forgave
him: “Why did he need to do it behind
my back when I was there for him?”
Cracks in modern marriages
are widening. The men in the survey
like to blame it on the rising presence
of working women in the public
sphere that, they believe, has increased
access to sexual opportunities.
There could be some truth in it:
the survey shows emergency contraceptive
pills are being popped by
sexually active single women much
more than married women—almost
three times more. Almost twice as
many single women are opting for
abortion of unwanted pregnancies
compared to married women.
“Women’s liberation has slowly but
surely changed the context and sub-
20% Indian couples make love more
than once a week. Asignificant
drop from the 2004 INDIA TODAY
survey that recorded 37%.Daily
sex has dipped from 20%in 2004
to 10%.Those who say ‘never’is up
from 2%to 7%. Anew category of
14% say ‘don’t know’this year.
How often do you make love?
in a spicier eroticism of 41 combinations.
Greeks 87%
Brazilians 82%
French 70%
British 55%
Americans 53%
* Source: Journal of Sex Research; National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, US, 2010;
Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey 2007-2010; India Today Sex Survey from 2003-2010.
In the global sexual
frequency sweepstakes,
the average is once every
3.5 days. The top scorers:*
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
50 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
stance of men’s lives,” points out psychoanalyst
Sudhir Kakar.
But are men rising to the challenge?
The inherent contradictions of
the old-fashioned buttoned-up sexual
mores and conventional marriages
continue to exist: the respondents don’t
seem to question why women are still
expected to retain their virginity till
marriage, don’t consider sex to be as
important as men, feel ‘less fulfilled’
after sex than men, have ‘less say in
sexual matters’. And why, for that matter,
do three-fourths of parents refuse
to talk about sex with their children?
The sense and sensibility of Indian
conjugality are going up for re-negotiation.
Boredom is a critical alarm signal.
Now’s the moment to step back
and question the status quo. ¦
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
Do you usually feel
fulfilled after sex?
women are ambivalent
about sexual satisfaction.
If 39% say they are ‘always
satisfied’, a close 31%say
‘sometimes’.
Smaller towns
seem to be more
happy sexually.
74% in Jaipur,
57% in Ludhiana
and 52% in
Ahmedabad
claim to be
fulfilled ‘always’.
Delhi is the most
dissatisfied city,
with 12% of
couples saying
they are “never
fulfilled” after sex.
Unhappiness
peaks in the
35-40 age group.
12%
14%
MEN
WOMEN
“Don’t know,
can’t say if I am
usually fulfilled”
46%
48%
men
are ‘always
fulfilled’ after
sex. Half that
number says
‘sometimes’.
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey
FOR DETAILED RESULTS
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
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Who cares for love, romance and
intimacy? Detaching sex from emotion
is the flavour of the moment. 30% men
are fine with it, 66% women are not.
Sexual hypocrisy is the name of the game.
54% married men say one should be a
virgin at the time of marriage, but 42%
of them were not on the wedding night.
55%
of more women in the workplace, 46% believe it is because of easy access to sex without strings.
Responses regarding sexual experience are from 4,005 of 5,365 respondents who have had sex.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com men say there’s more infidelity because 
Sex. It does not happen in India.
The country that gave the
world Kama Sutra. The country
that put erotica on the temple
walls of Khajuraho and Konarak.
Today, India has 1.21 billion people, the
fastest growing population in the
world. And yet sex is taboo.
Nearly five years ago, on a cold
January morning, I called up my aunt
to tell her I was quitting my ad agency
job and joining the BBC World Service
Trust, BBC’s international development
communication arm. She was delighted.
“Your father would’ve been so
happy! And what would you be doing?”
she asked. “I’ll be working on condoms.”
“What?” the phone line sizzled
with shock and disapproval. How on
earth would she field friends and relatives
enquiring about my altered professional
status. How was my poor
mother taking it? And I knew this was
precisely what one had to tackle
through the condom normalisation
campaign that the trust was about to
do over the next couple of years.
As the campaign unfolded, one encountered
changing attitudes. For me
the epiphany was a meeting with another
woman, very different from my
aunt in every respect. She came from
Satara, a small town in Maharashtra.
She was one of the winners of our condom
‘riddle’ contest—she had figured
out the contest ‘riddle’, the answer to
which happened to be the word ‘condom’.
She had travelled all the way to
Mumbai with her husband for the
prize-giving ceremony. She clutched
her prize, a fancy mobile phone, and
gave me a shy smile. I asked, “Would
you tell everyone how you got it?” Her
smile widened, “You bet. After all, condom
is just another word.”
Two women, as different as chalk
and cheese. Two opinions, as black
and white as they come. But the reader
will discover a million shades in
between, when it comes to matters related
to sex. Having done some work
on these issues in the past few years,
one has had to study attitudes, deconstruct
behaviour and mine for insights.
Like everything else in India, it is complex
beyond belief but never dull and
boring. Nothing on sex ever is.
A qualitative BBCWST-PQR Study done
in October 2009 to understand risk
perception among 16 to 18-year-olds
(urban, SEC A/B/C), throws up interesting
SE COVER STORYSURVEY
SEXAND THE FAMILY
By Radharani Mitra
The
Sex
Second
If a condom falls out of a boy’s pocket, it
is acceptable. It isn’t if the same happens
with a girl.The rules are different for men
and women in India when it comes to sex.

54 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
GUEST COLUMN
SHELJA SEN The author is a child psychologist and family therapist with Children First, Delhi.
They have come to me with
haunted looks, sunken
eyes, and tremulous lips.
Unsteady hands desperately
trying to hide the slashed
wrists and bitten nails. Curled in
the corner of the sofa, resentful
looks thrown at me like barbs daring
me to get past their “keep off”
invisible shields. And then, by and
by, they tell their stories. Stories of
pain, hurt and grief. Of abuse,
rape, rejection and disbelief. “You
must have given him the impression
that you wanted him to do that
to you”, “Good girls don’t behave
like that”. Voices hushed, muted or
just plain ignored. And then replaced
by voices of guilt, fear,
blame and shame. Child sexual
abuse shreds a child completely.
The Study on Child Abuse
(2007) carried out by the Ministry
of Women and Child Development
was alarming. According to it,
53.2 per cent of our children are
being sexually abused. They are
being violated, assaulted, and exploited
by the adult population for
pleasure. And we are still not talking
about it. We would rather believe
it is all happening out
there—maybe in the West or
maybe in the slums, but not in our
families. Research has shown that
perpetrators are generally known
to the children—their fathers,
stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers,
cousins, cooks, drivers, neighbours.
People who have easy access
to our children.
What really happens to a child
when she is sexually abused? To
understand the impact we have to
consider various factors like age of
the child, the level of force or penetration,
frequency, relationship
with the perpetrator, if it is one-off
or chronic, the child’s resilience
and the support network. Long
term impact of sexual abuse can be
varied from depression, anxiety,
post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), eating disorders and many
other forms of mental health problems.
Behind these labels is a person
who grows up feeling that the
world is unpredictable, unsafe, and
untrustworthy. And that she has no
control over it. She has no voice.
Child sexual abuse has thrived
in silence for centuries. In India,
there are pockets of awareness
being created largely by some NGOs
but we still have a long way to go.
What is it about Indian families that
makes it more difficult to expose
this lurking monster? Why do we
turn away and act as if we did not
hear a single scream? Or maybe
even turn around and blame her
for bringing it on herself?
As a mother, apart from death,
severe illness or injury what can be
my biggest anxiety? I would say
sexual abuse. Is it this paralysing
fear that makes parents turn a
deaf ear? Or maybe it is the huge
taboo of anything to do with ‘sex’
being talked about, especially
regarding children. What will people
say? Then there is this agony of
the whole family being torn apart
if you did listen to the child. Can the
mother believe her child and
accept that her husband in a
drunken state has molested her?
Can a father confront his older
brother, who has helped him in
his financial troubles and report
him to the police for violating his
little one? Can family loyalty be
forsaken for justice?
As parents, it is important for
us to look for signs—sleep problems,
bedwetting, recurrent nightmares,
refusal to go to school,
tendency for secretive play, age
inappropriate sexualised behaviour
and low self-confidence—that
everything is not right in our children’s
world and take steps for
their safety.
• Keep track of where your child is
and with whom.
• Educate him about good touch,
bad touch and personal safety. Tell
him about the steps he needs to
take if he ever feels uncomfortable
about anybody’s touch.
• Do not make sex a taboo subject.
Age-appropriate discussions using
wildlife programmes and movies
are important.
• Encourage school to impart ageappropriate
sex education.
• Be especially alert if you have a
child vulnerable to some disability.
• Teach your child to not obey
adults blindly.
Silence has gone on for far too
long. It’s ravaged lives. Let us
speak, let’s listen. We owe it to
our children.
It’s time we listened to our children, unafraid of taking on child sex abuse
The Sum of All Fears
What is it about Indian
families that makes it
more difficult to expose
child sexual abuse?
Why do we turn away
and act as if we did not
hear a single scream?
69% asked their spouse about their virginity. 30% in 2007.

nuggets. Teenagers want to ‘grow
up’ faster not because they want to
share responsibilities but because
adulthood promises fun and freedom.
They want to be more in control and
their parents realise this. So the parentchild
dynamic is hitting a neutral
ground. Parents are giving the teenager
greater veto power and with this come
the perks of more freedom—money,
mobile phones, social networks, relationships
and casual attitudes to sex.
Safe sex is seen more in the light of
avoiding pregnancies than anything
else. Apart from sketchy sex education
and perhaps other graphic sources of
learning mainly from the Internet, most
respondents of this study claimed their
parents did not talk to them ‘about all
this’. Two years on, this survey finds
that among parents with at least one
child aged less than 18 years, about a
quarter think their children are sexually
active. Among those who think so,
a majority just accept the fact. However,
there are parents who, instead of taking
this as fait accompli, discuss with and
educate their children about sex-related
issues. Quite naturally, mothers do
this more than the fathers (21 per cent
as against 10 per cent males).
Compare these teens with a slightly
older profile of men and women who
have migrated from their parental
homes to live, study and work in other
locations. Their lives are no less ienabled
(even when you don’t possess
the iPhone you still worship at the temple
of Jobs), but the challenges they
face are substantial. The last couple of
years have seen khap panchayats,
kidnappings and killings over intercaste
marriages, crimes of passion and
a sharp increase in rape cases.
Whether it is the quasi-adult teenager
or a 20-something young man or
woman about town, both are caught in
Smaller cities choose
silence on child abuse
in the family. 52% in
Ahmedabad would not
report it, 41% in Bangalore
and 39% in Lucknow.
Would you report child abuse if it happened
in your family or you came to know of it?
27%
women believe child abuse
should not be reported,
while 74%men are in
favour of reporting.An
alarming 7% couples say,
‘Don’t know, can’t say’.
24%
YES
NO
Jaipur stands out as a city where 88%
are in favour of reporting child abuse.
70%
56 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
a whirlpool of unsure syllabi, conflicting
social mores, deep-rooted prejudices,
lax law enforcement and
hydra-headed hypocrisy.
But who says India in unidimensional?
Some years ago, a radio ad was
taken off the airwaves because it featured
the word ‘condom’. That it was
promoting safer sex was not important;
what became paramount was the ‘licentiousness’
it was seen to be promoting!
But in 2008-09, the condom a
cappella ringtone, part of the normalisation
campaign supported by the
National AIDS Control Organisation became
a resounding hit. It was a global
first and registered about 8,00,000
requests for download within a year.
Whether one liked it or not, whether it
was appropriate or not, the word was
out in the open, trilling away quite happily
on mobile phones belonging to
those who thought it was a cool, smart
thing to have and causing discomfort to
those of the ‘raised eyebrow’ category.
It’s funny how this works (or
doesn’t). This is a country where item
numbers have become ‘kosher’. No
wedding sangeet is complete without
a robust imitation of Sheila, Munni or
Jalebi Bai. Beautiful men and women
in glamorous get-ups dance to these
pounding, pulsating Bollywood numbers,
celebrating the union of two people
as if this were some ancient
fertility rite. An increasing number of
intrepid television commercials risk
being pulled off for being risqué. News
channels aim for soaring TRPs by
showing steamy enactments of crimes
of passion. No, there is no dearth of
sex in our lives. But if you are in a livein
relationship, you will have a hard
time finding a place to rent. If a condom
falls out of a bachelor son’s
trouser pocket, it is still acceptable;
but if the same happens with an unmarried
daughter, there would be
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
Avant garde
Bangalore shocks
with 25% saying
yes to sex-selective
abortion.
Why an abortion?
67% women in Jaipur
and 26% in Delhi
don’t know why they
had an abortion.
UNPLANNED
PREGNANCY
MEDICAL
EMERGENCY
Just give
sex of the foetus
as a reason for
abortion.
47%
39%
63% men say ‘yes’ to sex tutorials. 46% women say ‘no’.
9%
*includes unmarried, engaged, divorced,
separated and widowed, out of 22% respondents
who use emergency contraceptives.
77%
26 %
SINGLE WOMEN*
MARRIED WOMEN
“I often use morning-after pills.”
Women don’t want to confront
problems in the bedroom.36%
don’t want to visit therapists,
12% can’t make up their minds.
Have you ever had
an abortion?
39% single women,out of a total of
14% women respondents, say ‘yes’.
21%married women admit to it.
Ludhiana tops in termination
of unwanted pregnancy.
GETTY IMAGES
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trouble. Premarital sex and promiscuity
have different rule books for men
and women in India.
In fact, the results of the INDIA TODAY
survey bear out one’s commonsensical
notions. There is no prize for guessing
that premarital sex is still not an accepted
phenomenon. As high as 58 per
cent of respondents are against it and
resistance is markedly more pronounced
among females. Hand in hand
with this goes the finding that more
than 60 per cent of respondents have
problems accepting live-in relationships.
Not surprisingly, it finds relatively
more takers in Bangalore, along
with extramarital sex, given its share of
a young, urbane techie population. The
fact that parents will not accept homosexual
children (74 per cent) is a nobrainer.
Till date, I have had the good
fortune of knowing only one mother
who took her children to the Gay Pride
march held in the capital recently.
Increasing access to sex is seen to
cause infidelity. And who is to be
blamed for this? Women of course! The
fairer sex is seen to be at the root of all
trouble as about half the respondents
agree that the incidence of extramarital
affairs is increasing with more married
women going out to work.
Expectedly enough, this idea finds
greater constituency with men than
women, the very same men who may
be day-dreaming about Sheila, Munni
and their tribe. This goes beyond being
mere conjecture as another significant
finding states men fantasise more than
women. More than a fifth of males
claim to have paid for sex—the highest
count being in Hyderabad (31 per cent),
followed by Mumbai (20 per cent). So it
should come as no surprise that about
two years ago, a radio ad featuring two
young women caused a bit of a stir and
got written about in a newspaper. The
two friends in the ad are heard discussing
a date one of them had gone on.
It ended up with no sex because the
couple did not have a condom.
60 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
30% in Bangalore admit to consensual affairs, “I have heard of incest
in my circle of family
and friends.”
54% in Hyderabad have
experienced, witnessed or
heard of incest.
10% men and and
5% women have
experienced incest.
69% men say ‘by
choice’. 52% men
have got initiated into
sex through incest.
24%
had sex
with an uncle,
aunt, parent,
siblings or
in-laws.
30%

Thankfully, in spite of its detractors, the
ad was not pulled. Good sense prevailed
and safe sex won that round.
Gone are the days when flowers
bobbed towards each other and
Bollywood sealed a romance with a
kiss. When holding hands in public
drew attention and ire. When staying
out beyond 10 p.m. destroyed a young
woman’s reputation. Today, sex is trying
to make sense of where it should reside—
behind the purdah or out in the
open. How ‘sexy’ is sex? The latest
smartphone with all its wondrous features
or the bare feet of a beautiful
courtesan from a yesteryear classic?
There are no definite answers, there
can never be. You will find my aunt
along with the lady from Satara with
their firmly held or evolving opinions.
Sex for the world’s fastest growing population
is a many-sided, magnificent,
mysterious crystal. Reflecting, refracting
an ever-changing, never-changing
conundrum called India.
Radharani Mitra is national creative
director and executive producer at the
BBCWorld Service Trust.
11% nationally.
48% women refuse to
forgive husbands for a
same-sex fling. 51%
men say they would.
“Yes. I had an
extramarital fling.”
23% 8%
MEN
WOMEN
Does your spouse
know about your
extramarital affair?
37%
women say ‘yes’,69%men say
‘no’.62%couples call for a
blanket ban on extramarital
affairs. But it’s ‘unacceptable’
to 69%women and 50% men.
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey
FOR LAST 7 YEARS SURVEY
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
Wife swapping,
one-night stands,
threesomes.Young
India likes its sex
life spicy and is not
coy about it.
Nobody wants to delay the passage into a
super-exciting adulthood. Young Indians
are meeting and mating despite social
disapproval: 24% have had sex as teens.
So what if 80% of marriages are
arranged in India? For 68% couples,
the wedding night is not about flowers
and moonlight but sex all the way.
70% women fantasise about while 57%men would love to watch other Responses regarding sexual experience are from 4,005 of 5,365 respondents who have had sex.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
Young 
Kinky
50% men say their wife was
not their first sex partner. Yet
56% admit they weren’t sexually
active before marriage.
50% men are open to sexual
games with strangers—
22% for paid sex and 28%
for one-night stands.
different sexual positions
people having sex or dream about group sex with multiple partners.
The shaping of sexual identity
in the last two decades is
directly related to urbanisation
in India. We have seen
our urban centres swell and people
leave villages for the cities. And this
is happening not in the physical
realm alone but more so in the
psychological space. Old customs are
giving way to the new.
This has led to the emergence of
two distinct societies. One India
lustily embraces the opportunity, liberty
and anonymity that urbanisation
gives it. We see cities like
Bangalore and Mumbai become
melting pots of different languages
and communities. New affluent
groups whose incomes have almost
doubled now have an increasingly
consumerist approach to how they
live their lives in the big city.
At loggerheads are those with traditional
and feudal beliefs. Within the
rapidly expanding modern city context,
they try to safeguard their old
world values. This India grapples to
understand its young. They fear their
sexual anarchy and take every opportunity
to censor them. In public
spaces, you can see them harassing
youngsters either in the form of
uniformed policemen or as members
of fundamentalist religious or linguistic
groups. When I was asked to write
on the latest INDIA TODAY Sex Survey, I
was reminded of something that
happened a few weeks back. While
waiting for a friend at a coffee house,
I overheard this conversation from
the table behind mine.
“Don’t tell me your mom found
the condoms?” The young man
asked the young woman. “She
did. You were dumb enough to leave
it in my bag.”
“What did she say,” he asked, still
sounding calm. “Nothing” she
replied laughing. “At least she knows
now that I have safe sex.”
I inadvertently turned around to
see them—two college students
barely in their 20s. They looked at me
and burst out laughing, not out of
embarrassment, but amused at the
scandalised look on my face. I may
only be a decade older than them, but
I still feel that a lot has changed. I
wonder if I could have been as blasé
under similar circumstances!
INDIA TODAY’s Sex Survey 2011,
however, takes a look at an older
generation. A majority of the survey’s
respondents are above 25, married
for over 20 years (mostly arranged
marriages) and have children. In that
sense, this survey throws light on
sexual notions of the “settled”
Indian, the regular family person.
On the one hand, it looks like not
By Chaitanya Karehalli
&
64 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
GUEST COLUMN
RAJAN B. BHONSLE The author is consultant and counsellor, K.E.M Hospital and G.S. Medical College, Mumbai.
Traditionally women are expected
to be submissive in
the bedroom and let their
men initiate, set the pace
and control all sexual activity. But
women have evolved and are less
bound by gender stereotypes than
they were earlier, resulting in passive-
aggressive behaviour when it
comes to sex. It’s often the case that
a husband either looks down upon
his wife for her expression of a sexual
urge or even begins to suspect
her fidelity if she shows an active interest
in sexual gratification.
The mistake most couples make
is to approach the act in a businesslike
manner. Sex at the same
time, with the same foreplay routine,
position, and even identical expressions.
Sexual enjoyment relates
less to mechanical proficiency than
how two people relate to each other.
Being obsessed with proficiency is
likely to interfere with the spontaneous
enjoyment of the sex.
Almost everyone is preoccupied
with their sex life, yet only a few
talk about it to experts and often
find themselves completely at a loss
when it comes to ‘doing’ something
constructive about making it mutually
satisfying. “How can my husband
and I love each other so much,
yet have such a dull and unexciting
sex life?” asked a friend who is
herself a clinical psychologist. Had
she discussed the problem with
her husband, a gynaecologist, to
whom she has been married for
over 11 years? “I seem to be able to
talk to him about everything but our
sex life,” she said at last. “I don’t
know how to tell him what I need
without seeming to criticise him.”
Women from all walks of life, of
all educational levels, and with
varying sexual experiences voice
similar sentiments. Most married
people lack the basic information
about their spouses’ sexual preferences.
Our own informal survey of
70 wives found a variety of needs
they wanted to share with their
husbands. But, as one woman told
us, “It is difficult to know how to
begin sharing it with him.”
As counsellors, it is our continuous
endeavour to make couples talk
to each other openly about everything
that matters to them. For
everyone in a conjugal relationship,
communication is the lifeline.
Take the following cases. Deepak
came home from work and found
his wife Sunita dressed in a long
skirt. She greeted him with an
enthusiastic hug and announced
that she was serving one of his
favourite meals—that too by candlelight.
Instead of complimenting her,
Deepak responded to her efforts
with an irritated frown.
When Shalini remarked that she
was tired and wanted to go to bed
early, her husband Satish bade her
goodnight and settled down to
watch television. The next morning
there was no sign that Shalini had
benefited from the extra sleep. She
snapped at Satish because he had
forgotten to put the toothpaste back
in the medicine cabinet.
What was wrong with Deepak
and Shalini? Their sex signals were
mixed up. Deepak was receiving
messages that weren’t being sent,
and Shalini was sending messages
that weren’t being received.
Deepak assumed that Sunita’s
elaborate dinner was part of a plan
to entice him into making love to
her. That made him angry for two
reasons: he had put in a hectic day
at the office and was not in the
mood for romance. He also disliked
being ‘manipulated’. But Deepak’s
assumption was incorrect. The dinner
was a thoughtful gesture, not
an attempt at seduction. Sunita had
noticed that Deepak had been looking
‘down’ lately. She hoped his
favourite meal would cheer him up.
Shalini, on the other hand,
wanted to make love to her husband,
and her pretext of going to
bed early was designed to tell
him so. But Satish did not get the
message. He thought Shalini was
really tired, and she ended up feeling
hurt and angry.
It is not uncommon for couples
to experience breakdowns in their
sexual communications. Sex is an
extremely sensitive and personal
subject. Attitudes vary, moods don’t
always match and egos are generally
at stake. It is not surprising,
therefore, that even the most compatible
couples are sometimes
tuned to different frequencies.
Abig mistake is to approach sex like a business transaction and let the fire die.
Marital Mixed Signals
Only a few couples
talk about their sex life
with experts and often
find themselves at a
loss when it comes to
‘doing’ something
constructive about it.
Puckering up is passe. In 2007, 68% found kissing to be the most 
much has changed in the last decade
in India. Half the population still
believes premarital sex is taboo. Men
lead more sexually satisfied lives than
women. Women are still more loyal to
their partners—while almost 71 per
cent women have had only one sexual
partner, 37 per cent men have
experimented with more than one.
Urbanisation too has had a significant
impact on sexual behaviour. A
majority of men (55 per cent) and
women (43 per cent) agree that working
women contribute to increasing
infidelity. Asked to rate various aspects
of their lives, respondents
placed their job, health, social life, finances
and even emotional life as being
more satisfactory than their sex
lives. It is only in the last decade that
we have had an onslaught of magazines
for both men and women, even
heath magazines, discussing and providing
tips on sex lives. These maga-
One should be sexually
experienced before
marriage, say 19% of
couples. Virginity doesn’t
matter, add 17%.
What’s your
favourite fantasy?
65% couples fantasise about
different love-making
situations, 27%like watching
others having sex, 13%
fantasise about orgies and
8%about threesomes.
37%
12%
MEN
WOMEN
“I’ve had more than
one sexual partner.”
For 50% men, the first sexual partners
were women other than their wives.
exciting foreplay, just 33% this year.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
66 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
zines are supposedly very popular
among teenagers and young adults.
They discuss sexual fantasies and offer
tips, suggestions and games to
spice up the reader’s sex life. Unlike
the Liberal East or the ‘Promiscuous’
West, India is very clear on its sex policy.
No pornography—not even poor
Savita Bhabhi, no sex shops and certainly
no sex toys. You can’t even bring
them into the country. I mean, you
can, if the customs guy doesn’t know
what it is and what it’s used for.
A recent film by Rajat Kapoor,
Mixed Doubles, briefly dwelt on the
idea of wife swapping, and one couple
engaging in some kind of a role-playing
game. That the audience didn’t
bat an eyelid shows that a minute section
of the Indian population is urban,
well travelled and exposed to swinging
parties and swish nightclubs
abroad to not to be shocked by such
minor revelations in a Bollywood film.
The survey also shows working
parents are more open to allowing
their teenage children to stay over at
a friend’s irrespective of the latter’s
gender. Unlike traditional cities, the
more cosmopolitan hubs like Mumbai
and Bangalore display a more liberal
side. Bangalore is significantly more
open to same sex relationships, one
night stands and live-in relationships,
compared to most cities.
And in spite of the Arya Samaj
and Bollywood’s biggest blockbuster
Sholay, the intense Jai and the meek,
widowed Radha would still face some
opposition, should they decide to get
together. According to the survey, a
minor but significant chunk of the
population still frowns on re-marriages
of widows and divorcees.
In a country where there is grow-
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
22%
25%
Married Men
Single Men
Are you open to
one-night stands? 28%
There’s a new wedge in the paid sex
pie: women.About 3% claim to have
paid for carnal pleasures.
Paid sex, anyone?
Menage a trois is very
much a male game. 10%
men have had threesome
sex and just 3% women.
24% women are open to one-night stands, orgies and paid sex.
men and 13% women are
ready to trade in the straightjacket
of marriage for a night
of pleasure. 42% of men,
engaged to be married, are
into one-night stands.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
68 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
ing incidences of HIV, the survey
shows that parents with children under
18 display a strange and pernicious
blindness to sexuality among
the youth. Only a quarter agree that
their children might be sexually active.
Among those who think that
their children are sexually active, a
majority will deliberately look the
other way. Nearly 80 per cent of the
adult population refuses to talk to its
young about sex. And then there are
states such as Karnataka where the
delusional balk at the idea of sex education
in the school curriculum.
Of course not many are aware
that India is among the countries with
the largest number of teenage pregnancies
in the world, but no one bats
an eyelid because the majority of
these are within the legitimate confines
of marriage as opposed to the
‘wild West’ where it’s attributed to ‘irresponsible
behaviour and promiscuity
among teenagers’. According to
the survey, even when parents have
found their children engaging in sexual
activity, they have either scolded
them about it or turned a blind eye.
Only a third tried to talk to their children
and educate them about sex.
Most respondents are also shy of
showing affection towards their
spouse in front of their children.
There is limited communication
on the subject of sex between parents
and children which is probably the
reason why a large section of
teenagers lead double lives that would
scandalise their parents, should they
ever find out. In the absence of social
interaction and parental guidance on
sex, children are likely to turn to the
Internet. Parental supervision of
Internet access by the young is still not
done on a widespread scale in India.
As a result, pornography sites are
rampantly accessed.
With the objective to titillate, sex
is portrayed as a commodity on these
sites. With their emphasis on desire
and fulfilment over intimacy—it is
these sites where youngsters perhaps
get their first notions of sex. It’s
small wonder then that we read
about increasing incidents of sexual
abuse among young children.
On the topic of incest, according to
the survey, 25 per cent of those involved
in an incestuous relationship
SE COVER STORYSURVEY
Is premarital sex
acceptable to you?
couples accept premarital
sex if it doesn’t involve their
familes.Yet 32% of them
have indulged in premarital
sex themselves.
SEXAND THE FAMILY
25%
Women raise the loudest
protest against sex
before marriage (65%).
61%
23%
Not Acceptable
Not in my family
Of all the cities, Ludhiana tops in
opposing both premarital sex and
live-in relations. 82% reject both.
Live-in relations?
19%couples are open to premarital sex and live-in relationships.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
70 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
mentioned that it was forced on
them. For half of them, it was their
first sexual experience, an experience
that will impact their understanding
of sex for the rest of their
lives. In Bangalore you can see children
as young as 12 and 13 in bars or
at discos and surely their parents
have no clue what’s going on.
Considering the sanctity placed
on marriages in India, these cities
also display a behaviour that undermines
the institution. Respondents
in Bangalore are among the highest
who claim to have paid for sex.
Twenty per cent of respondents feel
repeated sex with the same person
is a major ‘turn off’. Similarly, a
quarter of repondents in Hyderabad
and Mumbai feel it is fine to have
extramarital relationships.
Not many of the findings are unexpected.
If anything, we know that
in spite of the media and proliferation
of information, the average middle
class Indian is still cautious and wary.
But it is the sexuality of the other
India that needs to be studied.
Psychologists consulting in schools
and colleges point to rising promiscuity
among young people. Perhaps a
survey of the young will reveal a
different India.
Chaitanya Karehalli is a Bangalorebased
writer and film director
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
Does the idea of
wife swapping
excite you?
16%
men say ‘yes’.Women don’t
find it as exciting, with 82%
saying ‘no’. 41%in Bangalore
are open to it, followed by
Kolkata at 22%.
Once a
month 21%
24%
Are you
hooked
to porn?
Men crave visual
stimulus. Evidence?
66% men are avid
porn surfers.
44% men
watch porn
alone.
Too tired for passion?
60% working couples
depend on visual stimulus
to get turned on.
At least
once a
week
49% women prefer to watch porn only with their partners.
Who says women
are from Venus?
34% watch porn,
even if not regularly.
39% watched
pornography with
partners in 2007,
30% now.
Adult movies
work well for all.
50% single people
and 49% couples.
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey
SHARE YOUR VIEWS
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
-
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY 78% refuse to talk to their children openly Equal partners? 65% of couples
claim they are, but also admit that
the man controls all sexual (52%)
and family (36%) decisions.
Not the weekend dad. 60% of men
spend at least 50% of their leisure
hours with family. Involvement peaks
in the 20s and wanes over the years.
Parent Trap
Post-globalisation India has seen
the rise of several moral panics
around questions of sexuality.
These moral panics, whether
they are about clothing or premarital
sex or something else, reflect contemporary
anxieties particularly about
adolescent girls and young adult
women but also more generally about
young people and their sexuality.
When it comes to moral panics,
there is a tendency to operate in binary
opposites: innocence is presumed to be
the opposite of knowledge, innocence
is also the opposite of wildness (which
is why our children should never see
us “wildly” partying—whatever that
means—or even just having a good
time). The quest for pleasure is often
seen to be equal to hedonism and
certainly irresponsible when it comes
to parenting. Since lack of knowledge
equals the preservation of innocence,
our children should also never be educated
about sexuality, often compelling
them to make uninformed choices.
In several states in India, schools
are not allowed to provide sex education.
In 2009, a parliamentary committee
in the Rajya Sabha wrote its report
on the petition seeking a national debate
on introduction of sex education
in schools in response to the HRD
Ministry’s decision to provide sex education
to students from Class VI in CBSEaffiliated
schools. The report said,
“Message should appropriately be
given to schoolchildren that there
should be no sex before marriage
which is immoral, unethical and unhealthy”.
They suggested no sex education
be given but were willing to
include appropriate chapters in the
Biology syllabus, but not before plustwo
stage. Further, chapters like
‘Physical and Mental Development in
Adolescents’ and ‘HIV/AIDS and other
Sexually Transmitted Diseases’ were
to be removed from the existing curriculum
and included in the books of
biology at the 10 plus-two stage.
Unsurprisingly, no sex education
Safe sex is not up for By Shilpa Phadke
discussion on the
dinner table.Mom and
dad don’t even want to
risk holding hands in
front of the children. Is
there a lack of trust in
the Indian family?
Responses regarding sexual experience are from 4,005 of 5,365 respondents who have had sex.
about sex
and women prove to be the biggest prudes with 80% refusing to have a heart-to-heart chat with children.
There is deep satisfaction with family
life, with 97% men and women saying
they are ‘very’ to ‘somewhat’ satisfied.
Women’s happiness quotient is highest.
Smaller cities report greater happiness
with family life. Couples in Jaipur
(50%), Ludhiana (48%) and Patna
(45%) say they are ‘very’ happy.
doesn’t mean no sex. It does, however,
mean much less informed, less responsible,
and sometimes less respectful or
trust-based sex. In a sexuality and representation
(not a sexuality education)
workshop I facilitated some years ago
in a Mumbai college, I found myself
explaining the basic processes of
menstruation, conception and pregnancy
to 18-20 year-old middle and
upper-middle class young women,
rather than holding forth on the power
structures within which sex is located
as I had intended to, an eloquent testimony
to how little mediated information
they had access to.
The INDIA TODAY survey suggests
parents aren’t speaking to their
children about sex, much less safe
sex—only 10 per cent of people polled
had discussed safe sex with their children.
A whopping 78 per cent do not
discuss sex openly with their children.
Whether we like it or not, young people
are thinking of sex and sometimes
they are experimenting with sex. What
we need to do is to give them the tools
FOTOLIA

74 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
with which to do this responsibly and
safely. Sure, none of us wants to think
of our 12-year-old having sex but even
less do we want the said 12-year-old
to contact STD—or even end up with
an uncomfortable or worse coercive
sexual experience. Of course, sex
education is not simply information
on sex. It must mean a complex
understanding of not just biology and
safe sex practices but also reflect
on relationships and responsibility,
facilitated by a trained and nonjudgmental
person.
In my interviews with young
women, about the use of contraception,
they talked of how hard it was for
them to negotiate for the use of condoms.
They were also unable to provide
the condoms themselves for fear
of being seen as too sexually knowledgeable.
Young women then were
willing to risk STD and possible unwanted
pregnancies but were afraid of
being seen as promiscuous and jeopardising
their reputation. Sex education
needs to address these anxieties in
contemporary relationships.
If, as the survey suggests, parents
are leery of even showing affection in
front of their children—only 15 per
cent do—then the overall attitude to
any kind of difference is not surpris-
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
GUEST COLUMN
DESHMUKH Deshmukh is the pseudonym of Puneet Agarwal, the creator of the erotic comic strip Savita Bhabhi.
Ihave always looked at Savita
Bhabhi as a candid reflection of
both men and women in Indian
society. Every man, at some
point of his life, has been attracted
to someone he is ‘not supposed to
be attracted to’—be it a teacher, an
aunt, neighbour’s wife or a sisterin-
law. This is also true for women,
maybe to a lesser degree. I think it’s
hypocritical to pretend otherwise.
Making Savita a bhabhi was a conscious
decision. People in India
use terms like bhaiya and bhabhi
like Mister or Miss. It does not
imply family relations. Savita is
someone’s wife and therefore by
default, not supposed to be attracted
to other men. That is the
taboo we play with.
Here at Kirtu, my website, we
also try to come up with stories that
use sex as a tool of empowerment.
For example, our recent tongue-incheek
take on female crime-fighting:
the Encounter Specialist, or
the south Indian femme fatale
Velamma. Of the daily visitors to our
site, 30 per cent are women and
that’s saying something. It is believed
that generally men are
turned on by the visual while
women are turned on by the intellectual.
Then shouldn’t a lot fewer
women be watching porn? I think
for Indian women, Savita Bhabhi is
not just about sex. She brings a feeling
of liberation, mental role-playing
and humour. As for censorship,
banning a film, book or comics only
generates curiosity about what the
government is trying to hide.
It is difficult for me (being located
outside India) to accurately comment
on the changing perceptions
towards sex in India. I personally see
three Indias. There is urban India,
rural India and diasporic India.
Female sexuality is quite different
for each of them. Both sex and power
bring confidence and they are complimentary
to each other. In the
urban context, I can see Indian
women are becoming more and
more open about their sexuality.
They are now comfortable talking
about it with their girlfriends and
their lovers. They can demand sex in
ways Indian women could not imagine
doing 20 years ago. While it is
encouraging, we are still a long way
from being a sexually liberated society
like the West or like that in ancient
India. Most cases of moral
policing that I see in the Indian
media, like beating up of youngsters
for celebrating Valentine’s Day or
targeting an actress for advocating
safe premarital sex, are, in my
opinion, cases of attention-seeking
self-righteous organisations and
individuals. It has nothing to do with
morality or policing.
Someone recently asked a
funny question: after having introduced
the comic strip, do I see a
breed of Savita bhabhis roaming
around freely in Indian cities? I
think she was already there in the
minds of Indian men and women.
While I love sex, I also believe in the
sanctity of marriage. Porn is fictional
entertainment. It is not
meant to be real. It is an outlet for
our fantasies. To say that Savita
Bhabhi would inspire married
women to become promiscuous is
like saying Batman would inspire
rich men to become nocturnal,
cape-wearing vigilantes.
Savita Bhabhi in All of Us
Every man has been
attracted to someone he
is ‘not supposed to be
attracted to’. This is also
true for women.
Indian women are on the road to sexual liberation, but still have a long way to go
68% men fantasise in Bangalore, compared to 47% nationally.
76 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
ing. In a documentary film called
Summer in My Veins (directed by
Nishit Saran, 1999), the filmmaker
comes out on camera to his mother —
while she protests “you can’t do this on
camera, it’s not fair”. But the woman
handles the revelation with amazing
poise and, most importantly, with love.
Even the Delhi High Court decriminalised
sex between consenting
adults of the same sex in private in
2009. However, the INDIA TODAY survey
suggests that 74 per cent of people
polled would find themselves unable
to accept a child who professes an
alternative sexuality.
When I was a not-so-little girl, we
played a game called Dark Room
which was a version of hide and seek,
but played in the dark. Dark Room,
however, was more fun largely because
it felt naughty and often a little
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
NO
Would you allow your
children to spend
weekends with friends?
18%
32% would say yes only if
their children are with
friends of the same gender.
Just
parents will allow
their children to
stay over at a
friend’s home. 30%
if friends are of
the same gender.
24% YES
36%
How much freedom do you allow?
38%will not allow
children to be
present at wild
parties at home.
19% will.
75% parents don’t throw ‘wild’ parties at home.
EARLY BIRDS
Delhi believes in growing up fast.44%
respondents speak of their ‘first sex’
as a teenager and 51% of marching to
the altar sans virginity.
WEDDED WOES
Mumbai counts money and partners.
It tops in overall happiness, 44%, and
sex with ‘many partners’, 39%.
BEDDED BLISS
Jaipur is alive and sexy, topping in
both happiness between the sheets,
33%, and maximum sex before
marriage, 37%.
CITIES
UNZIPPED
There’s a new scene of steamy
sex behind closed doors.
VIKRAM SHARMA/www.indiatodayimages.com
FIRST CITY
MASSAGE MECCA
Chennai loves to spice up its sex
life with massage the most, 33%,
compared to 18% nationally.
ON THE SIDE
Kolkata is cool with extramarital
affairs. Just 39% say ‘not acceptable’
compared to 62% nationally.
TOUCH AND GO
Ahmedabad is a peak performer,
with 92% ‘fulfilled’ in bed. But for
65% sex cools down within a few
years of marriage.
BASIC INSTINCT
It’s hard to keep up with Hyderabad.
25% have flings on the side, 17%
try threesomes and 32% buy
off-the-shelf morning-after pills.
Bangalore is the ultimate frontier for
liberated souls.25% have daily sex
compared to 10% nationally. 41%
swap wives,52% go for one-night
stands, 30% consensual flings. But
20% are bored by sex with the same
partner.On the marital bed, 68%
fake a headache.
78 INDIA TODAY . DECEMBER 5, 2011
wild—there were giggles, shrieks and
hands feeling around for hidden
bodies. The darkness is a space-time
rife with all kinds of possibilities,
serendipitous encounters and sexual
overtones. We were still young enough
to be called children but yet old
enough to understand when there
were things adults weren’t telling us.
Which is why, when the INDIA TODAY
survey suggests that more than half of
the people polled do not allow their
children to be part of their ‘wild’ parties,
one wonders why.
‘Wild’ parties are often a synonym
for spaces where alcohol is served,
dancing (some of it uninhibited) may
happen and the possibility of seduction
exists. It potentially involves giggles,
shrieks and feeling up people—just an
adult version of Dark Room, one might
argue. Yet wild parties are often cast
not as spaces where one might simply
have fun but as spaces which are illicit
and exist in a grey zone. For instance,
Madhur Bhandarkar, filmmaker and
reflector of middle-class morality, suggests
in Page Three (2005) that the
‘party crowd’ is superficial, shallow
and given to, among other things,
engaging in paedophilia. In Fashion
(2008) he suggests that those who are
part of the glamour world of ‘wild’ parties
are only inches above depraved
and will eventually find themselves in
bed with black men.
When wild and sex are in the same
paragraph it tends to make most
people uncomfortable. Add pleasure to
the mix and one sees more than a fair
share of squirming. Most people find it
hard when it comes to defending
pleasure. Even those who defend sex
education do so by pointing to the fact
that it leads young people to controlled
knowledge, reduces the rate of teen
pregnancies and actually delays sexual
activity. Even as we teach safe sex
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
35% in Jaipur will accept alternative sexuality. 2% in Lucknow.
Acceptance of
alternative
sexuality goes
up in the 50-plus
age group.
27% parents
believe that
their child is
sexually active.
Ludhiana is the most
conservative. 94%
parents refuse to talk
safe sex with children.
61% NO ACCEPTED &
KEPTQUIET
ACCEPTED &
DISCUSSED
YES 10 %
Delhi couples and
22% nationally.
74%
12%
NO
34% YES
73%
15%
64% men and 58%
women don’t intend
to speak to children
about safe sex ever.
Have you ever
discussed safe sex
with your children?
“I’ll tell my children
about safe sex once
they grow up.”
Would you
accept your
child’s
alternative
sexuality?
Women are more intolerant,
with 80% saying ‘no’ to
different sexual preference.
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
practices, is it possible to envisage a
situation where one might also have a
discussion on pleasure?
Two sets of words are often missing
in our vocabulary of sex and how
we need to think about it for ourselves
and our children—consent and pleasure
and, in another vein, respect and
trust. If we could think about sex and
sexuality through the prisms of consent
and pleasure we might find ourselves
asking different questions
instead of focusing on the morality aspects
of sex, safe sex, sexual speech,
sexual preference, or indeed wild parties
or even wild sex. We might ask, did
everyone involved consent and did
they have fun?
The writer teaches at the Centre for Media
and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute
of Social Sciences, Mumbai
SE COVER STORYSEXAND THE FAMILY
SURVEY
VIDYA BALAN
Sex was not mere representation
of desire in mainstream cinema
until the turn of the millennium
because it was deemed amoral.
The 2000s brought with them a
generation of women who were
increasingly more assertive, had a
mind of their own and knew how
to distinguish between love and
lust. They were not merely responding
to touch, they were also
becoming initiators. With changing
attitudes, mainstream cinema
too accepted the idea of a visual
representation as opposed to just
overt suggestions in the form of
dance and seduction sequences.
Keeping the history of sexual representation
in mind, the five sexiest
films of all time for me are:
Sex in Indian Cinema
The five sexiest films in Bollywood’s journey
SATYAM SHIVAM SUNDARAM (1978)
It was one of the only mainstream
movies at the time that dealt with the
subject of desire. It had both, sex and
skin. The dichotomy of a woman who is
perfect from one half of her face and
burnt from the other added to the point
that desire was all about how you packaged
it and a sense of mystery.
UTSAV (1984) Utsav was a movie that
celebrated sex and glorified it.Whether
it was seduction or the act itself, it made
it out to be something not natural but a
craft that had to be honed, perfected
and handed down generations.
AASTHA (1997) This movie came out
at the time when the idea of globalisation
was just born. It was the beginning
of the consumerist era, the theme the
movie played with was that everything
could be traded for a price. The story
of a middle class woman, selling herself
in order to meet the needs of her child
because her husband could not match
up to his family’s expectations with
his meagre professor salary is both,
shocking and poignant.
ISHQIYA (2010) Ishqiya was sexy because
for the first time in Hindi cinema
you had a woman protagonist who gave
into lust and did not shy away from
a one-night stand. This was a major
breach from tradition because never in
mainstream cinema has a heroine ever
separated her sexual desires from love.
LSD (2010) This was a movie like no
other. The film explored voyeurism in a
manner that was interesting, seemingly
light and thought-provoking. It showed
the obsession people have with each
other’s lives, the price one will pay to
take a secret peek into it and how far
one can go with such an obsession.
GUEST COLUMN
The author is a Bollywood actor, soon to be seen in The Dirty Picture.
88% say that have not, while
6%say that they have.
80% NEVER
SOMETIMES 15%
Have you ever walked
in on your parents
having sex?
Do you display affection
publicly,especially in
front of your children?
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey
FOR EXCLUSIVE
COLUMNS ON THE WEB
REUBEN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
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ToInuchStwiyth le
46 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story SEXSURVEY2010 WhAt WoMeN WaNt
The Indian woman
wants better sex,and
a whole lot more of it.
As the happiness gap
stretches beyond the
bedroom,it’s time for
urban men to step up
and find out how
inadequate they are.
want
WOMEN
86
SOCIETY&
LIFESTYLE
83
HEALTH
QUOTIENT
82
MONEY
MATTERS
86
FAMILY&
FRIENDS
59
SEX &
ROMANCE
HAPPINESS GAPOnly 59 per cent of
women are satisfied with their sex lives
compared to 72 per cent of men.
MORE
HOWSATISFIED ARE YOU WITH THE
VARIOUS ASPECTS OFYOUR LIFE?

There she is, fragrant on bath salts, waiting for him to look
up and notice her in her lacy camisole. And there he is,
sprawled on the bed, flipping channels languidly, spoilt for
choice between cricket and pole dancing on the telly. He finally
looks up, yawns and reaches out for her. She looks disgusted
and hisses at him, “Undress yourself.” And she is not
alone. Between 2003, when INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG
sex survey first focused on “What Women Want” and now,
the percentage of women not interested in “undressing” their
partners as a preferred mode of foreplay has petered down
from 16 per cent to 8 per cent.
Buried deep in this survey is another story: the growing
happiness gap between men and women. While women show
rising levels of dissatisfaction, men are full of buzz about their
current sex life. Many more men than women are having
weekly sex. They are more happy with foreplay than women.
And more open about their own pleasures. Unlike women,
an overwhelming percentage of men say their partners are
“sensitive toward their sexual needs”. While women don’t
seem to be too happy with the “sexual involvement of partners”,
men are. Twice as many men have sexual fantasies
and they are three times more likely to share those. Not just
that. They are more contented with life in general than
women—much more satisfied with their jobs and just as
happy as women with their health, social, family and financial
lives. About a 100 years back, Sigmund Freud had famously
confessed that the one great question he could never
answer was: “What does a woman want?” Today’s Indian
men do not seem interested in asking that question, as yet.
“Women’s sexuality is much more complex than men’s ,” says
clinical psychologist therapist Shelja Sen of Delhi. “A lot of it
is triggered by emotional, intellectual and relationship-based
factors rather than the simple physical response required by
a man. The brain is the crucial sexual organ in a woman.”
That mind-body route to sexuality takes strange forms.
Dr Neena Malhotra sees a host of patients walking through
48 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
Do you usually feel
fulfilled after sex?
Always 23
Sometimes 35
Mostly 20
Never 4
SEXSURVEY2010 WhAt WoMeN WaNt
Sensitise partners
to erogenous zones 20
Try favourite sexual position 20
Insist on longer sex 18
All of the above 24
For 2,009
women
respondents
from a total of
5,369 who
have had sex.
Rest don’t
know/can’t say.
All figures in
per cent.
There is a huge satisfaction gap between men and
women.While 36 per cent of men always feel satisfied
after sex, only 23 per cent of women feel the same.
What do you do for more
sexual satisfaction?
2003
27
9
18
14
2010
2003
32
24
19
4
2010
68
NEWTYPES
OF FOREPLAY
67
SEXIN NEW
SITUATIONS
EXPERIMENTING
WITH SEX
WHAT’S ON THE WOMEN’S WISHLIST?
64
NOTJUST RED ROSES AND WHITE WINE Women
are eager to make their sexual lives more exciting.
For 2,009 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who have had sex.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.

METHODOLOGY
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG Sex
Survey 2010, the eighth in the series,was
carried out to understand how perceptions
and expectations of women have changed
over the years.The survey was conducted
among men and women of five age groups:
18-25 years, 26-34 years, 35-40 years, 41-50
years and 51-60 years.They belonged to
the middle and upper middle-class and
lower-middle class (Sec A, B and C).This year,
we talked about what women want from
men.The survey had a sample size of 5,369
respondents across 11 cities: Delhi, Chennai,
Hyderabad,Ahmedabad,Patna,Mumbai,
Bangalore,Lucknow,Jaipur, Ludhiana,Kolkata.
The respondents were divided in terms of
gender: there were 2,664 women (2,305
women in 2003) and 2,705 men.The study
was divided into two phases. In the first phase,
recruitment interviews were done where
respondents were asked basic questions
mainly regarding their demographics and their
consent was taken for participating in the
survey on the condition of anonymity.This was
followed by the second phase in which they
were asked to complete a self-administered
questionnaire.The survey tried to use
interviewers who had experience in
handling such sensitive issues.
How would you
list your foreplay
preferences?
Kissing 50
Massage 24
Looking 9
Undressing 8
Porn films 5
For 1,175 women respondents from a total
of 5,369 who have indulged in foreplay.
Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
Five minutes is all that
most couples (34 per
cent) like to spend on
foreplay across urban
India, with 35-40
year-olds spending
the least time on it.
51
SEX LIKE THEY
HAVE IN FILMS
83
SATISFYING
ORGASM
72
INVOLVED
PARTNER
For 2,009 women
respondents from a total
of 5,369. Figures add up to
more than 100 because of
multiple choices. All
figures in per cent.
How important is your
own pleasure during sex?
2003
55
14
6
16
11
2010
2003
9
53
10
6
More important 2010
than that of partner’s 13
As important as that
of partner’s 44
I believe in giving 19
My pleasure
is unimportant 6
For 2,009 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who have
had sex. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
The focus on own pleasure is rising among
women, but it is a long march before
they catch up with men. For 25 per cent of
men, their own pleasure is primary.
How often do you
have sex? 2010
Daily 6
More than
once a week 25
Once a week 22
Once a month 15
Never 20
2003
8
30
23
22
10
There has been a 10 per cent rise
since 2003 in the number of
women who don’t have sex.
For 2,009 women respondents from a total of 5,369
who have had sex. Rest say once in two months.
All figures in per cent.
Photographer: RITESH SHARMA; Model: POOJA BISHT & ARMAN/www.indiatodayimages.com
the doors of the infertility clinic at the All India Institute of
Medical Sciences, Delhi, who have surprisingly low coital
frequency. “They are not just weighed down by erratic work
hours and stress, they also don’t know that a fulfilling sex life
needs a boost,” she says. “They roam around the shopping
malls, watch TV till midnight and then there is not much time
for sex.” The survey tells the same story. Between 2003 and
2010, there has been a 5 per cent drop among women
having sex more than once a week. Excitement about sex life
has shrunk by 10 per cent among women, satisfaction after
sex has come down by 11 per cent. Significantly, the focus on
“own pleasure” is riding a steady upward curve.
At the root of this pleasure quest could be the post-modern
woman’s desire to take charge of her own destiny. And, as matrimonial
sites point out, it starts early. Courtships in arranged
marriages these days find city girls asking some tough questions
to their would-bes, as reported by a 2009 partner preference
study by Bharat Matrimony: from “how close do you want
to live to your parents?” to “do you expect me to stop working
once we have children?” And, of course, the inevitable: “What’s
your idea of spending alone time?” “Compatibility is emerging
50 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Go FIGURE
Guest ColumnIDEVIKA BHAGAT
10 MYTHS ABOUT WOMEN
We desire bigger breasts
Nope. Bigger isn’t always better. No woman wants to be
spoken to with the eyes firmly focused below her face.
We dress up to impress men
We dress either for our own confidence levels or to upstage
other women. Even lingerie is worn so we feel sexy.
We always want to share our feelings
Post-coital, men aren’t the only ones who want to watch
TV or sleep.We don’t want to know you felt hurt when you
were behaving like a buffoon and we called you on it.
You did it.We told you off. Now get over it.
If we are high strung, it’s obvious
we are PMSing
If a woman is emotionally high strung, it’s because it’s
incomprehensible to her as to why she can multitask and
her man can either change the bulb or take a bath or order
the groceries, but not all three.And definitely not together.
We have a weaker libido than men
Men may have a stronger libido at 18 but as all women
(at least the ones I know) have discovered, men seem to
lose their “willingness to perform” by their mid-30s.
We are clingy and don’t believe in space
We may want your full attention when you meet us but
spending an entire day with you in our faces? No way.
Also, our emails and our private conversations are not
for your eyes and ears.We too need girls’ night-outs.
Sex is about intimacy. Satisfaction
is secondary.
Intimacy is all well and good, but if you want us to give,
you’ve got to give some yourself. Also it would be nice if
you educated yourself a bit on the female anatomy.
We want our men to be possessive
Boys, the wrestling pit is in the akhara, not the bar.We’d
rather have a man who thumps his opponent with his wit.
We fantasise about our dream wedding
from an early age
Only if it involves George Clooney or Brad Pitt. It’s about
the fantasy groom, not the fantasy wedding.
After 30,we are obsessed with our
biological clocks
Modern science has ensured that women can have
children even at the age of 42. The point is, will you
have the energy to be fathers at a later age?
Bhagat is the writer of Manorama Six Feet Under,
Bachna Ae Haseeno and Aisha
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
What would you do if your partner
was unfaithful?
Try to sort it out by talking 44
End the relationship 9
Tell him you have right to do the same 22
Forget and forgive 8
WHAT IS YOUR IDEAOF
AROMANTIC DATE?
PLAYING HOUSE Romance takes a backseat
as the routine of everyday life kicks in.Most
urban couples feel “quality time at home”
constitutes a “perfect romantic day”.
41
QUALITYTIME
ATHOME
What would you do if you were
not happy with your sex life?
The number of
women willing to
discuss disappointing
sex has dropped by
8 per cent between
2003 and 2010.
For 2,664 women
respondents from a total of
5,369. Rest don’t know/can’t
say. All figures in per cent.
Masturbate 4
Do nothing about it 16
Talk to my partner 53
Have an affair 5
2003
2
17
61
2
2010
2003
67
6
8
6
2010
Women seem keen to tell their partners that extramarital
liberties on their part would be reciprocated in kind.
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369. Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
Cover story SEXSURVEY2010 WhAt WoMeN WaNt

as the primary evaluation criteria,” says Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO, Bharat
Matrimony. “This is one area where we see the most dramatic changes.”
There is, obviously, a paradox at work. Those demands for companionate autonomy
seem to take a serious beating once the mundaneness of everyday life kicks
in (to 42 per cent men and women “quality time at home” constitutes a “perfect romantic
day”). No wonder, the imagined world of romance leads to disenchantment
and forced reconciliation of reality with fantasy. To begin with, fewer women find
their partners “romantic” than men (51:66 per cent). While 71 per cent of men share
their sexual fantasies with partners, just 12 per cent women find men enthusiastic
about theirs. To top it all, women don’t seem to be “talking” to men to communicate
their needs: those willing to discuss disappointing sex has dropped by 8 per cent
between 2003 and 2010. But in a new turn, women seem keen to “tell” their partners
that extra-marital liberties on their part would be promptly reciprocated.
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” mused Henry Higgins in My Fair
Lady. Today’s Indian woman would have made him happy. Her new assertion for
sexual fulfillment and dissatisfaction with the status quo tell the new story of
femininity. As filmmaker Aparna Sen says: “I like today’s woman. I like her spirit
of independence, of her effort to control her own destiny. She might be confused
and sometimes impatient with relationships, but she is brave.” The plot and
characters in the battle of the sexes are shifting. Let’s wait for romance and
enchantment to return to the bedroom. ¦
Which part of the body of the opposite
sex attracts you the most?
Muscular thighs 18
Penis 23
Chest hair 26
Buttocks 6
Face 8
Hips 13
Breasts 50
Vagina 9
Eyes 7
BODY BEAUTIFUL
FOR WOMEN FOR MEN
Unlike men who conclusively say that they find a woman’s breasts
the most sexually attractive part of the anatomy,women are torn
between his chest hair (26 per cent) and penis (23 per cent).
For 42 per cent of
men and women in
Mumbai, a romantic
date means watching
a movie.Quite fitting
in a city that plays
host to Bollywood.
19
GOING FOR
AMOVIE
12
CANDLELIT
DINNER
For 1,399 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who are either married or engaged.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
30
ATA
RESTAURANT
GETTY IMAGES
Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
52 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010 Cover story SeXuAl SaTiSfAcTiOn
NIGHT RIDERS Convention still rules sexual activity. More than 60 per cent men and women
prefer the privacy of their bedrooms at nights.
YES76 NO12
Men 86 Men 9
For 1,399 women respondents from a total of 5,369
who are either married or engaged. Rest don’t
know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Almost an equal number of men and
women (27 per cent) in Hyderabad feel
that their partners are not sensitive
towards their sexual needs.
WHEN AND WHERE DO
YOU LIKE HAVING SEX?
Do you think you
have the right to be
sexually satisfied
by your partner?
An equal number of men, 42 per cent,
believe that they have the right to be
sexually satisfied by their partners.
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Very important 35
Important 32
Not important 4
Not important at all 4
Neither 8
How important is it for you to keep your partner
emotionally satisfied?
Definitely 42
Probably 26
Probably not 3
Definitely not 3
Do you think your partner
is sensitive towards
your sexual needs?
Photographer: RITESH SHARMA; Models: PRIYANKA & DEV/www.indiatodayimages.com

Satisfaction is one of the most curious categories of
human experience. When what you want matches
what you get, you are satisfied, regardless of how
irrational either of these may actually be. Perfect
satisfaction is so rare that few of us know it when we
get it; we only recognise it when it’s gone and nothing
remains but memories. How much more fugitive, then, is
sexual satisfaction?
So how was it for urban India this year? The 2010
survey takes in more than 5,000 people across 11 cities and
is equally distributed between men and women, married
and unmarried. When asked whether they were satisfied
with their sex lives, more than 60 per cent said they were,
with men at 72 per cent and women at 59 per cent. This
seems good until you note that up to four-fifths of them are
satisfied with the other aspects of their lives. Sex, therefore,
seems to be letting the side down, although globally I
suspect people always tend to want more and get less from
sex. Well, the survival of most complex species depends
upon sex, so we living beings have evolved to chase it like
it’s reduced to clear. Since we take decades to raise our
young, it makes good sense for us to stick together for as
long as it takes and then some. Without satisfaction, we have
no long-term reward for carrying out this admittedly
arduous task. Having shaken off the chains of nature in
many things, we now enjoy the leisure to ask each other
complicated questions about sexual satisfaction, and pin our
own happiness on the answers.
Perhaps that’s why 80 per cent of our respondents
felt that “pleasing the partner while having sex” is the
most important aspect of satisfaction, with Delhi, Mumbai
and Patna topping the lists in this category. Mumbaikars
also felt that having an orgasm oneself was very important.
More men than women felt that good foreplay was important.
Women liked kissing best, followed by massage—
women tend to be more touch-oriented and men more
sight-oriented in their sexual behaviour. Significantly,
11 per cent expressed dissatisfaction with “having sex like
they do in films”. Here presumably “films” means mainstream
Hindi cinema, not Western or alternative, or
possibly it means porn. Ten per cent of Mumbaikars watch
porn as part of foreplay; more Mumbaikars also enjoy a
rich fantasy life and 80 per cent of them have shared their
fantasy with their partners, compared to 65 per cent
countrywide. Our preferred locale for both reality and
fantasy continues to be “at night in the bedroom”, and only
the most adventurous of us dream about having sex
anywhere, anytime. The most popular fantasy seems to be
of trying something just a little spicier than usual with one’s
partner—which backs up our other data in showing that
NOVEMBER 22, 2010 . INDIA TODAY 53
Time and sex don’t wait for anyone. For 25 per
cent of men and women in Jaipur, there is
no specific time to have sex.Mumbai at
24 per cent and Delhi at 23 per cent follow.
As GOOD
As it Gets
By Rimi B. Chatterjee
Most Indian women say their partners are sensitive to their needs, but that could
be because they have conditioned themselves to getting by with what they have
65
AT NIGHT IN
THE BEDROOM
14
ANYTIME,
ANYWHERE
4
EARLY
MORNING
3
AFTERNOON
For 2,009 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who have
had sex. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
What is the most important
reason for you to have sex?
For my own pleasure 11
To have children 10
For my partner’s pleasure 33
To make life exciting 28
To explore ways for pleasure 9
WHATWOMEN SEEK
For 2,009 women
respondents from a
total of 5,369 who have
had sex. Rest don’t
know/can’t say. All
figures in per cent.
54 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
there isn’t a very big gap between the wet dream and the
dry reality for most Indians. Provided, of course, that our
respondents are being honest.
A whole section of the survey probes the idea of
satisfaction not just as it affects sex, but relationships and
one’s overall perception of life. Our respondents ranked four
categories, financial security, emotional security, romance
and sexual satisfaction in order of important for their
happiness. Overall, 30 per cent voted for financial security,
while 29 per cent chose sexual satisfaction as their number
one requirement. In Hyderabad, 51 per cent of people felt
financial security was most important, and also the highest
number of Hyderabadis claimed to have sex every day.
Romance was the key for 21 per cent overall, with emotional
security coming in last across the board.
Romance for many couples can only begin after
marriage, as overall 82 per cent of couples had arranged
marriages. Kolkata led the country in love marriages
(48 per cent) but 8 per cent of Kolkatans also reported
that they never feel satisfied during sex, and 37 per cent
that they could not share their sexual fantasies with
their partner, thus keeping aloft the Bengali reputation for
grumbling. Certainly, only 72 per cent of love-married
couples felt they were better off after marriage, as opposed
to 79 per cent of arranged couples. A full third of
couples, regardless of what sort of marriage they had,
claimed that they took decisions jointly after discussion; an
encouraging sign. Among the younger couples, Lucknow
had the most people who felt romantic all the time.
Hyderabadis claim to have the most sex by a long
shot: Overall more men than women felt their partner
was “always romantic”. In affluent Ludhiana and Delhi,
93 per cent and 90 per cent respectively felt financial
independence was essential for the health of a
relationship. Overall, 64 per cent of men felt that their
relationship would improve if they earned more, but only
41 per cent of women believed they could improve their
relationship by earning more.
Respondents seemed a little foxed by the category of
emotional security. When asked what they thought it meant,
17 per cent said they wanted their partner to understand
and respect their emotions, while 6 per cent wanted “a
better understanding between each other”. Five per cent
said they should “love each other truly.” Emotional neglect
SeXuAl SaTiSfAcTiOn
3
NO
40
NOT
SURE For 2,664 women
respondents from a total of
5,369. Rest don’t know/can’t
say. All figures in per cent.
38
DO YOU THINKYOUR SEXLIFE WOULD YES
BE BETTER IFYOU FULFILLED THE
EMOTIONALNEEDS OFYOUR PARTNER?
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE Nearly two in five women
believe it is important to keep their partners
emotionally satisfied to have a healthy sex life.
For 76 per cent of men and women in Delhi, emotional contentment equals to a better sex
life. The same view was expressed by 63 per cent in Ahmedabad and 45 per cent in Ludhiana.
Do you feel emotionally secure
with your partner?
YES76 NO13
Men 85 Men 8
For 1,399 women
respondents from a
total of 5,369 who
are either married or
engaged. Rest don’t
know/can’t say. All
figures in per cent.
Patna is riding high on the emotional quotient as 93 per cent of women
feel emotionally secure in their current relationship.Twenty-nine
per cent of women in Bangalore, though, seem deeply unhappy.
WHATWOMEN THINK
Photographer: RITESH SHARMA; Models: POOJA BISHT & ARMAN/www.indiatodayimages.com
..................
............
...................................................... ................................................
................................
........................
56 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
or cruelty is one of the leading causes of divorce in the West,
but Indians give the impression that it isn’t a very high
peak on their emotional landscape. Exploring one’s own
emotions in a relationship is still a comparatively new and
foreign idea, and the older sense of a marriage being the
practical basis for daily life rather than a companionate
framework for self development continues to dominate.
The Indian urban middle-class apparently still prefers to
count on emotional support groups among family and
friends. However, this may be changing this may be
changing among couples younger than 25 who spend more
time together, go regularly for weekend getaways (36 per
cent) and generally invest more emotional energy and time
in their companionate roles.
Among married people, 81 per cent felt emotionally
secure, with Patna, the most satisfied at 94 per cent,
followed by Mumbai at 92 per cent. Men felt more emotionally
secure than women, but 59 per cent of men felt that
Check us OUT
Guest Column I NANDU NARASIMHAN
10 MYTHS ABOUT MEN
We are insensitive
Not at all. Most men feel deeply and strongly about things
they care about. Just try walking in front of the television
as Sachin Tendulkar winds up for a cover drive.
We are obsessed with
our gym-built bodies
Partly true. Lying in a gym with large plates on a rod is
meant to impress the ladies. Unfortunately, they don’t do
the same for the lower part of the body. Resulting in a generation
of broad-chested men with broiler chicken legs.
We have a sense of fashion
Except that it needs to be handed down to us, which can be
dangerous.Remember walking into office after Allen Solly’s
Friday Dressing campaign had broken and being visually
mauled by the hordes in solid blue shirts and khaki trousers?
We are obsessed with all things techno
A small percentage are. The rest carry them around
as the male equivalent of the designer clutch bag.
We only love women with great bodies
No way. What really turns a man on about a woman is how
she carries herself, how she holds her own and
how individual she is.Top it with a dash of humour.
We are bad shopping companions
It’s just that the process is something we don’t understand.
Try marrying an opening batsman and then watch him pick
one solitary piece of English willow in a bat shop, after half
an hour of shadow driving, cutting and pulling.
Metrosexual men are so nice
Yes, and it stops at that. Sensitivity is all about being there
in your own way when she needs you, and letting her fly
when she wants to.
We are untidy
Most men, apart from a few who have a fetish for body
odour and unwashed socks, are quite neat. It’s just that
their idea of neatness does not conform to a woman’s.
We are more transparent than the men
of ’70s and ’80s
That’s a wide down the leg-side. Boys will be boys. And
if that means lying through your teeth that you are in a
brainstorm and watching a Formula One race, so be it.
We are notoriously bad movie-goers
I see many couples, who hold hands going into the theatre,
and come out blinking, still holding hands.
The writer is National Creative Director, Solution Digitas
1
2
3
4
6
7
8
9
10
What does emotional security
mean to you?
Ahappy life 5
Safe sex 1
Understanding and respecting 16
Nothing 15
Having faith in each other 2
Thirteen per cent
of men and
women from
Chennai equate
safe sex with
emotional
security while
understanding
and respect
are important for
only 1 per cent.
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369. Figures don’t
add up to 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Is emotional infidelity the same thing
as having an extra-marital affair?
Men 59 Men 25
For 2,664 women respondents from a total
of 5,369. Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
Men seem to
understand that sex
and emotions cannot
be kept in separate
compartments. Not
so much women.
YES38 NO34
73%
feel a relationship is necessary for
emotional satisfaction. Surprisingly,
more men (78 per cent) than
women (68 per cent) think so.
SeXuAl SaTiSfAcTiOn
5
NOVEMBER 22, 2010 . INDIA TODAY 57
their partner having an emotional affair without physical
involvement was as bad as the whole deal, while only
38 per cent of women felt both misdemeanours were
equally culpable. Talking to the other partner is still the
strategy of choice if things go wrong, but more people this
year feel that they have the right to go elsewhere if
their relationship does not fulfil them sexually (higher in
Patna and among males). While we are still largely satisfied,
we seem to be hedging this about with more conditions,
and are more ready to complain if something doesn’t
match up to scratch. So far, this is only showing up in our
increased willingness to talk about sex.
So what can we say about India’s contentment?
There seems to be a lot of it, but it isn’t very ambitious.
Is this the truth, or are people fooling themselves? To
some extent, saying you’re satisfied when you’re not is
one way of bullying yourself into believing you are. Indians
tend to pride themselves on being well-adjusted, which
in the case of satisfaction means revising your goals
downwards till they’re in kicking range of what you’re
actually getting. As William Stafford said to a man
who wanted a cure for writer’s block: “lower your
standards”. But for now, the marriage bed is still pretty
comfortable, with or without the black satin sheets.
Chatterjee is the author of three novels, Black Light,
The City of Love and Signal Red and teaches English
at Jadavpur University.
What is your opinion
on pre-marital sex?
Some like it young. For 38 per cent
women in Hyderabad, the first sexual
encounter happened in the teens.
At what age did
you have your first
sexual experience?
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Pre-teens 1
Twenties 47
Teenage 20
Thirties 5
I am still a virgin 25
Acceptable 10
Somewhat acceptable 10
Not at all acceptable 45
Not acceptable 19
Neither 9
TOP GUN Gender equality is fine but only
outside the bedroom.While 61 per cent of
women like their men on top, only
19 per cent of men like a role reversal.
61
MAN
ON TOP
11
WOMAN
ON TOP
6
SIDEWAYS
4
REAR
ENTRY
2
SITTING
For 2,009 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who have had sex. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE
SEXPOSITION?
28%
of men think pre-marital sex
is unacceptable. Kolkata
men, at 51 per cent, are the
staunchest opponents.
WHATWOMEN WANT
Photographer: RITESH SHARMA; Models: POOJA BISHT & ARMAN/www.indiatodayimages.com
Cover story
Their SECRET
Gardens
The sexually repressed Indian woman is breaking free of taboos.
She’s no longer fearful of flying. All she needs is a man with wings.
SeXuAl FaNtAsIeS
BANDEEP SINGH/
www.indiatodayimages.com
Do you have sexual
fantasies?
YES35 NO52
Men 67 Men 28
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,396.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Forty-one per cent women between
the age group of 35-40 have had
sexual fantasies compared to only
34 per cent women in the 18-25 age
group. The figure for men in the two
categories is the same at 74 per cent.
36% of women in Ludhiana mostly try out their
own fantasies compared to 20 per cent men.
Do you engage in
foreplay before sex?
YES58 NO21
Men 84 Men 9
For 2,009 respondents from a total of 5,369 who have
had sex. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Forty-nine per cent of women
in Bangalore get straight to the
point and do not engage in
foreplay.Kolkata at 43 per cent
and Delhi at 41 per cent fill the
next two slots.
WHATWOMEN THINK
One night, after copious amounts of alcohol were raging through our bloodstreams,
a group of us women decided to play a rather sacrilegious game
of Scrabble which involved inventing new words. Midway, a 20-something
friend placed four letters on the board that intrigued us—O-R-G-A. She
grinned mischievously and said, “Orga. That’s half an orgasm.”
Analysing the results of the 2010 sex survey, one gets the feeling “orga” is a
term many urban Indian women would identify with. Besides suggesting half an
orgasm, it is the only word I can think could exemplify how underwhelmed most
women seem to be about their sexual state of affairs. Only 59 per cent of the 2,664
female respondents were satisfied with their sex lives, a depressing statistic since
most women rated other aspects like family, social life, health and finances as far
more fulfilling in comparison. The overall results form a tragic reply to the muchraised
question of what Indian women expect from Indian men—next to nothing.
This, however, is not to suggest that women want nothing from men. Women
invest vast amounts of time, money and energy in making themselves desirable
to the opposite sex. We spend hours sampling products designed to enhance our
beauty and improve our sexual prowess. Increasing financial security allows us
this privilege. Yet, women’s expectations from men remain understated. Countless
magazines offer endless content on 10 ways to please a man, how to give him the
perfect blowjob and sureshot ways to appease his appetite. While urban women
may have finally formulated a vocabulary with which they can articulate their
sexual desires, we are yet to discover a language through which we can communicate
these to our male counterparts.
The media may advocate women’s right to pleasure but our culture remains
unaccommodating to women’s sexual needs. The sex industry, to begin with,
continues to cater almost exclusively to men. Women continue to be portrayed as
objects whose only function is to titillate men and thereby encourage the sale of
consumer goods. Think about it: Indian men have access to Playboy
magazines and pop-culture icons like Savita Bhabhi alongside a repertoire of
pornography. Men who cannot afford the immediacy of Internet porn are allowed
to openly indulge in blue films at their local cinema halls. Women, however,
must make do with re-runs of Sex and the City and cheap paperback romances.
It is acceptable for men to celebrate their pre- and post-marital sexual exploits
By Roselyn D’Mello

while women nurse them like dreaded secrets for fear of
losing the “virgin” tag.
We live in a country where women are regularly accosted
for wearing anything mildly revealing. Where walking
unaccompanied at night is the setting for most rape scenes.
It’s hard to find a single woman who hasn’t been violated by
a family friend during her childhood and hasn’t had to keep
mum about it, who hasn’t been harassed at her workplace.
Who hasn’t, after a particularly exploitative experience, been
told that she deserved it because she “brought it upon herself”
by being too liberal. If sex doesn’t feature too prominently in
women’s list of priorities, it’s perhaps because of the sinister
subtext it embodies, one that is ever discussed. The nature of
the questions that the survey sought answers for indicates
how little we make of women’s sexual inclinations. Under the
present circumstances, we’re still stuck at the level of asking
questions like “do women fantasise” and if they do, then “what
forms the content of their fantasies”, or “if women prefer
foreplay before sex”. When will we be able to move on to more
60 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
Guest Column I DEBRAJ MOOKERJEE
Iconsider myself a feminist. Perhaps it makes me feel
good to know I am one. Years ago, I learnt, however, that
when you are a man, it is not easy being a feminist. I had
woven the theory that sex meant much more to men than
to women. Like Lord Byron wrote (in Don Juan), “Man’s
love is of man’s life a thing apart, ‘Tis woman’s entire existence.”
Men can fantasise over centrespreads; women need
to warm up to a man before they can visualise sex with him.
The Raymond “Complete Man” was sexually attractive to
women, my theory postulated. I thought I was being extrasensitive
to women and their sensibilities, imbuing them
with greater sexual intensity than men, for whom the
testosterone-driven “wham bam, thank you ma’am”
routine was, more often than not, par for the course.
My female colleagues at the university were shocked by
my naïveté. “What bull,” they cried, “Give us a face with a
body to match, and we can fantasise the exact same way
that men do, perhaps better!” My paternalistic feminism, as
it were, went straight out of the window. I am wiser now. I
don’t try and think nice things on behalf of women. Women’s
sexual desires are no different from a man’s. The giverreceiver
stereotype is a societal construct. Centuries of cultural
training have wended their way into scientific studies
and men, and often women themselves, have created this
great myth: “Men are from Mars, and women from Venus.”
Sexual reticence marks a woman’s social performance.
Ever watched a woman aboard public transport? She will
do her damnest to appear sexually non-provocative. That is
her training at home, and that is also a safety device because
the public space is male-dominated. God gave Adam territorial
rights over Eve, and men seem not to have given up
the privilege. But observing thousands of demure women in
public should not produce the theory that they do not wish
to express their sexuality. What women want is to be able
to do just that, just like men do when they strut about with
their smart phones and stretch limousines (these toys are
decoys, since they can’t show the real thing, can they?). In
private, women are likely to be even more sexually expressive
than men; men are always playing the field while
women are at home only on base turf. Financial and other
types of independence perhaps play a role, but left to her
own, deep inside, a woman demands sex just the way men
do. Damn good thing that is too. It lifts the burden off protofeminists
like me from having to formulate comfortable generalisations
about female sexuality. The question that hangs
unattended is, can men deal with a sexually assertive
woman? As they free themselves from the burden of womanhood,
contemporary women desire it all and now wish to
stake their claim. Are men willing to lie back and enjoy it?
The writer is Associate Professor of English, Delhi University
They Seek ITALL
What was your partner’s reaction
when you shared your fantasy?
Was shocked to hear it 5
Was shocked but later understood 12
Was comfortable and understood my feelings 30
Was comfortable listening but refused to participate 4
Was excited by it 12
For 931 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who fantasise about having sex.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
PEEPING PAMS One-fifth of women
respondents fantasise about
watching others having sex. Not
surprising in a country where
voyeurism sells the most on screens.
67
DIFFERENT
LOVE-MAKING
POSITIONS
WHAT DO YOU FANTASISE ABOUT?
WHATWOMEN WANT
SeXuAl FaNtAsIeS

daring questions that probe the depth of a woman’s lust? Will we ever reach a stage
where women will be encouraged to acknowledge and celebrate their libidos?
There’s a line in Annie Hall, the classic 1977 Woody Allen film, spoken by a
random woman in the course of a cocktail conversation. “I had an orgasm the other
day,” she says. “But my therapist told me it was the wrong kind.” Her naïve
confession probably held true for American women in the 20th century, an era
mired in myths about the female orgasm. Most urban Indian women, unfortunately,
still suffer from the same predicament—the inability to understand the machinery
of lust, an ignorance of their own bodily needs. And they are not to blame. This isn’t
to suggest they are victims. Pry in on a conversation among women in spaces that
are traditionally feminine, like community kitchens or even the one boogey reserved
for women on the Delhi metro. Behind closed doors and beyond the confines of
coffee-table conversations, you will overhear them whispering about sexual urges
they have repressed for years. This survey documents the responses of women on
the verge of a sexual revolution. Women who are finally, en masse, voicing their
discontent; their desperation for more fulfilling sexual relationships. Women who
are no longer satisfied with multiple orgas. Women who want the real deal.
The writer is currently editing an anthology of women’s erotica for Zubaan
Which celebrity do you
fantasise having sex with?
Salman Khan 3
Shah Rukh Khan 2
Akshay Kumar 1
Ranbir Kapoor 1
Katrina Kaif 7
Aishwarya Rai 6
Kareena Kapoor 3
Sania Mirza 3
MOTHS TO THE FAME
FOR WOMEN FOR MEN
Have you ever shared
sexual fantasies
with your partner?
YES54 NO37
Men 71 Men 20
For 931 women respondents from a total of
5,396 who fantasise about having sex. Rest
don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
20
WATCH
OTHERS
HAVING SEX
7
GROUP
SEX
6
SEXWITH
TWO PARTNERS
SIMULTANEOUSLY
In contrast, more
than a fourth of the
men like to watch
other people having
sex and nearly one in
two men fantasises
about different lovemaking
positions.
For 931 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who fantasise having sex. All figures in per cent.
Figures don’t add up to 100 because of multiple choices.
All figures in per cent.
BANDEEPSINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
MANDAR DEODHAR/www.indiatodayimages.com
When asked to rank financial security, sexual
satisfaction, emotional security and romance in
order of importance in their relationships, more
than a third of the women polled in the survey
opted for financial security, followed by sexual satisfaction,
romance and emotional security. It is possible that regional
differences skewed the overall figures (82 per cent of
women from Hyderabad gave top billing to financial
security, as opposed to only 12 per cent from Patna), but
that’s only to be expected from a large survey covering
disparate populations. Based on this, one could be easily
forgiven for concluding that urban Indian women find
money cooler than sex. But, on looking closer, it seems
they’re not quite sure.
For, to confound things just a bit, a little under a third
ranked financial security last. Clearly, there’s some more
digging to be done. The survey broke down financial
security into three elements—financial independence, the
impact of finances on the relationship and whether sex gets
better if one earns more than one’s partner. In terms of the
importance accorded to financial independence, it appears
that more than three-quarters of those interviewed felt that
it was either very important or important. So far, so good.
But men did so as much (actually marginally more) as did
women. Obviously, since women ranked financial security
higher than men did, financial security means more than just
financial independence to them. But what stares one in the
face is that Indian men also value financial independence in
the relationship, perhaps not as much as sex, but much more
than one would have expected.
What’s more, more men than women feel that finances
could affect a relationship. The provider stereotype is
obviously not dead yet and men would probably find it
harder to deal with their relationship issues if they weren’t
bringing home enough. Who’s going to pay those EMIs? As far
as women are concerned, it appears that as long as
financial independence is ensured, they can approach
financial issues in the relationship with greater confidence.
But what’s with the respondents from Kolkata (less than half
62 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
By Vijay Nagaswami
Men 73 Men 19
For 2,664 women respondents from a total
of 5,369. Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
Can financial issues
affect a relationship?
YES56 NO31
82%
of men and fewer
women, 75 per cent,
believe financial
independence can make
or break a relationship.
Do you think your sex
lifewould be better if
you earned more
than your partner?
YES18 NO12
Men 32 Men 5
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369. Rest
don’t know/can’t say/not sure. All figures in per cent.
Can Buy Me
LOVE
FiNaNcIaL sEcUrItY
Women approach sex with far greater abandon than their mothers did
but believe that more money makes for a better sexual relationship
WHATWOMEN THINK
For 82 per cent of women from
Hyderabad, financial security was
of utmost importance, while only
12 per cent in Patna felt the same.

CORBIS
64 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
believe finances affect their relationships) and Chennai (not
even two-fifths)?Apparently, people from these two cities
enjoy their sex lives regardless of the viagrational power
that money is supposed to provide (as it seems to do for
respondents from Delhi and Ludhiana). The good news
is that only slightly more than half the respondents
felt that sex and earning capacity were linked. Obviously,
at least half of urban India is enjoying its sex life, regardless
of its bank balance.
There are regional variations as well as inconsistent
responses which suggest that the urban Indian woman has
not quite made up her mind on the role that earnings play
in relationships. My personal experience as a couples’
therapist indicates that the biggest stress factors in urban
Indian relationships are money, work and family.
Examining the issue of financial security might be a good
place to begin with. In the past, the term financial
insecurity for woman referred to either the insufficiency of
the man’s income-generating capability or his financial
profligacy. Living in a joint family made things easier, for
there was always somebody to pick up the slack. Today,
however, when financial independence is becoming the
norm for women, the term has come to reflect the lack of
fiscal transparency between partners. Who pays for
what? Who earns how much? Joint or separate accounts?
My money, your money or our money? All these are
concerns that bedevil many couples today, and more often
than not, remain unresolved, owing largely to the distaste
for discussing money at the dinner table. And they are
still expected to have sex?
Apparently they do, even though women give sexual
satisfaction a lower ranking than men. And not just
this, urban Indians want the whole shebang—foreplay,
orgasms, romance, fantasy, whether or not they’re getting
all of it. What this tells me is that whatever their differences,
new Indian couples are seemingly able to engage in a
much higher degree of sexual intimacy than their parents
ever dreamed of. This is a good sign. For it’s only through
the experience of intimacy, sexual and emotional, that
financial and other issues can be resolved. What this
also tells me is that while contemporary women are
perfectly willing to approach sex with far more abandon
than their mothers did, the more the financial security,
the greater the abandon.
Probably the best way to work towards financial
security is for couples to learn to talk about money. It’s not
a bad idea to talk about financial expectations before one
makes a commitment, even if it seems tediously prosaic to
do so during the wine-and-roses period. I am happy that
people all over the country are paying more conscious
attention to the issue of financial security in their
relationships. But we still need more transparency and
financial mutuality. Money may not guarantee relationship
happiness. But it does buy a standard of living. And what’s
more, the sex could only get better.
The writer is a Chennai-based psychiatrist and author
FiNaNcIaL sEcUrItY
As women, we are constantly spoon-fed ideas of
what romance ought to be. We buy into candlelight
dinners, red roses, dark chocolates, opening doors,
sunsets from a quiet rooftop and Valentine’s Day. Equally,
men are often trained or pressured into performing
these expected tasks to qualify as romantics. I’m oldfashioned,
I like chivalry, I like attention and I like being
spoilt. But any man who thinks this is all it takes to woo
a woman, be warned. This comes with an expiry date.
When a relationship is new, women enjoy these little
gestures and there is absolutely nothing wrong with
unconditional chivalry. But a few years into the
relationship, she might actually find a romantic dinner
in a swish restaurant sipping champagne, making small
talk and wearing a tight, uncomfortable dress whilst a
huge market profits from her emotional expectations not
really that romantic. At the risk of sounding like a
middle-aged feminist cynic, I think roses and candles are
the nursery school of romantics.
What is romance for a woman? It is when your loved
one is able to keep the “spark” lit even as the years go by.
We live in a world where almost every man has been
conditioned into looking at a woman from the outside, to
judge her appearance, and her “lady-like” behaviour, so
it’s only natural that we women want to be seen from the
inside. A woman wants the freedom to express her
darkest feelings and the most unconventional thoughts.
What men often do not realise is that women can also
have days when they want to physically break something,
pick their noses, eat a gigantic steak or roam
around the house in a torn T-shirt. We have days when
we use bad language in frustration, when we are insensitive
to men’s needs, when we need to be left alone. The
importance of romance for a woman is to feel just as accepted,
just as loved when she is behaving unconventionally.
This romance requires a little more perception and
depth than chivalry because it means men taking a step
back when we are angry. Sometimes romance is as simple
as a man staying by our side when the whole world
sits in judgment. Other times, romance means physically
letting us leave and sort out problems by ourselves. To
do this, a man requires immense self-control because he
needs to let go of that instinctive male tendency to protect,
provide and possess his woman. He needs to let go
of that male ego we women keep complaining about.
When a man trusts a woman completely, lets her go
and waits patiently for her to return, without questioning
her loyalty, it is true romance. And it’s not something
you learn from a glossy magazine. Or buy at a mall.
The writer, an actor, appeared in Dev.D
True ROMANCE
Guest Column IKALKI KOECHLIN
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MH SE X ISUE
2012
In a 1965 essay on filmmaking, legendary director
Satyajit Ray wrote of his general admiration of French
new wave cinema, particularly their technical experiments
with hand-held cameras, freeze-frames and
jump-cuts that were ubiquitous in the films of Jean Luc
Godard. “But,” said Ray, “one thing stops me short here: I
know I cannot have the bedroom scene that goes with it.”
Ray’s puritanical attitude to the representation of sex on
screen may well be a thing of the past today. Certainly, as we
watch films like Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D where the wastrel
Dev (played by Abhay Deol) moans “Paro main aa raha
hoon” after watching titillating computer images sent to him
by his lady love (a part essayed by Mahi Gill), we realise that
Kashyap actually wanted his audience to get the intended
meaning of these words whose effect would have been
somewhat trite and sanitised if spoken in English. Kashyap’s
bold interpretation of one of India’s best-known melodramatic
romantic novels, Devdas, signalled the director’s faith
66 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
ARevolution
IN PARTS
Sexual liberation has come to the middle class woman,bringing in more verve
and assertion. But how is it reshaping the identity of those left behind?
By Rochona Majumdar
Cover story SeXuAl AtTiTuDeS

in the ability of a niche audience among India’s “new” middle classes to take such
direct statements about sexuality and sexual pleasure in their stride.
We would be mistaken if we treated Kashyap’s as a one-off experiment.
Another director, Dibakar Banerjee, made a scathing satire of the voyeurism that
accompanies India’s new consumer culture epitomised by malls, camera phones,
and multiplexes in his film Love Sex aur Dhokha (LSD) released earlier this year.
Audiences who watched this film expecting to witness steamy sex scenes were
sorely disappointed. What we got instead were three consecutive stories of sex,
lies, and scandal that highlighted the lopsided impact of both sexual and
economic liberalisation on the new middle classes. LSD was Banerjee’s
intelligent and tongue-in-cheek take on the Karan Johar brand of films, so
successful in the 1990s, where a boy met a girl and married her after overcoming
family hurdles through a display of innocence, honesty, and charm; or his
scathing interpretation of the supposed sexual liberation which backfired when
Do you approve of
homosexuality?
YES13 NO87
Men 21 Men 79
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369. All figures in per cent.
Have you ever fantasised
about having a
homosexual relationship?
YES8 NO76
Men 16 Men 77
For 2,664 women respondents from a total of 5,369.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Mumbai could be an ideal retreat for same-sex
lovers as 28 per cent of its women approve of
homosexuality. Lucknow at 22 per cent and
Kolkata at 19 per cent fill the next two slots.
Twenty-seven per cent of women in Jaipur
fantasised about a lesbian relationship, followed
by women from Lucknow at 15 per cent.
13%
WHATWOMEN THINK
of women from Lucknow have
had a lesbian experience, followed
by 8 per cent in Delhi and Mumbai.
Photographs by GETTY IMAGES
an MMS scandal broke out a couple of years ago in one of
Delhi’s renowned schools, demonstrating the unrelenting
voyeurism unleashed by the easy availability of technology.
Reading through the results of the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-
ORG MARG survey 2010 on sexuality evoked vivid snapshots of
these and several other media images that saturate contemporary
public life in India. Statements from men and women
(surveyed separately) about orgasms, preferred sexual
positions, spousal infidelity, and pre-marital sex confirm that
sexual norms are changing among a cross-section of the
middle classes. Compared to the 2003 survey, a greater
percentage of women in the present sample assert that they
would have extra-marital affairs if their spouses strayed.
Likewise, a higher number claimed to have tried out their
favourite sexual positions (20 per cent) compared to 9 per
cent in 2003; 76 per cent of females claimed their partners
were sensitive to their sexual needs, a higher figure from
2003. The survey shows a general increase in couples
sharing sexual fantasies, or in expressing satisfaction with
68 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
Why do people stray in relationships or look
elsewhere? Why do they cheat? Is it boredom,
greed, delusion that the next person will fulfill
them in ways the last person could not or just mother
nature’s coaxing methods coming into play to ensure
you spread the bounty of your DNA? Whatever the reasons,
the end result ends up being the same. It’s like
stuffing your face with candy when you’re hypoglycemic.
The “rush” of the sugar gives you a temporary
feeling of well-being but creates havoc internally. “I
cheat because I can,” said a friend rather flippantly.
“Who wouldn’t if they had the chance? Do I feel regret?
Never! I still love my wife and treat her like a queen.”
While most women in the room rolled up their shirtsleeves,
eager to pin him down in a fight, some of the
men gaped at him with open-mouthed admiration. The
truth is, most people would cheat if they could get away
with it and do cheat even when the risk of being caught
looms large. Statistics show that the prescribed moral
code handed down to us by our forefathers does not
seem to be operative in the world as we truly know and
experience it on a daily basis. Conduct suggested and
exhibited over cups of tea in supposedly decent and
functional homes is as realistic as the plots displayed in
the tawdry soaps that provide the background score to
most average lives.
We are, as my father says, what we hide. The lives
we lead and the lives we preach are sometimes two contrasting
realities. We promise, cheat, lie, reap. Storing
away truths in mothball-lined closets where sunlight
can’t reach. Yet we overlook the minor but vital detail
that the only person we are eventually lying to is ourselves.
Can you live with the consequences of your actions,
your conscience for a second be damned? If the
answer is a resounding yes, then consider this: love and
lust are as different from each other as red wine and
blue cheese. But because they can also complement one
another splendidly, they get confused and combined
with amazing dumbfounded regularity. Does being an
adult mean seeking a constant source of candy? Or does
it mean seeking self-restraint? Does less equal more in
every area of life, except for matters of the heart or, pardon
my French, matters of the crotch? The answers are
varied and the questions more so but one thing is for
certain—there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The rainbow itself is you. Nothing or no one is
going to fulfill you if you are not inherently fulfilled yourself.
We can stray as much as we please but we’ll be kidding
ourselves if we believe we are doing anything more
than putting out fire with gasoline.
The writer is a filmmaker
Guest Column I POOJA BHATT
Love and LUST
15%
of women in Jaipur have been in a
lesbian relationship with a stranger
while only 5 per cent have had such
an experience with a relative.
SeXuAl AtTiTuDeS
their sex lives. At the same time, one can’t help being struck
by the far greater number of men who fantasise or would
like to engage in orgies and anal sex. For all this brave talk,
however, the survey indicates a drop in coital frequency. How
do we make sense of these numbers? What happens when
we juxtapose these results against the backdrop of frequent
reports of brutal rapes and sexual violence against women
(and female children)? How do we analyse sexual mores in
Indian society as a whole, including not just the educated
middle classes but also men and women in the expanding
smaller townships such as the ones depicted in films like LSD?
In the absence of ethnographic analysis, it would be
foolhardy to express definitive opinions on the subject. It is
true that the public sphere in India today is saturated with
sex and body talk. A large percentage of middle class
Indians, at least in the metros, have become more conscious
of their bod image. John Abraham’s abs, Bipasha Basu or
Thirty per cent of men and women from Ahmedabad have had a homosexual experience
with strangers, followed by Hyderabad at 24 per cent and Lucknow at 21 per cent.
COMFORT ZONES More than 50 per cent of
women who admitted to a lesbian relationship
say they had it with friends and colleagues,
suggesting that same-sex friendships
have gone beyond emotional fulfillment.
30
COLLEAGUE
28
NONE
27
FRIEND
11
RELATIVE
For 162 women respondents from a total of 5,369 who have had a homosexual experience.
The figures have been rounded off to the nearest integer. All figures in per cent.
5
WITH WHOM HAVE YOU HAD A STRANGER
HOMOSEXUAL EXPERIENCE?
For 2,664 women
respondents from a total
of 5,369. Rest don’t
know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
While 29 per cent of men would educate their
bisexual partners about unprotected sex, 20
per cent would end the relationship. Nineteen
per cent would talk to them about it.
Talk about it 27
Educate them on the risks involved in unprotected sex 26
End the relationship 9
Would be okay 4
Would start enjoying sex with my partner 4
How would you react if you
discovered your partner was bisexual?
WHATWOMEN WANT

70 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 22, 2010
Cover story
Shilpa Shetty’s curves are now seen to be within reach if only
one could spend some hours at the gym. Or failing that,
practice their fitness and yoga DVDs at home. A sexy image
is made possible by the enormous strides made by prêt-aporter
in Indian fashion readily made available to
thousands of young and middle-aged Indians via affordable
retail outlets that have mushroomed throughout the
country. Add to these, the plots centering around extramarital
affairs, pre-marital sex, and children out of wedlock
that we see in numerous television serials and films.
We are in the middle of some kind of sexual revolution
for sure. What is not certain, however, is, who exactly are
the participants in this putative revolution? We need to
know more about the differential impact of this sexual
revolution on the “haves” and “have-nots” in Indian society.
What we don’t know yet is how the “have-nots”, the
thousands of people who lack the lucre to spend on body
image, respond to the overt sexuality that faces them daily
in public life? Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga’s novel
The White Tiger attempted to express some of the fantasies
of those excluded from India’s economic liberalisation
through the protagonist, Balram Halwai. Recall Halwai’s
excitement as he sauntered into the cool interior of a
shopping mall in Gurgaon, or when he first saw the fair
arms and legs of his employer’s wife.
If the increasing preponderance of double income
couples, greater work opportunities for middle class
educated men and women, emergence of new modes of
writing and filmmaking have fired the sexual imagination
of the Indian middle classes in unprecedented ways, we
need to think long and hard about what (if any) the impact
of these changes are on those who cannot afford shopping
malls and multiplexes. Even as the consumption index of
the middle class rises, and the sexual practices of couples
living in nuclear families or three-generational families
undergo changes (the ones recorded in the surveys), what
about the impact of these on middle class teens and
pre-teens? Although a poor remake of Lolita, Ram Gopal
Varma’s Nishabd or regional films like Ek Je Ache Kanya—
Konkona Sen Sharma’s debut film—express the sexual
imaginaries of adolescent Indians. We find ourselves in
the middle of social changes whose impact is nether
known nor predictable. It brings in its wake scandal and
inequality. But equally, verve, radicalism, and new identities.
The burgeoning genre of Indian chick-lit is one place
to look at to get a glimpse into the 21st century urban Indian
20-or 30-something Indian woman. Advaita Kala’s Almost
Single, Rajashree’s Trust Me and Swati Kaushal’s Piece of
Cake mark the distance that Indian women writers have
travelled since Shobhaa De’s Socialite Evenings or Starry
Nights. The protagonists of the books are stories of
the Indian everywoman. It will be some years before we
know how she transforms her family, her children, and
the society that surrounds her.
The writer is assistant professor at the University of
Chicago and the author of Marriage and Modernity
SeXuAl AtTiTuDeS
If you ask a few people in the know, they may very well
tell you that I am a reasonably sensitive soul; that I
am polite, understanding and maintain the perfect
bachelor pad. In fact, there seems to be little reason for me
to give up the joys of bachelorhood. I’ve stayed staunchly
away from long-term committed relationships, which
doesn’t mean I don’t want one. I really do. But I’m just
terrible at it. The concept of freedom when it comes to
relationships is at the crux of it all. Right now, I have the
freedom to be miserable and lonely. In a relationship, I
might be miserable and lonely, but without the freedom of
actually choosing to be. I spent the longest time wanting
to be in a relationship because I was terrified of loneliness;
that was until most people in relationships told me they
were lonelier with their partners than when they were on
their own. Yes, I have been surrounded by a cynical lot.
But the truth is that I have a grand desire to share my life;
my time, my mind, with somebody. I’m a bit too set in my
ways. But the one ingredient that will allow me to bend my
rules, change my ways, accommodate, shall we say, is love.
I have seen glimpses of it. And it is the best thing in the
world. When I am in love, I’ll travel anywhere to meet her,
clean up any mess. Fast; make coffee, breakfast in bed, be
an attentive lover. Anything. And that is usually what gets
me dumped. I’m too nice. I’m too there. Why can’t I be
more like a guy, go and get drunk and watch football or
something? Hmmm... the irony of it all. I often wonder how
much we are all ruled by the fear and the expectations of
people. How much of a struggle can, or for that matter
should it be, to simply be? To be perfectly honest, I have
no idea how relationships work, and I don’t really belong
to one. I love my work, my friends, wherever in the world
they are and I have discovered a wonderful new
companion in my Nikon D90. The fact is there will come a
time when the urge to share, and be controlled by another
may be upon me. I hope to embrace the moment as it
happens, rather than resist and rationalise it. At this stage
of my life, I seem to be happily drifting, and I have no real
desire to change too much.
The fact is, as people, we have a tremendous urge to
influence, advise or control people we care about. I can
safely speak for myself in this regard, and it is a pointless
exercise. There are many things that we are powerless
over but we exist in denial of the fact. Accepting that we
cannot change something is far more empowering and a
lot less hassle than spending a lifetime banging one’s head
against a brick wall. Go with the flow, even if it means you
have to pick up your socks from time to time, and get a
scolding. Perhaps I should just be grateful that I’m usually
told to go off and do what most men get yelled at for doing.
The writer is an independent ad filmmaker
FREE to Be
Guest Column I SUNHIL SIPPY
By Kaveree Bamzai
If there is one thing
that emerges from
the INDIA TODAY-AC
Nielsen-ORG MARG sex
survey 2009, the
seventh in our annual
series, it is the distance
between image and the
imagination. The technology
of fantasy has
expanded dramatically,
allowing urban Indians
access to a supermarket
of choices, but all it has
done is expand information,
not intimacy.
Relationships are less
conversation, more
convenience; less playgrounds,
more prisons.
Urban Indians
emerge as cautious
tourists, not fearless
adventurers, in a new
universe of fantasy
ALLPHOTOGRAPHS USED IN THE SEXSURVEYHAVE BEEN SHOTWITH PROFESSIONALMODELS.
30 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
Indians continue to shy
away from using sex toys
this year too. Last year, of
the 5,353 respondents
spanning from 18 to 40
years, only 10 per cent had
used sex toys while 9 per
cent have done so in 2009.
The missionary position
continues to top Indian
bedrooms this year too.
While last year, 72 per cent
favoured the man on top
position, the number was
significantly less (57 per
cent) in 2007.
The incidence of bondage
sex has gone down.While 15
per cent had given it a try in
2008, only 12 per cent have
done so this year. In 2008,
17 per cent had expressed
their desire to indulge in it.
This year, the number
stands at 14 per cent.
Role playing, however, has
gone down the popularity
charts. While three out of
10 had claimed they liked
role playing in 2008, only 17
per cent fantasised about
it this year.
The level of satisfaction
when it comes to trying
new things in bed with
their partners has
increased. While 66 per
cent reported that they
were quite satisfied this
year, only 60 per cent had
admitted that their
partner was adventurous
in bed in 2008.
Men continue to find
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
sexually attractive. In 2006,
the survey was carried out
on 2,559 men in the age
group of 16-25.When asked
about the sexiest man and
woman in Bollywood, a
majority had pointed out
Rai and John Abraham.
compiled by Priya Verma
1
2
3
4
5
6
AGE OF ABSTINENCE
ESSAY
All figures in per cent.
INTO THE BEDROOM
SEVEN YEARSINAROW
WITH INDIATODAY
Twenties
38
Still a virgin
21
Thirties
19
Teenage
18
Pre-teens
3
For previous sex surveys log on to:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
Adoloscents in India knew this much before the Twilighters. Sex is best when
delayed. For the majority, the first sexual encounter happens only in the 20s.
Sixty-four per cent partners still don’t share their sexual fantasies
with each other. Of the men who fantasise about roleplaying,
29 per cent have imagined pretending to rape their
partner, while 17 per cent have actually tried it. And though
41 per cent of the men and 27 of the women watch pornography,
it is less a sexual aid and more a sexual alternative,
with 18 per cent married men and 10 per cent married
women saying they don’t want to see it with their partners.
Our previous surveys have examined sex and the single
woman, the sexuality of single men, and the state of marriage.
What the 2009 survey, which interviewed 5,371 men
and women between 18 and 60, across 11 cities, attempted
to do was investigate the nature of sexuality, separating it
from reproduction, because as sociologist Veena Das points
out, “underneath the conventional notion of marriage as a
heterosexual, more or less compulsory institution necessary
for the birth of legitimate children, there are swirling
emotions of desire, longings, love, hate, fear, betrayal, that
escape these representations and find expression in the
nooks and corners of daily life”. But even now, men and
women seem to inhabit different dream worlds. For women,
the fantasies appear to be censored. Their minds,
conditioned by centuries of having had to live like Sita with
the burden of proving their devotion, play thought police for
fear of ending up like Surpanakha, with a mutilated nose for
For 391 respondents of the total 5,371 who have
participated in an orgy. All figures in per cent.
With whom have you indulged
in an orgy or threesome?
Have you ever participated
in an orgy or threesome?
For 4,222 respondents of the total 5,371 who
have had sex. All figures in per cent.
NO91
Male 12, Female 6
Male 88, Female 94
YES9
Fifty-seven per cent of those who have had orgies have
participated in them with other women. Chennai tops
the chart with 89 per cent women admitting to orgies.
With a man and a woman 40
With two men 10
With two women 50
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
The people of Kolkata are still quite conservative. Sixty per
cent of them are yet to accept the possibility of older people
having sexual fantasies. Chennai follows next at 46 per cent.
Yes 30
Not aware if older people also fantasise 10
No 38
PER CENT OF RESPONDENTS IN MUMBAI
AND AN EQUAL NUMBER IN AHMEDABAD
HAVE HAD THEIR FIRST SEXUAL EXPERIENCE
WHEN THEY WERE TEENAGERS.
In your opinion, is it acceptable for
older people to have sexual fantasies?
Male Female
47 22
5 21
48 57
23

all her efforts to woo Rama. So while only 14 per cent of
the women fantasised about sex with a stranger, the number
for men is 53 per cent.
Safety seems the prime concern for women, whether it
is in their favourite fantasy form of sex, oral sex; or the
favoured place of sex, the bedroom; or even the favourite
fantasy position, the missionary position. The articulation of
female desire is still in the realm of silence with 70 per cent
of the women not even sharing their sexual fantasies with
their partners. For men though, risky behaviour in thought
and action seems second nature. So whether it is men between
26 and 34 who want oral sex with girls less than 18
or men between 51 and 60 who want to sleep with women
between 31 and 40, it seems age is not a barrier for them. At
least 28 per cent married men have had sex outside marriage
and 44 per cent have made an MMS of themselves while
having sex, showing a strong streak of exhibitionism. But
basic fantasies have not altered—rather stereotypes have
been reinforced. While 45 per cent Indian men want to have
sex with village women, suggesting a sense of nostalgia,
several men believe that Muslims (20 per cent) and Punjabis
(14 per cent) are more attractive sexually.
Psychiatrist Anurag Mishra says the expansion of visual
porn may well be responsible for finessing techniques but diminishing
the repertoire for men. It may also be inhibiting
the women, who, faced with a world where they are expected
to be sexual goddesses, flee from being too expressive.
32 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
METHODOLOGY
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG Sex Survey 2009
was carried out to understand the different facets of
sexuality of single and married men and women.The survey,
INDIA TODAY’s seventh was conducted among men and
women of five age groups, 18-25 years, 26-34 years, 35-
40 years, 41-50 years and 51-60 years.They belonged to
the middle and upper middle-class and lower middleclass
(Sec A, B and C).
In this year’s survey, the main emphasis was on sexual
fantasies and desires.The survey classified fantasy into
two parts, one being the kind of fantasy one would want
to harbour but not something one would want to do and
other is the one practices.The survey had a sample size
of 5,371 respondents across 11 cities: Delhi, Chennai,
Hyderabad,Ahmedabad,Patna,Mumbai,Bangalore,
Lucknow,Jaipur, Ludhiana and Kolkata.The respondents
were divided in terms of their gender: there were 2,704
males and 2,667 females.The study was split in two
phases. In the first phase, recruitment interviews were
done where respondents were asked basic questions regarding
their demographics and their consent was taken
to participate in the survey on the condition of anonymity.
This was followed by the second phase in which they were
asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire.The
survey tried to use interviewers who had experience in
handling such sensitive issues. In most cases, the same
teams which conducted the earlier sex surveys were
given the task.To protect the identity of the respondents,
a ballot box was kept at the venue where each respondent
would drop the questionnaire filled by him/her without
their name or contact details. Given that the questionnaire
contained a number of sensitive issues, some respondents
chose not to reply to a few questions.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
ESSAY
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com; ModelANU KUWAR; Location THE PARK HOTEL, NEW DELHI

The cafeteria choice of pornography has outsourced
our fantasies. Virtual lives require virtual sex. So though they
may have seen them on screen, 88 per cent of the men have
never tried sex toys and though they may have downloaded
Mickey Rourke feasting off a blindfolded Kim Basinger in
Adrian Lyne’s 9-1/2 Weeks on youtube, only 11 per cent have
tried sex with their eyes forcibly closed. Their sexuality is
more tourism, as Mishra says, and less adventurism.
But marriage gives both men and women the licence to
be licentious. While the men can be Bawdy Borat, the women
can be the late, lamented Savita Bhabhi. More married men
and women watch porn than those who are single and more
How satisfied are you with
your overall life at present?
Rest don’t know/can’t
say. All figures in per cent.
PER CENT IN MUMBAI, BOLLYWOOD’S
HOMEGROUND, ARE SATISFIED WITH
LOVE-MAKING AS IN THE MOVIES.
JAIPUR FOLLOWS WITH 83 PER CENT.
Very satisfied 31
Somewhat satisfied 14
Satisfied 43
Somewhat dissatisfied 6
Very dissatisfied 5
How satisfied are you at
present with respect to each
of the following?
For 4,222 respondents of the total 5,371 who have had sex. Figures add up to
more than 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Pleasing my partner while having sex 89
Having an orgasm 88
Having sex like they do in films 77
Having great foreplay 84
Trying out new things with my partner 82
Involvement of my partner while having sex 88
85
Health and family still bring in the smiles. Ninetysix
per cent Indians are satisfied with their health,
followed by family, social life and finances. Job and
sex life rank low when it comes to satisfaction.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of
multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
HAPPINESS QUOTIENT
96 95 94 93 77 68
Male 92, Female 84
Male 94, Female 81
Male 84, Female 69
Male 89, Female 77
Male 87, Female 78
Male 92, Female 85
Sex
Life
Social Finances Job
Life
Family
Life
Health
34 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
married men and women fantasise about making MMS and
trying sex toys than those who are single. And therein lies
the survey’s greatest triumph. Sex within marriage may not
be the start of a great dialogue between the sexes, but at
least it has put them on the road to acknowledging physical
pleasure. As ads for contraceptive pills and condoms aired
during primetime suggest, sex doesn’t come with a schedule.
It often just “happens”. Sex may no longer be what Rita
Banerji in Sex and Power called the “pariah dog that roams
the streets, the pagan outside the sacred walls”. No doubt
much of it is because there is so much more sex in the public
domain now, on television, in newspaper supplements
and in the movies. Is it finally emboldening men and women
to rid themselves of Victorian prudery?
At the normative level, the respondents seem to realise
that sexual fantasies help understand our sexual nature
better. How we dream about sex is often a better pointer to
our intimate natures. Typically though most urban Indians
don’t believe that it is acceptable for older people to have
sexual fantasies. They don’t also seem to believe in the
primacy of sex in the lives. Other things seem to give them
more satisfaction—whether it is their social life, their
families or their finances. They don’t even think about it that
often. Only 21 per cent of the men think about sex daily,
compared to 17 per cent women. More than 50 per cent of
the men and women do not think about sex even once a day.
It doesn’t stop them from being satisfied. Both men (79
per cent) and women (71 per cent) seem to be quite confident
of their prowess in the bedroom, rating themselves
highly when it comes to pleasing their partners by trying out
their sexual desires. This concern for the partner’s pleasure,
according to sociologist Patricia Uberoi, is a way to introduce
romance and sex into mostly arranged marriages,
where the couple meet as strangers. “The drive of fantasy
is really to make conjugal relationships sexually fulfilling,”
she says. Play is always the first step towards pleasure.
with Chitra Subramanyam and Gunjeet Sra
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
Figures don’t add up to 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
LUSTY LUDHIANAThe sex survey in 2006 saw 48
per cent from Ludhiana admitting to having had sex
in front of the mirror while 63 per cent had paid for
sex. In 2008, 33 per cent Ludhiana men had slept
with a prostitute. This year, the city, however, tops the
chart when it comes to fantasising about having sex
with strangers (54 per cent), having anal sex (51 per
cent) and sex on rooftops (42 per cent).
CANDID CAMERAIn Delhi,67 per cent women have
made an MMS of themselves while having sex. In
2008,Bangalore took the lead with 25 per cent
women admitting to it.
GAY PRIDE Fifteen per cent men in Jaipur have
had sex with a male. In 2008,Hyderabad emerged
as the country’s gay capital, where 61 per cent
men approved of homosexuality. In 2006, 58 per
cent in Ahmedabad reported to having had a
homosexual experience.
UNDER COVER In Mumbai, 44 per cent women
have secretly watched someone having sex.
compiled by Priya Verma
PER CENT IN KOLKATA DON’T APPROVE
OF OLDER PEOPLE HAVING SEXUAL
FANTASIES WHILE 55 PER CENT IN
MUMBAI HAVE NO OBJECTION TO IT. 60
NOT SO DESPERATE
15
Once a
day
19
More
than once
a day
14
Once in
two days
10
Twice a
week
10
Less often
than once
a week
Almost 18 per cent men in Ludhiana and 10 per cent women
in Jaipur think of sex more than five times a day.On the
other hand, 19 per cent respondents from Kolkata and 16
per cent from Jaipur claim to have never thought of sex.
ESSAY
SEXAND THE CITY
Sex is everywhere but on the minds of urban
Indians. Most women (20 per cent) think
about sex less than once week compared to
21 per cent men who think of it daily.
Have a query or a concern? Resolve it in a LIVE CHAT
with our expert from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., December 2.
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey09
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
36 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009 Anation’s
imagination is
different from its
actuality.Despite
an increasingly
electric image of
the marital bed,
physical pleasure
seems to be an
infrequent visitor.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
FAITHFULLYYOURS
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com; Model ANU KUWAR; Hair and Make-up SALONI SIMON; Location courtesy THE PARK HOTEL, NEW DELHI
It first happened 20 years ago. On Saturday, March 17,
1989, no sooner did the clock strike 10 p.m., Avanti
pretended that she was deep in slumber. “I’m 55 years
old but I’ve never been aroused,” says Avanti, a middleclass
homemaker, “I haven’t had sex in 20 years.” She adds,
“He wanted to have sex in front of mirrors. He wanted me to
watch porn,” Avanti recalls. “When sex happened,” she
adds, “it was rough.” She solved the issue by feigning sleep.
Not daunted, her husband would wake her up and coerce
her to their bedroom. “There was no gentleness. There was
no softness. I used to feel pain.” There were no magazines
at that time that wrote about sex, so Avanti had no way of
knowing what she ought to be feeling, leave alone whether
what she was feeling was right. But one day she decided on
her own, “I just said, ‘Just leave me alone. I can’t do this’. So
we stopped. Last month he wanted it but I pushed him away.”
Avanti is one of many wives uninterested in sex; Avanti’s
husband, Ramesh, had some inkling, “She used to reject
me,” but he told himself, “Why should I do it for my own
enjoyment?” Whether he said or she said that they were the
one to put a full stop to sex, their marriage is one of many
where sex is on a standstill or spilling over with partners
outside of marriage. Yet, urban India, we are told, is
swinging with sexually bursting bosoms, bawdy toys, kinky
bondage, plunging cleavage, all media images that interfere
with the sexual habits of Indian couples.
When a larger-than-life view of sex in India interferes
with the sexual habits of husbands and wives, it enhances
people’s private preoccupations; its yawning gulf from reality
dampens the success of marriage. Why do we imagine the
improbable? What are the risqué mental leaps husbands
and wives make? And, what does mental masti, forays in the
labyrinths of our mind, tell us about the modern marriage?
As Avanti’s story shows, a nation’s imagination of sex is
different from its actuality. Within marriages, when I interviewed
both the husband and wife inhabiting one marriage,
my research, based on 400 interviews of Indian husbands
and wives between 1997 and 2009, concluded that even
while a majority (64 per cent) of husbands and wives deemed
sexual pleasure necessary for marriage, it was elusive.
There are other such indicators of sexual unhappiness: onethird
of the couples interviewed were uninterested in sex;
only 16 per cent of wives reported orgasms, the biological
indicator of female satisfaction, on multiple occasions; 4 per
cent refrained from sex, choosing to be asexual for weeks,
months, and sometimes for decades; while 24-44 per cent
reported being dissatisfied with how much they were getting,
alongside widespread poor female sexual health (pain
during intercourse and uterine tract infections). While many
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 37
Have you ever shared your sexual
fantasies with your partner?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO64 Male 38, Female 23
Male 59, Female 70
YES31
By Shaifali Sandhya
81
More than two in five people in Ludhiana have shared their
fantasies with their partners, the highest for any city. Fifty-five
per cent men and 32 per cent women in the city admitted to it.
PER CENT OF WOMEN COMPARED TO 68
PER CENT OF MEN REPORTED THAT
THEIR PARTNERS WERE COMFORTABLE
ABOUT LISTENING TO THEIR FANTASIES.
Has your partner ever shared
his/her sexual fantasies with you?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO62
Male 37, Female 28
Male 59 Female 64
YES32
Have you ever tried your
partner’s fantasy?
For 1,725 respondents of the total 5,371 whose partners have shared
their sexual fantasies. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
YES85
Male 10, Female 15
Male 85, Female 84 NO12
For 1,642 respondents of the total 5,371 who have shared their sexual
fantasies with their partners. All figures in per cent.
ACTION REACTION
21
Was
comfortable
and
understanding
46
Was
shocked,
but later
understood
18
Was
shocked,
disgusted
and angry
9
Was
comfortable
but
refused to
participate
6
Was
excited
and
enthusiastic
Most asserted that their partners were quite
understanding when they revealed their fantasies
to them. Clearly, honesty is the best sexuality.

SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 FAITHFULLYYOURS
WHO THEY ARE
Rahil is a captain in the
Merchant Navy while
Niha is a homemaker.
NIHA The thought of
getting drenched under a
waterfall with my partner
or making out on the
balcony is exciting.
RAHIL I’d like to take her
to a place where there’s
snow all around with a
bonfire on a rooftop or
maybe even a candle-lit
dinner in an igloo.
RAHIL MOHAMMED,
31, AND NIHA, 27
Delhi
WHO THEY ARE
Abhijit is a chef-entrepreneur
while Shruti is a
PR consultant.
ABHIJIT My romantic
fantasies, apart from
candle-lit dinners
at restaurants
overlooking the city,
include being able to
go to the moon.
SHRUTI My ultimate
fantasy is to get
married again in the
traditional manner.
ABHIJIT, 39, AND
SHRUTI SAHA, 35
Bangalore
refrained or were uninterested, a whopping one-third,
were sexually dissatisfied.
When I met Dr Edward Laumann, one of the world’s
leading experts on sexuality at the University of Chicago
who has spearheaded an international study of sexuality,
interviewing 27,500 men and women in 30 countries, this
is what he told me: Whenever men and women in a society
occupy unequal ranks, not only does the aggregate
sexual satisfaction dip lower for all its members, but the
gap between men and women’s sexual unhappiness
widens, with men more sexually satisfied than women.
Male-centric countries, he said, “tend to discount the
relational meaning of sex and the importance of sexual
pleasure for women.”
In the face of such sexual unhappiness what happens
when we collect sexual data on the fantasy life of
individuals? A gilding-a-lily effect takes place—we
embellish our responses, in turn, amplifying our fantasy. Let
How do you feel about your
unfulfilled fantasies?
Would like to fulfill them 20
Sometimes feel anxious 28
Don’t get too bothered 43
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Sexual fantasies are crying out loud for fulfilment.
Everyone seems trapped in their own personal dream
world, with 43 per cent saying they don’t do anything about
them and another 48 per cent admitting they would like to
satisfy their desires and feel upset that they can’t.
As told to Sumaiya Khan and Swagata Sen
Location courtesy THE PARK, NEW DELHI
38 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
40 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
How did you react when your
partner shared his/her fantasy
with you?
Was shocked,disgusted and angry 8
Was shocked,but later understood 18
Was comfortable and understanding 45
Was comfortable but refused to participate5
Was excited and enthusiastic 24
For 1,725 respondents of the total 5,371 whose partners have shared
their fantasies with them. All figures in per cent.
More than seven in 10 women in Mumbai were quite
comfortable listening to their partner’s fantasies.
However, the number dipped to just 30 per cent when
it came to their male counterparts.
us briefly delve into the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG
Sex survey 2009 and its probable impact on the
respondents. The interviewer asks, “Who do you fantasise
having sex with?” Even though the majority said they
thought of having sex with their spouse and partner, the
interviewer, undaunted, continues, “Do you fantasise
about sex with a stranger?” and later insists, “Please look
at the below mentioned list and tell us with whom
you fantasise having sex with.” Increasingly, as respondents
get an idea of what the interviewer wants to hear, they
seem to offer sexier, more decorative responses. Soon more
and more say “yes” to thinking about sex with a stranger
on the street, and imagine romps with celebrities and
film stars. They are also more likely to represent themselves
in line with their gender and social norms. More men
thought harder about sex compared with women; more
men were non-virgins compared to women; more men
reported adultery than women. As interviewees, we are
eager to portray ourselves in a favourable light as it reflects
well on us. No one wants to be perceived as a sexual deviant
and unless there is a means to check the veracity of our
claims with our partners, many would claim they’ve made
out with Bipasha Basu.
WHO THEY ARE
He is an actor while she
is a fashion designer.
HUSSAIN There’s
nothing wrong in
fantasising. It’s the
action that makes
the difference.
TINA Fantasy is a
state of mind; it’s
imagining a person
you can never get.
It’s not something
to be shared with
your partner.
HUSSAIN, 31 & TINA
KUWAJERWALA, 30
Mumbai
WHO THEY ARE
She is a corporate
communications executive
while he is the COO of Muah,
a fashion retail brand.
UPPAL I’d like to go to this
ultra luxurious resort at
Las Ventanas in Mexico.
Getting a hot oil massage
on the beach with him is
high on my list of fantasies.
BHARGAVA I want to
take my partner over to the
house I build for us and
propose to her there.
AASTHA UPPAL, 23,
AND VIRAJ
BHARGAVA, 25 Delhi
Are you comfortable with the
idea of your partner having
sexual fantasies?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
YES47
Male 31, Female 36
NO33 Male 54, Female 41
Age does not always bring in openness. Thirty-six per
cent respondents belonging to the 51-60 age bracket
were uncomfortable with the idea of their partners
having sexual fantasies.
FAITHFULLYYOURS
As told to Nishika Patel and Sumaiya Khan
34PER CENT OF RESPONDENTS IN JAIPUR
WERE DISGUSTED AND SHOCKED
WHEN THEIR PARTNERS SHARED
THEIR SEXUAL FANTASIES WITH THEM.
42 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
Not only do imaginations of oneself as sexy get
heightened, but also such imaginations are generalised to
everyone in urban India. In fact, in the sex survey, what constitutes
as an “urban” sample affords only a thin slice and
is certainly not truly representative of middle-class urban
India. It is a convenience sample with 57 per cent comprising
shop-owners and clerical staff earning Rs 5-15,000 per
month. Those who earn over Rs 15,000 a month are just 18
per cent. Yet, even though the findings may not apply
equally to other segments of society and some aspects of our
sexual lives are overlooked, what is interesting is the light
it sheds on the mechanics of fantasy and marriage. Not only
do more Indians in general, compared to Americans, think
more about sex, Indian husbands think hard about sex. In
the survey, 57 per cent of husbands think about it either
three-four times a day, once, or more than once a day. My
own study finds that three times as many husbands
compared to their wives reported that they often thought of
making out with someone else.
Sexier images set the stage for fuelling our imaginations,
albeit improbably. For, when we cannot have happiness, we
set about faking it. An example of this is that even though
94 per cent of husbands and wives reported they were
“happy”, two-thirds of married couples were not in working
marriages. Fantasies might provide a band-aid solution
to retreat from a stressful phase in marriage or the need for
personal growth that an institution such as marriage
requires but they also accentuate personal and marital
unhappiness. When asked “How do you feel about your
unfulfilled fantasies?”, 44 per cent wives and 60 per cent
husbands said they either felt anxious or very anxious.
Fantasy increases the stress on marriage.
What are these fantasies about? Let us take a brief
look at them: 89 per cent of husbands fantasised about film
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 FAITHFULLYYOURS
Why have you not shared
your fantasies with your
partner?
For 3,456 respondents of the total 5,371 who have not
shared their sexual fantasies with their partners. Rest
don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Not comfortable sharing them 21
My partner will not understand
and will get offended 18
I just fantasise about them but
do not want to enact them 40
What do you do about your
hidden and unfulfilled fantasies?
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Discuss them in an Internet chatroom 6
Read magazines that discuss them 17
Do nothing 46
Discuss them with my friends 25
Fulfill them with a prostitute 5
Indulge in phone sex 7
24PER CENT OF THOSE MARRIED WERE
UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT SHARING THEIR
FANTASIES WHILE 20 PER CENT FELT
THEIR PARTNER MIGHT GET OFFENDED.
Sixty-four per cent respondents have
never shared their sexual fantasies with
their partners. Forty per cent of those who
have not shared them said they just
wanted it to remain in the imagined realm,
while 39 per cent feared rejection.
Models ROHAN DHAND and ANU KUWAR; Outfit byKUNCHALS
46 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
stars, celebrities, and movie-item girls versus 76 per cent
wives. In their mental forays, 35 per cent husbands found
women from other castes sexually attractive, 48 per cent
said they fantasised about rural women, and 14 per cent
would even have sex with underage girls. In contrast,
unmarried and married women were different. Unmarried
women don’t use sex toys (93 per cent) nor do married
women (95 per cent). They don’t even think about using
them (87 per cent in both categories). Married women
mostly do not fantasise about role play, 62 per cent don’t
watch porn films but the ones that do (36 per cent) watch
that star a man and woman.
Using glimpses of the above, three points can be
made: One, such gender disparities in sexual preferences
suggest how important physical pleasure and
emotional satisfaction is for women in relationships as a
necessary and preliminary step even before they can
imagine experimentation. Two, survey respondents could
have imagined making out in mile-high clubs and on
beaches, but curiously, they didn’t. Seventy-seven per
cent husbands and 78 per cent wives fantasised about
having sex in their own bedrooms, which is perhaps due
to the income group they were in. And yet, even though
their fantasies were spatially constrained, their access to
sexually available partners clearly wasn’t. Three, a substantial
portion of husbands reported sexual liaisons outside
marriage and additionally with 15 per cent married
men admitting to having a girlfriend compared to wives
(only 4 per cent had boyfriends).
For this group at least, the highest sexual risk for
married women was to be married to a man with female
friend(s) or with access to female neighbours; for the higher
income groups, my research finds, the marital sexual risk
for an urban Indian woman is similar to the urban Chinese
wife: it is to be married to a man in a high income group who
travels. This suggests that with globalisation, our sexual
risks don’t just become higher, they also become different.
It also raises a public health question for us. Should sexual
safety options be directed not just at truck stops but also in
neighbourhoods, hotels and airports?
Everyone dreams a little of making out with a woman in
a red scarf but when our imaginations carry marriage, it is
torn apart, separating partners who inhabit different
worlds. With growing Internet use, and travel alongside
complicit cultural beliefs—“it is hardwired in men”, “it is a
man’s fitrat”, “men can separate sex from emotion”—forays
into infidelity are more likely for one gender. But it deprives
marriage of valuable opportunities and makes it no
happier nor sex more fulfilling. With deep sexual unhappiness
in urban middle-class India, yes, it is the right time to
imagine, to reimagine, a marriage with sexy spaces together,
not alone. Until that happens, like Avanti, many
women will be figuring it out on their own: “Unless a woman
is aroused, she is not going to enjoy it.”
The writer is a clinical psychologist and author of Love Will Follow:
Why the Indian Marriage is Burning.
Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
Women are more open to trying out their partner’s fantasies compared to
their male counterparts. This is how it plays out in the conjugal bedroom:
In the 51-60 age group, 31
per cent are yet to enact
their partner’s fantasies.
Men fare the worst at 42
per cent compared to
women (22 per cent).
UNEQUAL PARTNERS
14
Sometimes my
fantasies are
tried out,
sometimes
my partner’s
27
Try my
fantasies
sometimes,
but not my
partner’s
13
Try my
partner’s
fantasies
sometimes,
but not mine
9
Try my partner’s
fantasies
most
of the times,
but not mine
8
Try my fantasies
most of
the times,
but not my
partner’s
Male 28
Female 26
Male 18
Female 10
Male 19
Female 8
Male 8
Female 10
Male 5
Female 12
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 FAITHFULLYYOURS
Model HIDA; Location courtesy THE PARK, NEW DELHI
Once aberrant,now
open to discussion.
Once perverse, now
being practised. If
sex as leisure is
becoming acceptable,
so are its accessories.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 SEXUALFETISHES
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH/
www.indiatodayimages.com
Models ROHAN DHAND; Outfit byKUNCHALS
The idea of fetish has an interesting lineage. It is both
a product of European engagements with ‘primitive’
cultures that existed beyond Europe’s borders, as
well as ‘irrational’ thinking that, apparently, proliferated
within them. In the former case, early 17th century
explorers, traders, sailors and others brought back fabulous
tales of curious objects that were regarded by Africans as
having divine and magical powers. The age of European
plunder of African territories had not yet begun, but tales of
African ‘irrationality’ and child-like behaviour—that were
later to form crucial aspects of the justification for colonialism—
had started to take form. Certain African objects of
veneration, charms and talismans, subsequently came to be
known as fetishes, a term of Portuguese origin that has
connotations of the artificial and the made-up. The career of
fetish took a dramatically different turn in the writings of
Karl Marx whose idea of commodity fetishism sought to
expose the irrationality of capitalist thought that imbued
commodities and money with a life of their own, failing to see
that they were produced through relations that existed
between the labouring and capital-owning classes. What
Marx meant to say was that for all their claims to rationality,
Europeans could also be primitive in their thinking.
Additionally, what he ended up implying was that African
primitivism was, indeed, an inferior type of thinking.
Through the writings of a long list of European
sexologists—the best known among them was Havelock Ellis
(1859-1939)—fetishes came to be associated with behaviour
where objects (a pair of gloves, for example), or parts of the
body (the foot, say) that apparently had no sexual nature,
could take on erotic significance. Significantly enough,
fetishistic behaviour came to be discussed through the
following terms: deviancy, irrationality, psychopathic, weak
sexuality, disorder and degeneration. The fetish and the
fetishist were soon to become objects of a vast array of
therapeutic procedures: a colonialism of a different kind, you
might say. Given this history of the fetish, frequently
regarded as a ‘dark continent’ of the human psyche, the sex
survey for 2009 might provoke us to think about possible
changes in what is regarded as perverse and irrational.
Before discussing the survey itself, however, there are two
aspects to remember. First, surveys can be a slippery tool of
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 47
Have you ever tried role playing
while having sex?
What kind of role play have
you tried with your partner?
Have you ever fantasised
about indulging in role playing?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
For 4,222 respondents of the total 5,371 who have had sex. All figures in per cent.
NO85 Male 19, Female 10
Male 81, Female 90
YES15
NO78
Male 23, Female 10
Male 74, Female 82
YES17
By Sanjay Srivastava
Though an equal number of men and women in Mumbai
(33 per cent) fantasise about role playing, nearly three
out of 10 Mumbaikars have admitted to enacting them.
Acting as a stranger to your partner 16
Pretending to rape your partner 14
Pretending toget raped by your partner 13
None 22
Acting as a private dancer 13
Hotel waiter scenario 9
For 630 respondents of the total 5,371 who have indulged in role playing.
Figures don’t add up to 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Male 14, Female 20
Male 17, Female 9
Male 15, Female 10
Male 21, Female 24
Male 12, Female 14
Male 10, Female 6
Have you ever tried
bondage sex?
Would you like to try bondage sex ?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
For 4,222 respondents of the total 5,371 who have had sex. All figures in per cent.
While Kolkata tops the chart with 51 per cent admitting to
having tried sado-masochistic sex, 20 per cent men and
9 per cent women in the age group of 35-40 have tried it.
NO88 Male 16, Female 8
Male 84, Female 92
YES12 NO80 Male 21, Female 7
Male 75, Female 84
YES14

gauging cultural and social attitudes. For, by asking a
specific question, it also says ‘this question is important’,
thereby creating a sense of the world that may not have
earlier existed. Second, current contexts of globalisation and
consumerist modernity are important ones when we think
about sex. For, now, more than ever, the idea of a ‘world of
choices’ operates as a significant variable in our lives. This
is a context where Indian sexual cultures are slowly but
surely moving beyond the ‘family planning’ gaze of the Five-
Year Plan state to the sex-as-leisure domains of the market.
The idea of sex-as-leisure (as distinct from reproductive
sex) is fundamental to the survey questions that were
grouped under the heading of fetish. So, this perhaps is one
of the most significant changes in contemporary Indian
society: the willingness of middle-class women and men to
conceive of a world beyond conception, and a life beyond
sexual-nationalism. It is perhaps yearnings for these new
worlds that are reflected in responses to questions regarding
fantasies of role play during sex. So, while 90 per cent
of all women surveyed said that they had never participated
in role playing while having sex, 23 per cent responded that
they fantasised about the role play of acting as a stranger
to their partner. Similarly, while 81 per cent of all men
50 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
ROLE PLAYING FANTASIES
Violent Wanderings
Rape. It’s a violent
word that takes
away consent from
a woman’s dictionary. Yet,
of the respondents who
said they fantasised about
role playing, 25 per cent
said they fantasised about
raping their partner and
19 per cent said they pretended
they were getting
raped. Amongst those
who said they indulged in
role playing, 14 per cent
said they had tried pretending
to rape their partner
while 13 per cent said
they had pretended to be
raped by their partner. On
the surface, it does seem
like the politics of power
has moved from the
boardroom into the bedroom,
from the public to
the private. But Western
writers coin a different
term for this. They call it
ravishment, a BDSM scenario
that removes the
violence and non-consent
associated with the word
rape. And like Nancy
Friday says, in her 1973
book, The Secret Garden,
“The most popular guiltavoiding
device was the
so-called rape fantasy.
Saying she was ‘raped’
was the most expedient
way of getting past the big
No to sex that had been
imprinted on the woman’s
mind since early childhood.”
But, what of the
Indian male? Sociologist
Patricia Uberoi points out
that the survey indicates
that the Indian male
seems quite convinced
that they are being raped,
pointing perhaps to the
high value ascribed to
asceticism in our philosophy.
by Chitra Subramanyam
SEXUALFETISHES
½
For 4,222
respondents of the
total 5,371 who
have had sex.
Figures add up to
more than 100
because of multiple
choices. All figures
in per cent.
Anal sex 41
Masturbation by your partner 35
Position 69 23
Oral sex 55
What kind of sexual
activities have you indulged
in with your partner?
Model ANKUSH/ Orange Model Management; Location courtesy THE PARK, NEW DELHI
TOP 5 FOR MEN TOP 5 FOR WOMEN
Acting as a stranger
to your partner 27
Teacher-student
scenario where
you are the teacher 21
Hotel waiter scenario 21
Acting as a private
dancer 16
Doctor-nurse
scenario 15
Acting a stranger
to your partner 23
Air hostess/cabin
crew scenario 16
Acting as
a private dancer 15
Office co-worker
scenario 14
Teacher-student
scenario 11
What kind of role play do you
fantasise about?
For 883 respondents of the total 5,371 who have fantasised about role playing.
Figures don’t add up to 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent. 
BEDROOM GAMES
Satin sheets and sexy lingerie haven’t changed the kind of lovemaking.
Thirty per cent respondents don’t have any particular fantasy
associated with sex. Little wonder, for 41 per cent women, sex is just a
mode for the greater good of procreation. But for those who do believe
in experimenting, top four sexual activities to fantasise about are:
Anal sex
36
Oral sex
45
Masturbation
by your partner
30
Position
69
23
Figures add up to more than
100 because of multiple
choices. All figures in per cent.
PER CENT OF MEN AND 39 PER CENT OF WOMEN
IN LUCKNOW FANTASISE ABOUT THE WOMAN
ON TOP. IN HYDERABAD, THE FIGURES ARE
36 PER CENT AND 48 PER CENT RESPECTIVELY. 50
What kind of sexual positions
have you tried with
your partner?
For 4,222 respondents
of the total 5,371 who
have had sex. Figures
add up to more than
100 because of
multiple choices. All
figures in per cent.
Standing 47
Woman on top 44
Man on top 85
Rear entry 44
Sitting 43
What kind of sexual positions
would you like to try with your
partner?
Standing 45
Rear entry 42
Man on top 69
Sitting 41
Woman on top 39
Convention still rules.
Eighty-five per cent men
and 84 per cent women
prefer the man on top
while having sex with
their partners. The next
preferred position is
standing, with 56 per
cent men and 36 per cent
women saying they like it.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Awhopping 85 per cent men in Ludhiana fantasise about having
oral sex while 76 per cent have actually done so.The numbers stand
at 35 per cent and 44 per cent respectively for women.Anal sex is the
city’s second preference with 46 per cent respondents admitting to it.

answered in the negative to the same question, 27 per cent
said they harboured the stranger fantasy. If we look at
particular cities, 40 per cent of women in Delhi and 21 per
cent in Ludhiana responded that they had actually ‘done’ the
stranger role during sex. Curiously enough, only 16 per cent
of male respondents from both Delhi and Ludhiana said that
they had played out the stranger role. There are three (or, at
least three) things we might speculate on in this context.
First, that while our social norms insist that we should marry
those whose backgrounds are familiar (in terms of class and
caste, say), there is now greater openness towards admitting
that erotic lives are not dictated by social rules and regulations.
Second, this may also indicate greater willingness to
articulate the difficult nature of intimate relationships such
as marriage. If this is at all true, then we may be able to draw
some (cautious) conclusions about the emergence of a more
critical attitude towards taken-for-granted notions of love
and marriage. Finally, if we look at the numbers for Delhi
and Ludhiana, for example, there are indications that a
larger number of women (than at earlier times, and, in
comparison to men in these cities) like to think about
pleasure when thinking about sex. The extraordinarily explicit
discussions on female sexuality in various mainstream
Hindi women’s magazines currently in circulation perhaps
provide a clue that the figure of the asexual Mother India
may be some what in decline, giving way to the traditional
modernity of, say, the swayamvar mode Rakhi Sawant.
The notion of traditional modernity allows us to think
about the seeming contradictions in the several of the
responses. So, for example, how do we reconcile the fact
that while more women like to think about role playing (as
a way of enhancing sexual pleasure, one assumes), a
surprisingly large number of those surveyed—30 per cent
in Bangalore, 23 per cent in Ludhiana, and 10 per cent in
Mumbai—admitted that they fantasised about being raped
by their partners as role-play. Further, 30 per cent of
women from Bangalore said that they had actually played
out the rape fantasy, whereas the figures for Ludhiana and
Mumbai were 29 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
Perhaps, the women of Mumbai had second thoughts, but
those from Bangalore and Ludhiana did not. Do masculine
fantasies of power—the kinds that characterise the muchhyped
Savita Bhabhi comic character—continue to play a
role in the lives of women? There is a further complicating
factor that needs to be addressed in future surveys. For, not
only did women respond to the question regarding being
raped, but also to another that asked about the fantasy of
raping their partner: were they necessarily thinking about
heterosexual relationships? In either case, the responses
are unsettling, to say the least. Further, what should also
give us pause for thought is the number of men who fantasised
about raping their partners: 29 per cent overall, with
56 per cent in Bangalore, 33 per cent in Mumbai and 29
per cent in Hyderabad. Is there a national fantasy of rape
that is shared fairly equally by men and women? And, does
this have anything to do with the (albeit slow) changes in
the position of women, that, in turn, attracts backlash from
established relations of power? Or, is it that power is,
literally, an aphrodisiac and hence plays an important role
in the making of erotic cultures? Finally, notwithstanding
all this, it is an odd thing that the much-trumpeted face of
India’s globalisation, Bangalore, should register the most
consistently high figures for the rape fantasy.
A remarkably small number of women across all cities
has either thought of, or had tried, sex toys during their
intimate moments: 9 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
Perhaps predictably, the most responses for both categories
(thought of/tried) came from cities where the female
population might have the greatest access to the toys:
Mumbai and Hyderabad. Though, and this is significant, the
number of women who said that they would like to try sex
52 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 SEXUALFETISHES
45 PER CENT FROM KOLKATA AND 27 PER
CENT FROM BANGALORE WOULD
LIKE TO TRY BONDAGE SEX AS AGAINST
14 PER CENT FROM ALL OVER INDIA.

65PER CENT OF WOMEN AND 59 PER CENT OF MEN PREFER
TO KEEP IT SIMPLE AND HAVE NEVER USED CONDIMENTS
WHILE HAVING SEX WITH THEIR PARTNERS. AND
JAIPUR WOMEN (84 PER CENT) ARE NO DIFFERENT.
KINKY FOODS
In India, food and sex are a no-no on the same palate, clearly a mindset
inherited both from a shortage economy and the idea of sex for
reproduction. But for those who have tested the boundaries of taste,
the choices are simple. For women, it’s a tie between ice-cream
and ice, while 14 per cent men are torn between ice and honey.
Ice
12
Honey
12
None
62
Ice-cream
11
Chocolate
sauce
10
Ludhiana seems to be least experimental when it comes to mixing food with
sex.While 82 per cent respondents in the city have never used any condiment,
Kolkata at 77 per cent and Patna at 72 per cent fill the next two slots.
For 4,222 respondents of
the total 5,371 who have
had sex. Figures add up
to more than 100 because
of multiple choices. All
figures in per cent.
Have you
ever fantasised
about using
condiments
while having
sex?
Figures don’t add up to
100 because of multiple
choices. All figures
in per cent.
Have you ever tried
blind-folded sex?
For 4,222 respondents of the total 5,371 who have had sex.
All figures in per cent.
NO92 Male 11, Female 4
Male 89, Female 96
YES8
Butter/Cheese 9
Honey 15
Ice-cream 15
Ice 16
Chocolate sauce 14
The realm of fantasy was richer, but only with eyes
wide open.Only 10 per cent said they had thought
of trying blind-folded sex, while 80 per cent said
the thought hadn’t even crossed their minds.
Obviously, they haven't watched 9½ Weeks.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
Have you fantasised about
using sex toys with your
partner while having sex?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO82 Male 19, Female 9
Male 78, Female 87
YES14
In reality, urban India has even less success with
sex toys. Ninety-one per cent said they had never
experimented with sex toys. Not surprisingly,
fewer women (5 per cent) have used it.
54 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 SEXUALFETISHES
A FISH CALLED WANDA
I was in school when I saw this film.Wanda Gershwitz
(Jamie Lee Curtis) has a foreign language fetish in
this film. So when Otto (Kevin Kline) starts speaking
senseless Italian, Gershwitz starts undressing
seductively. Seeing her Otto goes, ‘Ooh, le due
coupoule grande della caterderale di Milano’ (Ooh, the
two great domes of the Cathedral of Milan). It made me
laugh out loud but it remains a memorable sex scene.
9½ WEEKS
Food possibly can’t be more sexualised. Some
strawberries, olives, pasta, jelly, honey, a silk scarf and
some ice cubes is all it took. John (Mickey Rourke) and
Elizabeth (Kim Basinger) have a whole lot of sex but it’s
their creative foreplay using yummy props that makes
this my all-time best fantasy scene. The best scene has
to be Rourke blindfolding Basinger and beginning his
masterful seduction by playfully clicking glass against
her ear and teasing her neck and breasts with an ice
cube while she bites his wandering hand.
HISTORYOFVIOLENCE
Tom (Viggo Mortensen) is a family man married to
Edie (Maria Bello). The first sex scene of the film
demonstrates that even regular people have hot sex
lives. Of course, it helps that Edie ups the fantasy
element by putting on her old cheerleader get-up for
this particular occasion.“Holy... cow!”Tom exclaims.
GHOST
How can the erotic pottery scene between Molly
Jensen (Demi Moore) and Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze)
from Ghost not be on this list?
COMING HOME
Uptight Army wife Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) falls
for paraplegic Vietnam vet Luke Martin (Jon Voight)
in this anti-war drama that earned Oscars for
both actors.Voight can’t walk in the film but he
proves he can still please a woman. She gets her
first orgasm ever after oral sex.
TITANIC
Two scenes stand out in this film—the nude sketching
scene and the one where Rose and Jack actually make
love in the car. The sketching scene serves as foreplay
for Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo Dicaprio)
to do the real thing in the back seat of a car.
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
9
10
7
Sexual fantasies play an intrinsic role in films, taking the story forward. It could be a teenaged boy desiring
his older teacher or the use of a foreign language as a seduction tool. My 10 best fantasies on screen.
BELLE DE JOUR
Severine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve), married to a
surgeon, takes fantasy to another level. In one scene,
Severine and her husband Pierre (Jean Sorel) have
had a disagreement in a coach. Unexpectedly, the
husband orders the coachman to bind his wife to a
tree and asks him to whip her. She comes to enjoy this.
This is when she wakes up and we see her gazing
dispassionately across her bedroom where her bland
husband is dressed in cute pyjamas. This sequence is
startling because it is so deadpan. Luis Bunuel, the
director, presented the protagonist’s masochistic
dream without even a hint that it was fantasy. Severine
eventually starts working in a brothel for the wild
sex. Her husband provides for her material needs
but his respectful caresses fail to satisfy her
psychic need for brutal degradation.
MERA NAAM JOKER
Years ago, Mera Naam Joker brought to light the
fantasies of a teenaged boy despite problems with
the Central Board of Film Certification . The
adolescent Raju (Rishi Kapoor) is infatuated with
his teacher Mary (Simi Garewal). In one scene, she
falls into the water and gets soaked.A mesmerised
Raju gets a glimpse of her beautiful legs. She changes
behind a bush but it’s enough to spark off a fantasy
in his mind at night.
AMERICAN BEAUTY
Lester (Kevin Spacy) is in the midst of what appears
to be a mid-life crisis. He falls for a high school girl,
his daughter’s sexually precocious friend, Angela
Hayes (Mena Suvari). His imaginary affair with Angela
renews and reinvigorates him. Lester fantasises about
Angela unbuttoning, caressing her clothed breasts,
thrusting her hips and opening her sweater while the
rose petals obscure her breasts.At other times, she’s
in a bathtub with rose petals (again).American
Beauty’s sequences are quintessential fantasies
because of the Lolita angle.
ORIGINAL SIN
Original Sin featured Antonio Banderas and Angelina
Jolie. The couple engaged in sex at various places,
including a metal bathtub. Jolie cheats on him but they
get back even while she’s with another man. The sex
gets steamier. The idea of doing something risqué
keeps things interesting.
10 MOSTEROTIC MOVIE MOMENTS
Screen Play Anurag Basu
The writer is a filmmaker
toys was consistently higher than that for those who said that they had.
Overall, a greater percentage of men had both tried sex toys as well
as thought about trying them. Once again, in most cities, more men
responded that they would like to try, than had tried. In as much as the
significant taboo against sex toys might be yielding to a more relaxed
attitude, it is interesting to note this trend among women. This, in turn,
could be interpreted in different ways. First, it could suggest a crack
in the edifice of male-centric (heterosexual) sexual culture, where the
man is imagined as both the self-contained and exclusive agent of
pleasure. Simultaneously, it may also point to the greater internalisation
of consumer cultures, where the commodity is increasingly viewed
as a route to pleasure, with sex toys signifying a straightforward
adoption of this attitude.
What then of those items that are easier to acquire than sex toys?
Chocolate sauce, ice, ice-cream and honey appear to be the most
favoured items of sexual accompaniment. However, the women
surveyed did not express overwhelming interest in these (with a range
of 9 per cent to 11 per cent across the country) Perhaps, when libidinal
economies are confronted by monetary ones, it is the latter that
win out: given their cost, chocolate sauce and ice-cream may well grant
greater satisfaction if consumed directly. In any case, how does one
explain the mysteriously depleting stocks to the children? It is perhaps
not surprising that Mumbai women with their higher disposable
income had known chocolate sauce in ways other than as ice-cream
topping. Overall, more men had both tried out and thought of trying
out edible sticky substances as part of sexual routine (perhaps ‘routine’
is not the right word), with those in Delhi and Jaipur registering
17 PER CENT IN MUMBAI AND BANGALORE HAVE TRIED
BLIND-FOLDED SEX. HOWEVER, 20 PER CENT OF
WOMEN IN MUMBAI AND 5 PER CENT IN
BANGALORE ARE GIVING IT SERIOUS THOUGHT.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com

56 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
the highest percentages (36 per cent and 26 per cent respectively).
Indigenous items such as elaichi (cardamom) and
halwa did not cut much ice with either men or women
(though ice did, in several cities). The idea of ‘good sex’ is
perhaps becoming increasingly tied to a transnational
lifestyle, and hence to global goods such as chocolate sauce
and ice-cream: so, halwa may well be suitable for indicating
an attachment to ‘tradition’, but sexual modernity
appears to require a post-halwa sensibility.
Speaking of post-halwa sensibility, what of those
practices whose origin is, at least, in our times, quite clearly
western, such as Bondage and Discipline Sadomasochism
(BDSM)? A much higher percentage of men than women
indicated that they would like to try BDSM (21 and 7 per cent
respectively). Perhaps women already feel that they carry a
large enough burden of being under male bondage and
discipline in their everyday lives. This, however, does not
explain why both men and women in Kolkata express above
average enthusiasm for the practice: 69 per cent of men and
25 per cent of women reported as having tried it. It is not
clear whether this is a survey quirk, or if Kolkata’s reading
circles have misunderstood the intent of the French intellectual
Michel Foucault’s famous book, Discipline and Punish.
Ideas of subservience lead us to an important part of the survey,
that concerning the ideal kind of intimate relationships
to which women and men aspire. To begin with, let’s consider
the information on oral sex. A higher percentage of
men (64 per cent) than women (43 per cent) report ‘doing’
oral sex, and fewer women (32 per cent) than men (58 per
cent) fantasise about it. Hence, it appears that that men may
be getting their way more than women, and that women are
less enthusiastic about trying it due to either male strictures
or a lack of response from their partners. However, in
response to another question, 46 per cent of men and 49 per
cent of women said that they would prefer that both
partners be ‘equally involved’ (rather than one ‘dominating’
the other) during sexual activity. Indeed, 61 per cent of men
from Patna and 78 per cent from Kolkata were in favour of
‘equal’ involvement. So, it would appear that while the
rhetoric of sexual democracy is well entrenched, it is yet to
find a firm footing in practice. Nevertheless, it is intriguing
that so many men, the traditionally powerful gender, would
espouse the cause of equality in the present context: after
all, this survey is an anonymous instrument and no one need
know what you really thought.
What then of notion of fetishes as the ‘dark continent’ of
sexuality that we began with? If there is one conclusion we
might come to, it is that the survey tells us of a degree of
comfort with discussing both one’s private life as well as
those aspects that might once have been considered
aberrant. This is also a process of rethinking what
constitutes aberrant and normal behaviour. These might be
first steps towards ways of thinking about others and
ourselves in terms other than black and white.
The writer is Professor of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth,
Delhi University.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 SEXUALFETISHES
49
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL
29
Female
dominating
male
12
I am a
homosexual
1
Equal
involvement of
both partners
48
Male
dominating
female
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
It takes two to tango. Almost half of the
respondents believe sex is fun only when both
partners have an equal stake in bedroom
activities. A peep into India’s sexual preferences.
Models SHRUTI and AMIT ARORA
PER CENT OF WOMEN RESPONDENTS
PREFER AN EQUAL INVOLVEMENT OF
BOTH PARTNERS WHILE HAVING SEX,
COMPARED TO 46 PER CENT OF MEN.
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Figures add up to more than 100 because
of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Of the people you know,
whom do you fantasise
having sex with?
Female friend 24
Girlfriend/Boyfriend 23
Spouse 72
Neighbour 15
Relative 9
Domestic help 5
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 PEOPLE PLEASURES

The worried-looking woman appeals to the doctor to
do something about her husband’s “lack of energy”.
The doctor sends the man to “the room” to be
revitalised—and the audience is treated to a glimpse
of the room, a bathroom, as the man goes into orgasmic
raptures over the fittings and the bathtub. Apparently the
bathroom has worked its magic, and the man’s “energy” is
back, at least, in the bathroom or perhaps only for the
bathroom. The women in the audience who have similarly
afflicted partners can only hope.
The sexual undertones of the advertisement are
apparent, but what also piques the interest are the locational
overtones of these media-generated fantasies. The question,
“where” is seemingly important when we talk about sex.
Here it’s the bathroom, in another advert it’s a hotel room—
in fact, according to the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex
survey 2009, a fairly high 34 per cent of all men surveyed
with Ahmedabad leading with a whopping 72 per cent,
report fantasies of sex in hotel rooms and 28 per cent have
actually done this—65 per cent in Ahmedabad, and 48 per
cent each in Kolkata and Ludhiana. Twenty-four per cent of
all surveyed women (68 per cent in Mumbai) fantasise about
sex in a hotel room while 25 per cent (50 per cent in
Ludhiana) have actually done it.
Location is certainly significant—55 per cent of women
fantasise about sex in their own bedrooms, but only 14 per
cent each think about doing so on a beach, under a waterfall
and 8 per cent on a rooftop. Among men, 67 per cent
fantasise about sex in their own bedrooms as against, 6, 9
and 20 per cent respectively under a waterfall, on a beach
and on a rooftop. Clearly, private spaces are much more conducive
to fantasies than public spaces—or is it that we dare
not think or speak of public spaces? Are we afraid of being
labelled that most overused of words: “obscene”? Legally,
Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code, views any kind of
“obscene behaviour in public” as punishable. Obscene behaviour
has no clear definition and anything remotely sexual
that annoys the sensibilities of the strait-laced man next to
you may qualify. In May this year, at a fashion week ramp
walk, actor Akshay Kumar was booked for obscene behaviour
in public for asking his wife to unbutton his jeans. Forget
about sex, even hinting at it in public is no go for many.
And no kissing in public too. In 2004, Bollywood film star
Kareena Kapoor began legal proceedings against a tabloid
newspaper that published photos of her kissing her co-star
and then boyfriend Shahid Kapoor, asserting that she came
from a good family and would never do “that”. It is interesting
that Kareena chose to assert her respectability rather
than her right to privacy, which might have led her to argue
instead that the person had no right to shoot her in a moment
of privacy and then sell the image for profit. The problem with
the kiss, I would like to suggest, is that while people merely
assumed that she and Shahid had a sexual life, it remained
private but being confronted with the reality of that sex life
threatened Kareena’s status as a good girl.
If some people don’t want to kiss and tell, in other spaces,
it’s distinctly un-kosher. Film scholar M. Madhava Prasad
has eloquently argued that until the 1980s, there was an
unofficial, unwritten ban on kissing in Hindi cinema, because
it was, among other things, un-Indian, violating defined
public private boundaries.
The fantasies sold to us through consumer-oriented
imagery promise perfect sex in luxurious resorts inviting us
to imagine ourselves dining on fine cuisine, sipping
champagne in Belgian-made flutes or reclining in rose
petal strewn spas with our significant others as incense
perfumes the air. These fantasies are inevitably of two
heterosexual people in private spaces. Audience not invited,
except as envious “others” who can only imagine the
sensual delights of these spaces. The problem with even the
suggestion of public sexuality then is the publicness of it—
the violation of the taboo of mixing the artificially but
nonetheless firmly drawn boundaries between the private
and the public. The question often asked of couples cooing
By Shilpa Phadke
Do women want to act
out their fantasies?
No.The safe sex
thought police, it
seems, has taken
over the female
moral universe.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com; Model HIDA
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
TWENTYLOVE POEMS AND
A SONG OF DESPAIR BY
PABLO NERUDA
To me it is not astonishing that these are the
finest verses of the greatest poet in any language.
But that at the tender age of 19, Neruda, could
convey an understanding of desire that most
people don’t get to experience all their lives. I
quote “I will bring you happy flowers from the
mountains/ bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic
baskets of kisses/ I want to do with you what
spring does with the cherry trees. ” I mean, how
can you write like that? I rest my case.
THE LAST NIGHT OFTHE EARTH
POEMS BYCHARLES BUKOWSKI
All right, I am cheating here.Actually, any Bukowski
book of poems would do. The man whose gravestone
reads: “Don’t Try”, a phrase which Bukowski
uses in one of his poems, advising aspiring writers
and poets about inspiration and creativity, is
effortless both in his living and his loving. But under
the signature Bukowski dirt and grime glitters an
understanding of desire that is dazzling.
LOLITA BYVLADIMIR NABOKOV
What can I say about this Nabokov classic that’s not
already been said and better? This celebration of
the obsessive, devouring and doomed passion of
Humbert Humbert is one of the most poignant,
love-seared writing I have read, ever. There are
times when prose comes pretty close to poetry.
This is one of them.
ANOTHER E.E. CUMMINGS BY
E.E.CUMMINGS
There is nothing unassuming about the erotic
poetry of the man who chose to write only in
lowercase, with a grammar and punctuation system
of his own. The poem She being brand new is a
particularly breathtaking example of Cummings’
consummate craft.
THE TROPIC OFCANCER BY
HENRY MILLER
Semi-autobiographical and set in the 1930’s, it is a
tale of Miller’s life as a struggling writer. It was
banned for 27 years in the prudish US of A, for
it roller coaster ride into a sexuality so raw
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
PEOPLE PLEASURES
60 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
10 MOSTEROTIC LITERATURE
Erotica does not assume a poverty of sexual imagination on the reader’s part. It allows men
and women to engage as equals and sets you in the mood for love. Here are my top 10 picks.
Ramanuj Shastry
The writer is National Creative
Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Readers Digest
and shocking that it will change any reader
forever as a person.
MEMORIES OFMYMELANCHOLY
WHORES BYGABRIELGARCIA
MARQUEZ
Written in the poetic and often magical narrative of
Marquez, it tells an unlikely story, that of a 90-yearold
man’s love for a 14-year-old prostitute in a style
that alternates between magic-realism, erotica
and memoir. It is an outstanding account of the
timelessness of desire.
KA BYROBERTO CALASSO
In this astonishingly original book, Robert Calasso
has used the body of colossal Sanskrit literature
and turned into a novel. The output is a beautifully
crafted tale on Hindu mythology which makes the
story of creation sizzle with its prose.
THE BODYARTISTBY
DON DELILLO
I write to find out how much I know, DeLillo is
fond of saying. And this man knows a lot, about
a lot.Written three years after his ground
breaking Underworld, this short novel is an eerie
exploration of desire and loneliness. Probably it’s
strange for this book to be on a list of erotica. But
it’s my list. So, buzz off.
MYUNCLE OSWALD BY
ROALD DAHL
When you mix the world’s most powerful
aphrodisiac with the world’s most diabolical
imagination, you get erotica that is rip roaring
funny.Wit is a massive turn-on. And Dahl uses it
to the hilt in this tale by a nameless narrator who
tells the story of lovable, lascivious Uncle Oswald.
This book is for anyone who likes a very lucid yet
deliciously weird story.
KAFKA ON THE SHORE BY
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Murakami is a ‘complex cartographer of desire’.
And due to the Oedipal theme running through
much of the novel, Kafka on the Shore has been
called a modern Greek tragedy. I found it utterly
sad and strangely erotic.Or may be it’s just
me who is twisted.
1
PER CENT FROM DELHI FIND PEOPLE
FROM WEST BENGAL SEXUALLY
ATTRACTIVE, WHILE ONLY 10 PER
CENT FROM KOLKATA THINK SO.
For 1,196 respondents of the total 5,371 who think that people from a particular
region are sexually attractive. Figures don't add up to 100 because of multiple
choices. All figures in per cent.
Do you think people from a
particular region are
sexually attractive?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO76
Male 36, Female 9
Male 64, Female 89
YES22
EPICENTRE OF LUST
Punjab
10
Jammu &
Kashmir
8
India
12
America
7
West
Bengal
5
The geography of sexuality is significant. People
from these regions are the most sought-after:
on Mumbai’s streets: don’t you have a house and privacy?
And the truth is that often they don’t. They don’t because
there are parental restrictions. They don’t because their
houses are too small and occupied by too many. When
public displays of affection are sought to be pushed indoors,
it is the morality of the middle classes that is being enforced,
the morality that demands a two-bedroom-hall-kitchen flats
and closed doors.
The arrival of global sexuality then being celebrated by
the media is one that is both deliberately exclusive and
claustrophobically narrow. A sexuality that recognises the
desires of only a certain class which must only be located in
the sanitised spaces of shopping malls, coffee shops,
multiplexes, resorts and middle-class model homes. A
sexuality that requires perfect, toned, able, deodorised
preferably heterosexual bodies, though discreet gay and
lesbian bodies of the appropriate class and profession may
not be entirely taboo. This celebration then contracts rather
than expands both spaces where sexual desire might be
expressed and forms in which it might be expressed. It
negates the couples in parks and promenades who have no
other space in the city. It erases the slum dwellers who must
make love under cover of darkness as they share space with
others. Most of all it negates people’s desires to claim the city
as their own in defiance of the arbitrary boundaries of
Model AKUONUO KHEZI
18

62 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
public and private.
The sex survey figures indicate that only 14 per cent of
the women surveyed claim the desire to have sex with a
stranger. In contrast, 53 per cent of the men surveyed
expressed the desire to have sex with a stranger. Only 6 per
cent of women claimed they wanted to have sex with a
celebrity compared to 30 per cent men. The question that
begs to be asked is, why this disparity in numbers? These
are only fantasies after all and nobody has to act on them if
they don’t want to, are afraid to, or lack the opportunity to.
Forty-four per cent of women polled (76 per cent, 65 per
cent and 58 per cent in Ludhiana, Jaipur and Lucknow
respectively) said they did not actually want to act on their
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 PEOPLE PLEASURES
For 4,222 respondents
of the total 5,371 who
have had sex. Figures
add up to more than
100 because of
multiple choices. All
figures in per cent.
Of the people you know,whom
have you had sex with?
Have you ever fantasised about
having sex with a stranger?
All figures in per cent.
Four in five men in Ludhiana fantasise about having
sex with a stranger, while in Delhi nearly three in
four would not mind taking a stranger to bed.
NO66
Male 53, Female 14
Male 47, Female 86
YES34
Friend’s wife 5
Girlfriend/Boyfriend 17
Spouse 72
Neighbour 11
Domestic help 3
STAR STRUCK
Afilmstar
31
Salesperson
visiting my
house
17
Aschool
student
12
Aspiritual
guru
4
Adoctor/
nurse
22
Celebrities and filmstars provide equal
opportunity fantasies in a glamour-obsessed
world. However, doctors, nurses and
salespersons are also not far behind as objects
of desire. Some of India’s fantasy partners are:
For 1,809 respondents of the total 5,371 who fantasised about
having sex with strangers. Figures don’t add up to 100 because
of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Have you ever had sex with
any of the following?
For 1,570 respondents of
the total 5,371 who
fantasise about having
sex with strangers and
have had sex. Figures
don’t add up to 100
because of multiple
choices. All figures
in per cent.
Prostitute 23
Salespersons visiting my house 8
Adoctor/nurse 8
Aschool student 6
Acelebrity 4
Model ANU KUWAR; Location THE PARK, NEW DELHI
..........................
.......... ............ .......................... ...................... .......... .......................... ....................
..............
............
..........
....................
............................
.. .... .. .. ............ .......... .......... .. .......................... .................... .... .. .. ..................
64 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
fantasies. In contrast only 35 per cent of men (60 per cent
in Jaipur) claimed not wanting to do so. So many of us don’t
actually want to act on our fantasies—why censor them
then? Are the Orwellian thought-police irretrievably inside
our heads? Have we become the irrevocably Foucauldian
docile bodies inhabited by disciplined minds? What stops us
from fantasising? Perhaps, “I can’t be unfaithful to my
spouse/ partner even in my fantasies” is part of it or “Casual
sex is immoral and not to be thought of” or “That would be
really stupid. Sex with a stranger? S/he could turn out to be
an axe murderer or have a sexually transmitted disease
(STD)”. These are complex statements that need more
nuanced explanations but for the sake of argument it is
worth indulging in some simplistic generalisations. The first
statement is part of a normative (usually but not exclusively,
heterosexual) understanding of sexuality as monogamous.
The second is more clearly part of not just a moral code but
often a romantic vision of sexuality as engaging deep
feelings as well as bodies. The third is often a feminist
response based on years of struggle against violence and
also part of a new brigade: the safe sex police, a category in
which many of us may recognise ourselves.
Anthropologist Carole Vance has famously argued that
feminism’s success in bringing sexual violence into public
also had the unintended consequence of suggesting that
women are less sexually safe than ever and that “discussions
and explorations of pleasure are better deferred to a
safer time”. Vance refers to the need to talk of sexual
pleasure even as we battle against sexual violence. And one
might add, the need to continue to act on our desires even
as we protect ourselves from STDs.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
Do you think people from a
particular community are
sexually attractive?
Less than 18 9
18-21 34
21-29 45
30-40 24
40-50 10
Which community do you think is
particularly sexually attractive?
For 1,163 respondents of the total
5,371 who think that a particular caste
is sexually attractive. Figures don’t
add up to 100 because of multiple
choices. All figures in per cent.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Have you ever fantasised about
a village man or a woman?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
While 58 per cent men in Chennai find a particular
caste sexually attractive, only 7 per cent women think so.
NO77
Male 33, Female 11
Male 67, Female 87
YES22
NO68
Male 45, Female 14
Male 54, Female 83
YES30
Muslim 17
Punjabi 12
Hindu 8
Brahmin 7
Sikh 4
PER CENT OF MEN IN JAIPUR HAVE ADMITTED
TO HAVING SEX WITH A FRIEND’S WIFE,
WHILE 11 PER CENT OF MEN IN CHENNAI
HAVE HAD SEX WITH THEIR DOMESTICS. 15
PEOPLE PLEASURES
Location THE PARK, NEW DELHI
Male Female
15 2
48 19
50 39
22 27
6 14
Have you ever fantasised about
having sex with anyone from the
following age groups?
Figures add up
to more than
100 because of
multiple choices.
All figures in
per cent.
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 65
Women are increasingly receiving signals to “up their
sex lives” using a variety of tricks. Young women are
being asked that they walk the thin and invisible line that
demands that they appear sexually desirable without
earning the label slut, and that they remain essentially
virtuous Indian women without becoming frumpy aunties.
How then can we think of pleasure and fantasy in a world
signalled by both increasing demands and apparent danger?
So what might be a “safe” space to fantasise even as we inch
our way towards becoming the desiring women we imagine
we could be? Where can we begin to articulate our fantasies
and desires in a forum that is exciting and safe? A tentative
and provision-laden response to this might be the Internet.
In an Internet chatroom, I can be anyone. I can devise a
new appearance for myself: (much better looking), a new
age (younger) and a new persona (sexually adventurous). I
can change my occupation, my city, my marital status and
even my sex if I like. I can become the conventionally
beautiful woman or the macho successful man. Or I can be
a “pervert” expressing all kinds of apparently “deviant”
desires. I can chat with someone, having become this new
person, this figment of my imagination, free to become
someone entirely different the next time I’m on the Internet
and my desires are different.
Of course, like the street, the Internet is not necessarily
a safe space and the potential for pleasure here is equally
accompanied by the possibility of danger. But I would
argue that for the technologically sophisticated and the
carefully anonymous, it does provide the possibility of
fantasising in a space where boundaries are much more
fluid than on the street. This, of course, is not intended to be
the end of the road, for of course what’s to stop us from
taking that next step—meeting the stranger at the other end
of the online connection for coffee and conversation and
who knows what else.
This possibility, I argue, is why female desires are so
fiercely policed and why we learn to police even our fantasies.
For today we might fantasise about strangers and celebrities,
tomorrow talk to them on the Internet, the next week view
pornography, the next month plan to meet our strangers and
from then onwards the fabric of “Indian family life” will never
be the same again. The project really is not to find our
desires but to legitimise them. For there are those 14 per cent
women, and maybe more, who are articulating it already,
claiming the right to speak their dangerous desires. To assert
that it is not just all right but imperative for us to speak.
The writer is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Media
and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social
Sciences, Mumbai.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
PER CENT FROM JAIPUR THINK ABOUT
HAVING SEX WITH A MINOR, WHILE 7
PER CENT FROM BANGALORE
FANTASISE ABOUT A 50-YEAR-OLD.
FANTASISING CELEBRITIES
Bad Boy,Coy Girl
At first glance, it
seems perfect.
Salman Khan, the
man with the oldest best
body in the business, is the
one women want to take
to their beds. Aishwarya
Rai Bachchan and Katrina
Kaif, two fair-skinned
former models,
international enough to
impress the world and
docile enough to adapt
to traditions, are the
women men most want. In
choosing Salman, women
are crying out for the
passionate love he embodies.
He is part Prem, urbane,
naughty, romantic,
and part Radhe, obsessive,
often violent, lover. He is
both a bit of rough and a
bit of a softie. Women believe
he is a bad boy only
so they can reform him.
There is, as filmmaker
Paromita Vohra notes, no
ambiguity in desiring him.
His sexuality is not suspect,
his faithfulness lasts
at least as long as each
monogamous relationship,
and his unwavering focus
on his love object makes
him part of a familiar
intimate landscape. As for
the women, despite their
overt westernisation, their
most striking aspect is
their sexual coyness. Both
Aishwarya, when she was
single, and Katrina now
don’t flaunt their relationships.
They are beautiful
without being threatening,
smart without being
aggressive, and capable
without being challenging.
They don’t want to change
the world, merely make
it a prettier place.
All figures in per cent.
17
PEOPLE PLEASURES
TOP 5 FOR MEN TOP 5 FOR WOMEN
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan5
Katrina Kaif 5
Sania Mirza 3
Priyanka Chopra 3
Kareena Kapoor 3
Salman Khan 3
Shah Rukh Khan 1
John Abraham 1
Aamir Khan 1
Amitabh Bachchan 1
Which celebrity have you
fantasised about?
68 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009 SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
Where do you most
fantasise having sex?
In the bedroom 60
In a bedroom decorated
for a wedding night 34
Inahotel room 29
Inthe bathroom 23
Under a waterfall 21
On a rooftop 18
In a girl’shostel 8
Heritagemonument 5
Office desk 4
Figures add up to more than
100 because of multiple
choices. All figures in per cent.
WANDERLUST

Looking at the results of the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG
MARG sex survey 2009, at first sight, there does not
seem to be much difference between urban educated
Indians and notions of fantasised sex in urban places
elsewhere on this globalised planet. Particularly, through
media such as cinema, we are all familiarised with erotic
scenes staged at a beach, in a hotel room, a shower or a couch
and, of course, a bedroom. Erotic fantasies are socialised and
gender-specific, that is, men and women—whether heterosexual
or homosexual—imagine erotic pleasure and intimacy
in different ways, clad in different imaginaries and narratives
that relate to their everyday lives. Some may be shaped by the
consumption of other media, for example magazines, the
Internet, cinema or television. Some may be habituated
through education at home, school, college, friendships or
work. A person’s sexuality is by no means a private affair but
rather a public good. It is generated in different contexts,
depending on social status, education, economic capital, on
lifestyle aspirations and a host of heterogeneous moral
universes. In India, for instance, sexuality is framed by highly
coded norms and values of arranged marriage, and is a
property of the entire family, not just the couple. Fantasising
sexuality also depends on the access to imaginary and
concrete physical sites and gestures that reinforce one’s
‘physical being’ and ability to articulate and imagine, in this
case, one’s sexual love life in a particular environment. For
instance, the survey reveals that 56 per cent Mumbaikars
fantasise about having sex on the beach and 36 per cent claim
to have already done it. However, the trope of the beach is not
romantic for everybody and must be located in the context of
‘paradisical’ love on an isolated island, the pleasure of
solitude and the leisure luxury of a holiday, else, it remains a
non-place, or a labour site for fishermen, a garbage bin or
public toilet. Similarly, the fantasy of making love under a
waterfall or in the rains might ring a bell for Bollywood
aficionados for the erotics of the wet sari of the desired
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 69
By Christiane Brosius
ZONES The eroticism of the
ordinary triumphs
in the urban Indian’s
sexual imagination,
crowded out by
cramped homes
and dangerous
public spaces
Photographs byBANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com (Location courtesy: THE PARK, New Delhi)
heroine or the symbolism of fertility. The affinity to heritage
monuments could be related to notions of romantic love as
manifested in sites such as the Taj Mahal.
Fantasising about erotic intimacy or more abstract lust
can be linked to sites of solitude or/and to the thrill of doing
something in the realm of an ‘illegitimate’, ‘unsuitable’ place,
where the erotic tension is generated precisely through the
knowledge of doing something morally improper.
Internalised voyeurism, the idea of being watched while
engaging in something ‘unsuitable’, is part of the kick.
Making love at home may be all right while its display in
public allegedly insults public sentiments, morale and
traditions. That’s what the survey reveals us a whopping 60
per cent fantasising about having sex in their bedrooms.
When I came to India for the first time in 1986, I was
puzzled by the notion that solitude seemed to be
difficult to find and furthermore, was not particularly aspired
for. Intimacy was something to be kept out of the public,
hardly practicable. These rules of the social gaze seem
to apply even within the walls of a ‘traditional’ joint family
house and the fact that many families share the same
bedroom. With economic liberalisation, the notion of solitude
and privacy became a brand of a ‘good lifestyle’, of
‘world-class’. Modern flats for the affluent sported bedrooms
for each member of the family or for the married
couple. Honeymoon trips of the new middle-class shifted
from crowded places like Shimla or Kathmandu to spas in
Goa and Kerala, remote islands in Thailand, beaches in
Australia or holiday resorts in Egypt. With this translation
of new lifestyles, in particular, in India’s cities, affecting an
educated, English-speaking middle-class, and new sites of
conspicuous consumption such as cafes, shopping malls
and day spas, the fantasising of having sex opened up existing
new places; the office, college, beaches, hotels, cars
or kitchen tables. So far, so good.
What seems to be worryingly growing, simultaneously
however, is the restriction of these places for the ‘everyday
wo/man’. The fantasising either remains an imaginary act
or faces resistance of kinds. No wonder only 29 per cent
could actually make out in other places of fantasy outside
their bedrooms. Instead of a liberalisation of public space
and moral values vis-à-vis the new concepts of romantic love,
and particularly non-arranged love, we can see an aggressive
control over and closure of public space and tolerance.
Take two examples. The first one is related to the attacks on
lovers in public places, especially in parks. These attacks
may range from an annoyed and appalled staring to verbal
insults to physical harassment and, more recently, photographic
or filmic documentation and circulation with the intention
of public denunciation. The general argument goes
that the display of intimacy in public is equally offensive to
the ‘common man’, keeping families from visiting those
parks and hurting Indian culture to which the concept of romantic
love is said to be essentially foreign and thus wrong.
The places of fantasised love turn into nodal points of vulgarity,
70 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009 SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
Of the all the places you fantasise
about, where have you had sex?
In the bedroom 71
In a bedroom decorated
for a wedding night 33
In a hotel room 27
In the bathroom 21
Under a tree,in a park 7
Balcony of the house 5
In a car 5
In the kitchen 4
For 4,222 respondents of the total 5,371 who have had sex. Figures add up
to more than 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
WANDERLUST
Mumbaikars seem to be moving up the fantasy chart.
Fifty-six per cent want to have sex on a beach,47 per cent
under a waterfall and 26 per cent under a tree in a park.

subversion and westernisation. Public resistance is
strangely marginal and best represented by the recent Pink
Chaddi Campaign, a Facebook initiative that challenged a
Hindu nationalist organisation in Karnataka which had
threatened to force unmarried couples into marriage on
Valentine’s Day 2009, by practising modern Gandhigiri and
sending hundreds of pink underwear to its head office. The
second example is that of Prem Kunj, or the Lovers’ Park, in
Kolkata. Criticising the lack of protected and quiet spaces for
couples in public, and referring to the lack of space and
recognition of the needs of proper conjugal love in urban environments,
The Lover’s Organisation for Voluntary
Exhibition (L.O.V.E.) has been demanding safe ‘erotic zones’
since 2000. The downside of this organisation, however,
seems to be that it opposes homosexuality, pre-marital sex
and Western ‘physical-only style’.
This sex survey’s particular focus on fantasising places
in relation to wanderlust seems involuntarily significant:
in the original German, wanderlust refers to the Romantic
tradition of a nostalgic yearning, lust/love, for individual
and independent movement, travel through, or even away
from one’s ‘heimat’, home. Maybe ‘non-spaces’ such as
hotels (27 per cent had sex in a hotel room) or gated
condominiums are the best protected spaces for fantasising
lovers. But one has to pay a high price for this protected
space, financially and symbolically. Moreover, it seems as
if the mass media have become another protected space
for erotic aspirations, opening up intimate channels for the
secret love talk, as in the film Sujata (1959) where the
impossibility of class and casteless love is manifested, and
challenged, when the hero confesses his love to his beloved
in a highly erotic phone conversation, or when we consider
the rising popularity of SMS love-making in India.
One conclusion of the sex survey with respect to fantasising
places could be that it is the property of a privileged
elite who can afford to fantasise by the sheer power of
lifestyle and class distinction. Within that privileged,
affluent segment of Indian society, men seem to have a
clearer preference for sex in semi-public places than the
women. Does this allow us to allege a greater distrust of
public safety by women? On the other hand, the result that
the places making up these topographies of erotic life are
located mostly in semi-public or private spaces could
provoke the question whether these segments have already
internalised the disapproving gaze of the bourgeoisie,
this restricting their fantasies to ‘go-zones’ of the
imaginary, the private and the media domain.
The thrill of wanderlust is a luxury item. To be
consumed by a few. Whether or not we should declare that
it something to be consumed by all alike is not to be decided
here. Certainly, the opening up of the public space is
worthwhile being fantasised and fought for.
The writer is professor of visual and media anthropology,
Heidelbery University, and author of the forthcoming
India’s Middle Class. New Forms of Urban Leisure, Consumption
and Prosperity.
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 71
PER CENT OF LUDHIANA MEN
FANTASISE ABOUT HAVING SEX
ON THE ROOFTOP. A LITTLE OVER
HALF OF THE CITY’S MEN HAVE
ALREADY FULFILLED THIS DESIRE. 61
72 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009 SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
Exhibitionism and voyeurism
seem to be two sides of the
21st century obsession with
technological gadgetry
Have you ever thought of video
recording or making an MMS of
yourself while having sex?
All figures in per cent.
Male 88, Female 96
Male 12, Female 4
NO 92
YES8
VOYEURS ATWORK
SHOWAND

w In 2004, the notorious MMS sex scandal involving two
teenaged students of a prestigious school in Delhi catapulted
questions about liberated sexualities, cyber technologies,
privacy, censorship and voyeurism into a noisy, though
unresolved, public debate.
wIn 2009, Anurag Kashyap directed an intelligently-contemporised
fresh new take on the venerated Devdas’ tale of love,
longing and loss, in which the story of Dev D’s city-squeeze
Leni/Chanda (a hormonally hyperactive schoolgirl by day
and an expensive call-girl by night) is clearly inspired by the
Capital’s schoolchildren’s MMS-malfunction disaster.
w In 2009, the television reality show Sach Ka Saamna, in
which contestants took a lie-detector test before facing 21
embarrassing questions about the most intimate aspects of
their lives, was launched to high TRPs but was immediately
engulfed in controversy for promoting voyeurism.
w In 2010, critically acclaimed filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee
will complete his new experimental film in which, he says,
“the central idea or mood is pure voyeurism. We will be
taking the camera from the bedroom, to the sewer, canal,
bathroom, bus, picnic spot, hanging from a fan in a room,
even hidden in a handbag, in a make-up van or restaurant.
The actors will wield the camera”.
Voyeurism and exhibitionism have found a happy
hunting ground in India, it appears. A chimeral anxiety,
however, shadows the liberatory, celebratory aura emanating
from this phantasma of sexual excess and success. It is,
in fact, exactly at this nexus that 21st century India is caught
and stumped: even as we race at breakneck speed towards
ever-more-sophisticated, increasingly innovative media
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 73
By Brinda Bose
Have you ever shared
the recorded video or
MMS with anyone?
For 196 respondents of the total 5,371 who had made MMS during sex.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
YES75
Male 18, Female 40
Male 81, Female 56 NO23
PER CENT RESPONDENTS BETWEEN THE
AGE GROUP OF 41 AND 50 HAVE ADMITTED
TO HAVING VIDEO-RECORDED OR MAKING
MMS OF THEMSELVES WHILE HAVING SEX. 44
In Mumbai, of those who have fantasised about sex MMSes, 88 per cent men have video-recorded themselves while having sex
and 92 per cent have admitted to sharing it with others.Delhi women seem to be bolder with 67 per cent admitting to having
made such an MMS. More single women (54 per cent) have made an MMS compared to their male counterparts (36 per cent).
Yes
43
No
57
Male 44,
Female 41
Male 56,
Female 59
REEL PLAYING
Getting oneself videographed is the new seduction
mantra for the techno-savvy Indians, with more
than 40 per cent respondents saying they have
video-recorded their love-making sessions.
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com; Models ROHAN DHANDand ANU KUWAR; Outfit By KUNCHALS For 453 respondents of the total 5,371
who had fantasised about making an
MMS during sex. All figures in per cent.
Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
74 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
GUSTAV KLIMT’S THE KISS
I saw this work at the Galerie Belvedere in Vienna a
couple of months ago and it remains one of the
paintings I’ve loved since my early days at art
school. The painting is brimming with not just
love, passion and eroticism but through a careful
deployment of Art Nouveau patterning and
opulence, manages to mix the image of love with the
image of fulfilment, which I think is its key success.
AKBAR PADAMSEE’S THE LOVERS
Akbar Padamsee’s The Lovers is a very sensuous
image of a man holding the breast of his lover,
based on Uma-Maheshwara renditions. The work
attracted much debate leading to a court case
which the artist finally won. In 1954, Padamsee
was arrested for what was one of the earliest
debates on censorship and eroticism in the
nation’s nascent art history. Besides being an
accomplished painting, it is also a key work for
the dialogue it generated around themes of the
erotic in the years immediately after Independence.
EDOUARD MANET’S OLYMPIA
Edouard Manet’s Olympia sits completely nude
looking at the viewer with a vacant, confrontational
gaze while her black maid, fully clothed, attends to
her with a bouquet of flowers. Her pale white,
idealised body, a black ribbon around her neck and
her slippers, which she continues to wear even as
she sits on the bed, creates an intense erotic setting
that disturbed the academic canon of the time.
NOBUYOSHI ARAKI’S NUDE
PHOTOGRAPHS
Nobuyoshi Araki’s photographs often cross the line
of eroticism and enter the terrain of perversion and
scandal. Pleasure is mixed with pain, violence,
subjugation and bears the scars of exploitation. I
include Araki’s work in this list mainly because of
the dark undertones that exist in his work. The
discomfort one feels on seeing the pictures is
central to his practice and he has invested a
lifetime of work that explores this terrain.
AUGUSTE RODIN’S THE KISS
Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss is an image of
unadulterated desire and love. Clearly, one of the
most-photographed and reproduced art works, it
continues to exist in one’s imagination as the finest
sculptural renditions of a kiss or an embrace.
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE’S
MAN IN POLYESTER SUIT
The corridors of art history are filled with images
of female nudes and celebrations of feminine
beauty. However, Mapplethorpe’s celebrates
masculinity and the patron of male love Eros.
Man in Polyester Suit is a dramatic image of
an exposed penis; the piece effectively mixes
homoeroticism with a transgressive spirit that
can be seen in most of his other work.
JEFF KOONS’MADE IN HEAVEN
Jeff Koons created a large body of work depicting
him making love to his (ex) wife, the Italian porn
star La Cicciolina. While these decadent pictures,
playfully bordering on the perverse,were staged
in photo studios and their sculptural adaptation
fabricated in various production facilities, they are
rather audaciously titled Made in Heaven.
TAKASHI MURAKAMI’S MY
LONESOME COWBOY
AND HIROPON
These two works are in my list not only because
of their intrinsic eroticism, but because they
are a morph between the rawness of overt
sexuality and the playfulness of Japanese
manga. Hiropon is a whimsical depiction of a
big-breasted sex doll whose spilling breast
milk becomes her skipping rope; similarly
My Lonesome Cowboy depicts a boy with
an erect penis masturbating with a fountain
of sperm in the air.
MARINAABRAMOVIC’S
BALKAN EROTIC EPIC
Marina Abramovic’s multi-channel video
installation Balkan Erotic Epic explores the
definition of sexuality in Balkan pagan traditions.
Most of her pioneering work phrases hard
questions through the persuasion of beauty
and the Balkan Erotic Epic is no exception.
THE IILLUSTRATIONS OF
VATSYAYANA’S KAMA SUTRA
Let me finally cast a generic vote for all the
anonymous artists who have over the centuries
given a visual form to Vatsyayana’s Kama Sutra.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
VOYEURS ATWORK
10 MOSTEROTIC ARTWORKS
Jitish Kallat
Ancient Greek ceramics, the ruins of Pompeii, paintings on Paleolithic caves and on our very own
Ajanta caves, all stand proof of the fact that art is the oldest form of erotica.Ten of my favourites:
Art of Life The writer is an artist
technologies that have shrunk the world into our palms,
literally, we are confounded by both the immense possibilities
and the imminent dangers of lifestyle choices that have
now become available to us, 24X7 as they say, across multiple
media sites. If our old-fashioned construct of voyeurism
is inspired by the rear window phenomenon, where intricate
timing, inviolate secrecy and intensely personal triggers for
sexual pleasure are all key to the experience, we are now
clearly poised at the threshold of a brand new door whose
keyhole dilates even as we watch with wonder. And peeping
toms are all wired and warmed up for the show.
Voyeurism, or scopophilia, is defined as a sexual disorder
in which an individual seeks sexual arousal, pleasure,
and/or gratification through secretly watching another/other
individual indulge in implicit or explicit sexual activity.
Exhibitionism thrives on its reverse, in which a person
derives pleasure and gratification from being watched
during sexual activity even while feigning ignorance of the
voyeur’s presence. Recording one’s sexual “action” on
camera, and then sharing it with friends and/or strangers,
as in MMS cases, involves multiple players of varying degrees
of innocence and culpability, and these tangled levels of
knowledge and consent determine how factors like privacy
rights, censorship and the right to adult, consensual sexual
activity might pan out in such a complex interaction. While
voyeurism is regarded as a criminal offence in the UK and
Canada, for example, it is not legally banned in India though
female victims of voyeurs may be protected under certain
provisions of the Indian Penal Code. Section 509 makes
punishable any (lewd) act or sound that “insults the modesty
of any woman” and “intrudes” upon her “privacy”and the
Information Technology (Amendment) Bill of 2006 extends
this specifically to the transmission of images that violate
privacy in “printed or electronic form”, punishable by
Do you get aroused if you
discover a woman secretly
watching you having sex?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
YES50
Male 28, Female 64
Male 70, Female 30
NO46
Do you get aroused if you
discover a man secretly
watching you having sex?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO65
Male 60, Female 69
Male 38, Female 24
YES31
Of the female respondents who found watching an
orgy sexually arousing, Lucknow takes the lead at
55 per cent compared to the city’s 45 per cent men.
Same-sex voyeurism has become the new viagra for
many. While 63 per cent women in Ludhiana get aroused
in the presence of another woman, 72 per cent men
in Mumbai enjoy being watched by another man.
THREE IS SYMPHONY
Rest don’t know/can’t say.
All figures in per cent.
Yes
31
No
67
Male 42,
Female 20
Male 57,
Female 78
At least three out of 10 respondents find watching
an orgy or threesome sexually arousing.
Titillation has become more experimental.
Model ROHAN DHAND 
76 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
imprisonment and the payment of fines.
The electronic, rather than the printed form has turned
out to be both the bliss and bane of our collective existence,
and nowhere are the paths around this Eden more
labyrinthine than in the arena of the sexual. Today, almost
every possible fantasy about other people’s private sexual
acts that one may secretly wish to witness, and whimper
over, is a mere (key-)touch away in our techno-saturated,
but clearly unsatiated, globalised existence. Are we then
within whispering distance of an all-new ailment, voyeur’s
glut? Does a voyeur’s pleasure mutate in knowing that
he/she is sharing it with a million unknown others, at that
very instant in time, or is there a thrill embedded in a conceptually-
orgiastic voyeurism, so to speak? Is the minimising
of the world of secret sexual phantasmagoria to a set of
luminous screens, of the cellphone, the laptop, the desktop,
the television, the multiplex, a reduction of the power and
punch of the voyeuristic experience, or is it just that we must
redefine what that experience might be for our children,
growing up as they are in a world of sexual surfeit?
Increasingly, our greatest voyeuristic pleasures appear
to reside in a different notion of the “real” and the “fantasised”,
aided by and located in technology rather than in
peeping through keyholes. And it is perhaps because of the
legitimacy afforded by technology that the perception of
voyeurism as specifically an illicit, shameful sexual aberration
has lost its edge. The emergence of terms such as
“slum-voyeurism” (in the criticism of Slumdog Millionaire,
for example) and tourists-as-voyeurs may eventually signify
a transformation of what we thought we knew a voyeur to
be, one whose sexual pleasure simmers almost wholly in the
secrecy of the looking. But voyeurism now appears to be
watered down into a perception of a delight derived from
gazing at an alien world, its tingle in the spine adduced from
a residual association with sexual perversion rather than its
own necessary sexual impetus or content. One might
wonder whether this is engendered by changing notions
about sexual perversion itself, from keeping a horrified,
diffident distance to swanning by with a blasé, sab chalta
hai nonchalance, or whether it is an effect of a steady and
growing visual-pleasures-overdose, the much-too-easy
accessibility of image creators/receivers/transmitters in the
hands of thrill-seekers, and a concomitant desire to twirl
private lives in public, so well borne out by the phenomenal
epidemic of social networking in cyberspace?
The questions on voyeurism/exhibitionism framed for
the sex survey of 2009 reflect our new-found obsession with
the camera and its immense foucauldian (fuckauldian?)
grip on our sexual imaginations. Indeed, we could read the
new voyeurism of our age through Foucault’s adoption of
Jeremy Bentham’s architectural evocation of the panopticon,
a structure by which peripheric inmates are watched,
isolated, enclosed yet fully visible, while the centre holds the
power of the gaze, seeing but not seen. The systematised,
Have you ever uploaded any of your
recorded videos on the Internet?
Have you ever seen a recorded
video or MMS of your friend or
relative having sex?
For 143 respondents of the total 5,371 who had made MMS during sex.
All figures in per cent.
YES71
Male 23, Female 47
Male 77, Female 53
NO29
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO86
Male 82, Female 90
Male 17, Female 8
YES12
The Pink City is going blue on the Internet. Of all those
who video-recorded themselves having sex, 88 per cent
respondents in Jaipur admitted to having uploaded their
sex videos on the web. In Mumbai it is 85 per cent.
Model HIDA ; Location THE PARK, NEW DELHI
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 VOYEURS ATWORK
mechanised gaze of the dour panoptic vision can now be
said to be mimicked, pleasurably, in the voyeuristic
experience, where visibility emerges as a bait for both the
lusting and the lusted after. The strict separation between
the two, of viewer and viewed, is also essential to the
voyeur’s enterprise, just as it is fundamental to Foucault’s
conception of discipline and punish; we can draw a
parallel between the (assumed, antagonistic) power of
the voyeur and the pinned-on-the-wall helplessness of
the viewed, which is of course complicated when one
comes to the voyeur today as primarily embodied by/in MMS
uploads and downloads.
The first set of questions in this section, not surprisingly,
addresses the MMS phenomenon that has exploded the
apparently-hitherto-hidden voyeuristic fantasies embedded
in our national psyche, if our multimedia are to be
believed. Since there is no denying that the arrival of
mobile phones with cameras in them has single-handedly
been responsible for our video-recording pandemic (pun
and irony both intended), it may be a revelation then that of
those surveyed, a modest 12 per cent of men (highest in
Ludhiana and Bangalore) and a timid 4 per cent of women
(highest in Mumbai) overall admitted to fantasising about
recording their sexual activity for an MMS. The hypothesis
that the MMS has burgeoned into the single-most scintillating,
titillating aspect of sexual action across the country may
therefore be something of an exaggeration; it is also
intriguing that according to this survey, fantasising about
MMS sex (for want of a better term) is hardly indulged in by
the non-married. This might then challenge our general
assumption that the MMS sex phenomenon is rampant
amongst youth, who tend to be savvy about, amongst other
things, techno-gadgets and their functional plenitude. It is
rather enthralling to think, instead, that mature marital
bedrooms, as opposed to stealthily-passionate teen-infested
corners, are hotbeds of intimate activity being
recorded for posterity by the roving eye of a video camera:
41 per cent of women who fantasised about MMS sex,
and 44 per cent of men who did, then admit to
actually having lived out their fantasies on the video
screen, 56 per cent of the men belonging to the
middle class. A 21st century consumerist
modernity, of which the mobile phone, with
camera, may well be the most striking icon,
has perhaps most insidiously as well as most
widely insinuated itself into the extensive middle
classes of India, so this comes as little
surprise. It also matches the information in the respondent
profile of the men in the survey that almost every
one of them owns a mobile phone.
It is not surprising to see that amongst those who
indulged in MMS sex, more than half the number of women
and an overwhelming majority of men (80 per cent) then
shared the recording with friends and/or uploaded it on the
Internet. One might deduce that the desire to videotape
one’s most intimate sexual moments is spawned of
an exhibitionist yearning that would want to then take
those images beyond the confines of the space in which they
were enacted; now that 75 per cent of the men surveyed
have access to the Internet, this transference is as easy
as the fantasising in the first place. Far fewer numbers
of women (about 8 per cent) and men (17 per cent)
claimed to have seen their friends or relatives in MMS sex
videos, the sightings being highest for women in
Mumbai, Delhi, Ludhiana and Ahmedabad, and
overwhelmingly high for men in Ludhiana.
The recurrence of Ludhiana in high-number spots
across this segment of the survey may be compelling for an
inference of a nature that has nothing to do with the profile
of this town in particular: that though propensities for exhibitionism
and voyeurism need not necessarily coexist in an
individual, it appears to be likelier that those who possess
one of those inclinations would also own the other. Amongst
the men of Ludhiana, especially, the following readings are
78 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
Yes
25
No
74
Male 36,
Female 14
Male 64,
Female 85
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 VOYEURS ATWORK
Rest don’t
know/can’t
say. All figures
in per cent.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
One-fourth of the
respondents have looked
through the keyhole into
the sexual lives of others.
With reality shows being
the norm, our voyeurism
is no longer a secret.
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
80 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
of note: Ludhiana records the highest number of men who
fantasised about MMS sex; one in five of them claimed that they
have seen MMS sex videos of their friends/relatives though not
a very high number have recorded their own; of those who
have, however, a very high number (80 per cent) have shared
their videos with others and uploaded them on the Internet.
Ludhiana then has the highest figures for peeping toms,
whether by inclination or action, crossing 90 per cent in
fantasising about arousal sparked by both voyeuristic and
exhibitionist exertions. We must remember, of course, that
such figures for Ludhiana have significant impact, then, on
the averages that are finally calculated for the general pool.
Across regions and cities, there is a sharp divide
between men and women in fantasising about sexual
arousal caused either by watching others secretly or in
knowingly being watched. Men find greater arousal in being
watched by women during their own sexual activity (70 per
cent) rather than by men, the conviction being highest in the
south: in Bangalore, almost all the men are excited by the
prospect of performing sex for female viewers/voyeurs. In
contrast, only 30 per cent of women in the survey are aroused
by voyeurs, but then equally by men and women. This
survey reveals quite definitively that men fantasise far more
about being either/both voyeurs and exhibitionists than
women do. But through it all, one wonders about the sexual
preferences of both male and female respondents; it would
be rather quaint of us to assume, after all, that all desiring is
heterosexual. Indeed, especially in the context of fantasy,
revelations to the contrary might well have been stunning.
Is one to infer from this data that voyeurism and/or
exhibitionism as sexual behaviours are rampant in metros
and small towns across India in 2009? Not quite. What is truly
significant is that India—big town, small town, uptown,
downtown—has begun to fantasise seriously about traditionally
aberrant sexual practices, and has even begun to indulge
in such fantasies, jettisoned into future-fantastic as it has been
by the wonder of a consumerist, globalised modernity
embodied in, and infinitely emboldened by, a single, tiny,
hand-held piece of video-recording equipment. Are all
Indians turning overnight into voyeurs and exhibitionists,
then? As E.M. Forster had pronounced in an entirely different
context in the closing moments of A Passage to India, “Not
now. Not yet.” Ominous. Or promising. Take it as you will.
The writer is Associate Professor of English at
Delhi University.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 VOYEURS ATWORK
NO62
Male 51, Female 74
Male 48, Female 25
Do you find secretly
watching someone having
sex, from a hidden location,
sexually arousing?
YES 37
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com
Forty per cent respondents in Ludhiana have
had secretly watched someone having sex.
Ninety-three per cent men found it sexually
arousing compared to 42 per cent women.
“Is she cooking or seducing?” a friend commented on Nigella
Lawson, the ravishing cooking hostess on Travel and Living.
I had never thought of it that way. But now I saw it—Nigella’s
seductive voice, the way she flirts with the camera, even the
suggestive manner in which she puts food into her mouth—
it does have a feel of soft porn. The TRPs must be shooting
through the roof. Housewives love her for transforming
cooking into a sexy, glamourous pursuit, instead of the
sweaty, thankless job it is. And men who couldn’t identify an
onion without its jacket, are probably fumbling with their
aprons, to pant after her into the kitchen. Well, at least as
voyeuristic couch-cooks.
My mother who overheard our conversation, objected
vigorously. Nigella and porn? Impossible. The thing is, she
likes Nigella, and nothing mom likes can be pornographic. It
is really more an indictment on her than on Nigella. After all,
mom is not “that type” of a person. The type that her old
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary makes an oblique
reference to, when it describes pornography as “obscene
writing, painting, and the like”. Contemplating INDIA TODAYAC-
Nielsen-ORG-MARG 2009 sex survey data, I wondered if
much of urban India too uses the same dictionary. Only 27
per cent of women respondents admit to having watched
porn films. And only 4 per cent more who haven’t, would like
to. However, a majority of the women, 66 per cent, not only
claim ignorance about pornographic films or its uses, but
also do not wish to try watching them with their partners.
84 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
By Rita Banerji
OFTHE BOX
The squeamishness about pornography
as couples therapy is an offshoot of the
belief that sex is purely for reproduction
not pleasure.Vatsyayana, India’s oldest
sexologist,would not have been happy.
PARTNERS IN PORNOGRAPHY
Men show a markedly greater inclination with 41 per
cent having watched porn films. Surprisingly, however, a
significant percentage, 46 per cent, also say they would
never watch a porn film with their partners. Never? Not even
to see what it would be like?
To figure where this prudishness about pornography
stems from, we need to further examine the word. It has its
Latin roots in porne, prostitute, or harlot as mom’s good old
dictionary puts it. It is a reference to the depiction of
prostitutes in written and other forms. But surely, this is not
the reason for porn’s disrespectability, for Indian history
which is replete with such renderings, shows prostitutes in a
very honourable light. There is the famous dancing girl of the
Indus or sculptures, like the one at the Pampapati Temple at
Hampi, of a woman trying to seduce by drawing attention to
her vulva. Prostitutes were the heroines of plays and novels.
And while the Devdasis were sacred, those who worked
outside the temples, the ganikas, had a social standing like
that of the Bollywood stars of today. They were wealthy,
hobnobbed with the elite, donated to temples, moved around
with an entourage of personal staff, and were adored by the
public. If just the portrayal of prostitution or sex makes
pornography socially deplorable, then we’d have to rebuff or
destroy a good deal of Indian artefacts and literature.
The thing is, there is plenty not just from our past but also
in the contemporary time that is pornographic and yet
acceptable. My more up-to-date Webster’s Dictionary
defines pornography as “material that is intended to cause
sexual excitement”. When thus devoid of a moral sentencing,
this definition of pornography permeates almost all
aspects of the modern lifestyle—advertisements, movies,
television programmes, among others. There is always that
covert attempt to sex things up to whet the public appetite
for the product being sold, perhaps coax a subconscious
transference of the natural libido. We’d assume no man is
foolish enough to think that a seductress draped over that
overpriced snazzy car comes with the car. And none of those
lustless liplocks that the Censor Board hacks away could
PER CENT WOMEN IN LUCKNOW WOULD
LIKE TO WATCH PORN SHOWING VIOLENCE.
IN LUDHIANA, 17 PER CENT MEN ENJOY
WATCHING PORN INVOLVING ANIMAL SEX.
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 85
Have you ever watched a
porn film with your partner,
before or during sex?
NO43
Male 41, Female 27
Male 43, Female 44
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
YES 34
Forty-six per cent men and 36 per cent women
belonging to the age group of 35-40 have
watched porn, the highest in any age bracket.
20
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com

86 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009 SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009
PARTNERS IN PORNOGRAPHY
Hot Button
VIDEO ON DEMAND
Certain porn websites allow you to view their entire
collection for under $10. This is more like paying per
view and is valid for a fixed number of hours.
ONLINE COMMUNITIES
There are several online communities dedicated to
South Asians which you can be part of and which
routinely send you pornographic clips and pictures.
INDIAN PORNOGRAPHY
In the last few years, there has been a huge boom in
Indian pornography—from amateur videos out of Indian
metros to the Sunny Leone kind of porn stars.The
proliferation of webcams has made an amateur porn
star out of every computer user. There are several
online groups where they post their videos.Most
shoddily shot and poorly lit, featuring everyday Joes
living out their fantasies. Surprisingly they are quite
blasé about showing their faces.
MALWARE
Not a trend but more of a threat.Alarge number
of these porn sites have malicious software or malware
designed to infiltrate or damage the user’s computer.It
is highly recommended that you first download a good
antivirus or spyware blocker before surfing a porn site.
RUSSIAN SITES
Another recent feature of online porn has been the
proliferation of Russian porn sites.Most offer free movie
downloads and even copies of obscure Scandinavian
porn magazines.Best to be careful because some of
them are not very reliable and contain malware.
STREAMING VIDEOS
Anumber of adult sites offer videos in various
categories. It’s basically like going through a yellow
pages.You want a category or fantasy, they have
the videos for that. The sites are free but if you want
full screen or downloads of movies, you have to pay
a monthly premium membership.
LIVECAM WEBSITES
There are a number of livecam websites which have girls
in various chatrooms. If you buy a $10 package, you
can visit multiple chatrooms. If you like a girl, you can
have a private chatroom session with her. She tells you
that her charges are, for instance, 50 cents a minute
and you can pay to chat privately with her.
THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
No. Not the Steven Soderbergh film. This is a further
evolution of the livecam experience where you have an
online girlfriend who you hook up with on the Net at
pre-arranged times. It’s called the GFE and is one of the
biggest fads in online porn.
POCKET PORN
Variously called pocket porn or the pink visual, it’s the
latest visual porn application which has caught on in the
US. Faster Internet speeds now allow you to surf porn on
the go on your iPhone or BlackBerry.
ONLINE KINKY SEX
Another variation of the online chat rooms
where the girl lives out your fantasies.Whips,
bondage, anything.
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
9
6 10
10 TOP
PORN TRENDS
It took pornography over a century to evolve
from erotic novels and girlie magazines in brown
paper covers to VHS videos, CDs and DVDs.The
transition of Internet pornography has been
exponential,going from still photographs to
streaming videos and finally live cams within a
decade.Most of this has piggybacked on faster
Internet speeds.Here are some of the trends
sweeping through the online porn industry:
possibly titillate like the rooftop scene in Raja Babu, where
Karisma Kapoor and Govinda simulate every conceivable
position to the tune of a very suggestive sarkaye leo khatiya.
It had a very satisfied and vocal third-tier audience, just that
it was not labelled pornography. And those who watched
and derived pleasure from it did not have to make any overt
admission to having done so.
Perhaps, that is really what the basic contention with
pornography is. When something carries the label ‘pornography’,
it is an open admission that it aims to incite sexual
responsiveness. And therefore, to admit watching pornography
in any form is an open admission to permitting oneself
the pleasure from such stimulation. What is puzzling,
however, is why it should be shameful for even a married
couple in India to derive sexual pleasure from indulgence
in a bit of visual sensory stimulation now and then?
Therapists nowadays often recommend that couples watch
porn films together to put a little zing into their flagging sex
lives, and revive intimacy. Yet 46 per cent of married men
and 64 per cent of married women say they would not want
to see porn films with their partner. While it is all right for
the married to reproduce in India, it is indecent for them to
admit to indulgence in sex for pleasure.
Indeed, the father of our nation was vociferously
opposed to married couples having sex for pleasure.
Mahatma Gandhi declared the sole purpose of sex was
reproduction. And if couples intended not to make babies,
then they shouldn’t even be sleeping together. He believed
that all women who used contraception were whores
because they were having sex not for reproduction,
but pleasure. He had no equivalent label for men who did
the same. Perhaps, it is this tacit permissiveness towards
men that allows for far more men than women to
admit watching or desiring to watch porn films as is
evident in this survey.
It is a pity though that modern India does not seek its sex
education from the gurus who preceded Mahatma Gandhi
by about 1,500 years, and not only wrote mammoth anthologies
on sex but were so versatile in their knowledge of it that
they were bestowed with the title of acharya. It would have
solved many of our current sex-related problems, including
overpopulation and squeamishness about porn. India’s
ancient sexologists proclaimed that sex solely for the
purpose of reproduction is what animals do. For humans,
the aim is pleasure. And they asserted this applied to women
as well. This pleasure was to be attained through the
stimulation of each of our senses—sight, sound, touch, taste,
and smell, as well as intuition and balance was expounded
on in the Kama Sutras. The 64 art forms including music,
dancing, cookery, perfumery, riding, dressmaking among
others that one was expected to master as an integral aspect
of learning the art of love-making (kamashashtra), were in
essence an exercise in honing the sensory organs. It is a
wisdom which the Western world perhaps comprehends and
embraces more fully than India does. The idea behind
DECEMBER 7, 2009 u INDIA TODAY 87
Why haven’t you ever tried
watching porn with your partner?
For 2,330 respondents of the total 5,371 who have not watched
porn with their partners. Rest don’t know/can’t say
. All figures in per cent.
I am not comfortable doing so 14
My partner is not comfortable 13
Never thought about it 39
Don’t have access 12
Not aware of such a thing 9
What kind of porn would
you want to watch?
For 2,235 respondents of the total 5,371 who want to watch porn
with their partners. Figures add up to more than 100 because of
multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
Have you ever fantasised
about watching porn with
your partner?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
NO56
Male 46, Female 66
Male 52, Female 31
YES42
Showing multiple men and a woman 29
Showing only women 27
Showing a man and a woman 84
Showing multiple women and one man 25
Showing violence 9
18 PER CENT MEN ARE INTERESTED IN
WATCHING PORN SHOWING ONLY
MALES. JAIPUR TOPS THE CHART WITH
54 PER CENT EXPRESSING SAME DESIRE.

88 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 7, 2009
Valentine’s gifts of chocolates, roses, perfumes, silk lingerie
and serenades is essentially based on this principle.
So the question that remains is: Is there an immoral
aspect to pornography? Yes, there is and it is no different from
any other aspect of life or social activity. It is when the inherent
rights of individuals are abused. When the subjects of porn
are forced into it and don’t have the capacity to dissent or
resist, as with trafficked women, children, and animals.
Talking of animals, it was interesting to note in the
survey that men from Patna and Ludhiana showed some of
the highest propensity for porn films involving animals.
Ludhiana men also showed the highest interest in multiple
male-single female porn films—51 per cent whereas the
national average is 32 per cent. It makes one wonder if these
sexual preferences in anyway reflect an underlying social
issue. For these are also areas that have some of the lowest
female to male sex ratio largely due to sex selected abortions
and infanticide. It has been a practice for long in some of the
rural areas in this region for a household of brothers to
‘share’ a wife, due to the local unavailability of brides.
The issue of pornography is not so much a moral one as
one of personal choice. Its tolerability is determined by
individual preferences. Whichever of your senses does it for
you is the one to go for and possibly visual stimulation might
not be your cup of tea. Vatsyayana, India’s oldest sexologist,
had a sage piece of advice for couples. He said there are
practices that are more acceptable for some people than for
others depending on what family and community they are
from. So couples will have to figure out between themselves,
as to what they both like and dislike, are comfortable or
uncomfortable with, and then engage in creative foreplay,
respectful of each other’s personal boundaries.
The writer is the author of Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping
Societies. She is also the founder of The 50 Million Missing:
A Campaign Against India’s Female Genocide.
SEXSURVEY
COVER TORY2009 PARTNERS IN PORNOGRAPHY
BASIC INSTINCTS
27
Showing
multiple men
and one woman
31
Showing a man
and a woman
83
Showing
multiple women
and one man
24
Showing
only men
19
Showing only
women
Male 36,
Female 24
Male 33,
Female 17
Male 84
Female 82
Male 32,
Female 13
Male 20,
Female 16
Porn is becoming a popular stimulus for both partners with 34 per cent respondents
admitting to having watched it with their spouses. But for the average Indian,
the more basic, the better the porn is. What’s more, both men and women
seem to be on the same plane when it comes to the kinds of porn they watch.
For 1,809 respondents of the total 5,371 who
have watched porn with their partners.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of
multiple choices. All figures in per cent.
More men (19 per cent) than
women (9 per cent) are
uncomfortable watching
porn with their partners.
Cover story SEXSURVEY
At what age did you have
sex for the first time?
Was your first sexual encounter
with someone older than you?
YES20 NO80
Male 29, Female 8 Male 71, Female 92
The figures have been rounded to the nearest integer. Rest don’t
know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Pre-teens 6
Teens 22
Twenties 41
Thirties 5
Still a virgin 27
Male Female
9 2
28 15
39 43
5 5
18 35
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have had
sex. All figures in per cent

24 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story SEXSURVEY
cent of those surveyed have had sex before 20, a figure
that social anthropologist Perveez Mody points
out is comparable to the 37 per cent of Britons who
lose their virginity before age 16.
Kinky sex is more than a blip on the urban
Indian’s radar. Twenty per cent of adulterous couples
(that is 1,037 of the total respondents) have tried
swapping partners, 18 per cent of all respondents
think trying new things in bed helps boost their sex
life and anal, bisexual and sado-masochistic sex figure
high in the score of sexual experiments they have
checked out. Clearly, a bit of rough goes a long way.
Much of these fanasties are being fed by the glamour
and pornographic industries. Both men and women
seem to share a taste for titillation, especially for
home-grown and celebrity porn. Technology has
freed their bodies, though their minds may still be
trapped in a twisted moral universe. There is a hint
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5,353 who have had sex. The
figures have been rounded to the nearest integer. All figures in per cent.
Ex-girlfriend/boyfriend 52
Neighbour 38
College friends 16
Colleagues 13
Family friend 8
Relatives 12
Prostitute 15
Male Female
53 45
41 20
17 13
14 9
8 10
12 16
17 3
With whom have you
committed adultery?
Yes 26
No 6
Thought about it 1
No response 67
Male Female
41 8
9 3
1 1
50 88
Have you ever
committed adultery?
METHODOLOGY
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG Sex Survey 2008 was
carried out to understand the different facets of sexuality of
single and married men and women.The survey was conducted
among men and women of three age groups: 18-25 years, 26-34
years and 35-40 years.They belonged to the middle and upper
middle-class (Sec Aand B).
In this year’s survey,we talked about under-age sex, sex with
prostitutes and eunuchs, kinky sex, adultery, incest sex,homosexuality,
fantasies, preferences, favourite positions, attitudes towards
role-playing and other sexual activities.We had a robust sample size
of 5,353 respondents across 11 cities: Delhi, Chennai,Hyderabad,
Ahmedabad,Patna,Mumbai,Bangalore,Lucknow,Jaipur, Ludhiana
and Kolkata.The respondents were divided almost equally in terms
of their gender: there were 2,685 males and 2,668 females.
The study was divided in two phases. In the first phase,
recruitment interviews were done where respondents were asked
basic questions regarding their demographics and their consent
was taken for participating in the survey anonymously.This
was followed by the second phase in which they were asked to
complete a self-administered questionnaire.We tried to use
interviewers who had experience in handling such sensitive
issues. In most cases, the same teams which conducted the
earlier sex surveys were given the task.
To protect the identity of the respondents, a ballot box was
kept at the venue where each respondent came and dropped the
questionnaire filled by him/her without their name or contact
details. Given that the questionnaire contained a number of
sensitive issues, quite a few respondents chose not to reply to
a few questions.Their views are highly respected.
For 1,037 respondents of the total of 5,353 who have committed
adultery. The figures add up to more than 100 due to multiple choices.
All figures in per cent.
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 25
Cover story SEXSURVEY
or more of repression, of aspirations outstripping
actuality. According to our survey, 27 per cent of all
the respondents had never had sex, and the percentage
was expectedly higher for women (35 per
cent) than for men (18 per cent).
Does the survey show urban Indians speaking
the language of love or of sheer desire, bottled for
so many years by a socialist mentality? The fact
that they are willing to even speak about their intimate
lives is interesting as is the emerging female
sexual self, who watches pornography as an extension
of foreplay, who is testing the limits of alternative
sexuality and who is willing to explore the
possibility of paid sex. The urban man’s appetite remains
as voracious as ever, no surprises there, even
if the reality is often grim, with sex being bought.
What is elevating though is that the urban Indian
bedroom may not necessarily be an arena of combat
between the sexes. Women may not want to confess
to their deepest fantasies (a majority coyly says
their greatest fantasy lover is their partner, not a
celebrity) but as the silent shattering of other myths
shows, what is between the sheets is no longer what
lies beneath. Women are standing up for their pleasures,
role-playing, even trying sex with eunuchs.
Fun, fearless and fierce. Will sex emerge as therapy
for a modern society with its attendant anxieties?
Will the good Indian girl and boy, restricted as they
by society in their choice of monogamous partner,
have greater latitude with their sleeping partner? As
the silent pushing of the sexual envelop shows, the
missionary position stands, but just about.
PER CENT SAY THEY HAVE
HAD SEX BEFORE THE
AGE OF 20. OF THESE,
6 PER CENT HAD SEX
BEFORE THEIR TEENS,
CLEARLY INDICATING
CHILD ABUSE. 28
WINDS OF
CHANGE
Have you ever had a
homosexual experience?
YES11 NO89
Male 16, Female 6 Male 84, Female 94
Have you ever had sex
with a prostitute?
YES10 NO90
Male 19, Female 2 Male 81, Female 98
Of the women who have had paid for sex,
62 per cent in Bangalore said that they have
done it with a foreign prostitute at least once.
All figures in per cent.
Seventy-four respondents in Ludhiana have
shared a homosexual experience with their
friends. Jaipur follows next at 62 per cent.
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
26 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story GUESTCOMMENT
Those of us in the business of finding things
out about the intimate lives of people
have been told that something near a
third of everything people say to a researcher
will quite simply not be true.
Social anthropologists like myself have long puzzled
over this problem, because it is not just the issue
of “reactivity” that troubles us—the problem
of how people modulate their behaviour when
asked questions by inquisitive social scientists—
but also the much more complex issues surrounding
the cultural context of questions, what is
appropriate, what counts as a good question and
finally, is the answer something that an informant
is able to speak honestly about. Anthropologists
overcome these issues by conducting extensive
fieldwork within the contexts that they wish to
study (be this the classic village ethnographies of
yesteryear or the seemingly more exotic wide-boy
culture of investment bankers in the city of
London). My own research on love-marriages in
Delhi in the late 1990s forced me to consider the
not inconsequential issue that many of my informants
living and working in the suburbs, shanties
and heart of our national capital city chose to represent
their marriages as “arranged” so as to
evade the heavy moral freight that accompanied
revelations of romantic self-choosing. In many
cases their families came to collude in this dissimulation
and I became very aware of the tensions between
what people felt they could say publicly
about what were difficult and thorny personal issues,
and their need to conceal some aspects of
their lives so as not to lose status or standing. It is
of no surprise to me then that the only way in which
a survey like this could work, the only way it could
be acceptable for the respondents and for you, the
reader, is because it is anonymous, and so plays
with ideas of secrecy and publicity. Surveys such
as this identify and create not secrets but “sexy
publics”. That is, they take the mundane, domestic
and secret aspects of sexuality and propel them
before our gaze in a very public forum such as a
magazine with a national readership. We can see
here the ways in which social groups project and
reproduce images of themselves. There is a twofold
movement: the respondents project themselves
through responding (with a greater or lesser
degree of honesty at which we can only guess), and
in reading about these “sexy secrets” the wider
public projects itself back, comparing itself,
imagining itself, imagining “the other”; and
thus in some way creating itself.
It is important to note that the interviewers
who ran this survey selected respondents on the
basis that they were resident in one of 11 of our
major cities and fell within the high income/social
class category (Sections ‘A1, A2, B1 and
B2’). The reason for this, I was told, was because this
category of citizen-consumer is designated a “trend
setter” which is an interesting phrase to pick when
the trends discussed are sexual secrets. From my
own work as well as that of the anthropologist
Jonathan Parry who has worked recently amongst
informal sector workers in Bhilai, I know that this
image isn’t the whole truth and other social categories
may well have more “spicy” sex lives than is
generally thought, so the survey may have skewed
its results in unexpected ways by going sensationally
for those it expected to be most sexually active.
The survey both projects and fixes its gaze upon this
group, the 18-40 year olds that we imagine populate
the gymkhanas, bars, clubs, pubs, restaurants,
corporations and call centres—the swinging India of
IT and infidelity, casual sexual encounters and of
porn to accompany the popcorn. But too much
Sexy
PUBLICS
Such surveys identify and create not
sexy secrets but ‘sexy publics’.They
take the mundane and secret aspects
of sexuality and propel them before
our gaze in a very public forum.
By Perveez Mody
THE SURVEY RESPONDENTS PROJECT THEMSELVES
THROUGH RESPONDING. IN READING ABOUT THESE
SEXY SECRETS, THE PUBLIC PROJECTS ITSELF BACK,
IMAGINING THE OTHER AND IN A WAY CREATING ITSELF.
www.cosmopolitan.in/digitalmagazine
Grab your Digital Edition.
Fun at your fingertips
Available on the
App Store
COSMOPOLITAN now available on iPad, iPhone, Android, COSMOPOLITAN now available on iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle, PC and Mac.
Tap to Download
marketing emphasis on this element of
the survey misses the point—and that
is that, although this survey will not
provide a definitive summary of the
secrets of the sexual life of modern
India in the new millennium, it does
present a fascinating glimpse of several
secret issues that need to be discussed
and considered. Some of these secrets
are sexy, and some are secret because
they are dark and dreadful, and these
in particular demand to be spoken
about openly and in public.
In fact, it is no great secret that
men and women, men and men and
women and women have sex in India.
We all know the world over that people
have sex. The problem with surveys
is that whilst they secure
confidentiality, the respondents are
also unable to obtain clarification
about what the question means. Is sex
sharirik bandhan (bodily relations),
heterosexual or homosexual play,
penetration or what Bill Clinton famously
considered to be “not sex”. It
isn’t that we need a hard and fast
rule—indeed, anthropologists would
be curious about the culturally specific
ways in which different actors in
diverse societies and settings describe
and think about relations of affect and
intimacy. Surveys such as this de-contextualise
sexual practice from social
settings and assume a uniformity of
meaning when we are uncertain that
any actually exists. I am fascinated
however, by some of the themes that
emerge both in respect of the surveyors’
agenda and of course, what the
responses are telling us. Whilst it is
hard to draw an anthropological insight
from statistics about the 62 per
cent of respondents who frequently
watch pornography or the top of the
league status for the missionary position,
the survey presents us with a
whole constellation of behaviours that
are eminently social. Small bits of
information about the contours of
practices such as incest, adulterous
sex with ex-boyfriends and girlfriends
in a country with predominantly
parentally arranged marriages, sex
with eunuchs and prostitutes (both
male and female), under-age sex, nonconsensual
sex and force all constitute
subjects with a tremendous significance
for Indian society and indeed
for the anthropological study of sexuality
and intimacy in India today.
We learn that 28 per cent of Indian
respondents have had sex before the
age of 20. It is interesting that in this
survey, the question wasn’t directed
specifically at the number of people
who have had sex before the heterosexual
legal age of consent for nonmarital
sex, as if this were a non-issue.
Worryingly, 6 per cent of these constitute
sex before the teens, and may be
read as a potential child abuse indicator
that gets flagged under another
question about sexual consent to
which I will return. Twelve per cent of
all respondents reported that their
first sexual encounter was without
their consent and we might reasonably
expect that most, if not all, of the 6 per
cent who said that they had pre-teen
sex were victims of sexual abuse.
To an anthropologist, there is a
striking absence in the survey of anything
to do with those apparently
“core” identities that govern so many
Indian marital (and by extension, sexual)
arrangements—that is, not a sniff
of caste or religion in any of the questions.
Its implicit message is that
whilst marriage may well continue to
be about appropriate arrangement,
sexuality in India is where people
have choice! And yet some of the survey’s
findings are surprisingly domestic.
Seventy-four per cent of all respondents
don’t approve of adultery,
and those who do are found to have
been adulterous themselves. Sixtyseven
per cent of respondents—presumably
from the disapproving camp,
do not even deign to answer the next
question as to whether or not they
have been adulterous—a more familiar
situation of cultural context creeping
into the survey through the
powerful mode of a resolute silence.
Twenty-six per cent do, however, confess
that they have been adulterous
(with a further 1 per cent having contemplated
it), and of these there are
five times more men confessing adultery
than women. Another fascinating
revelation is that 13 per cent men and
4 per cent women who have had sex
say their first sexual encounter was
with a neighbour. Neighbours feature
again in figures on adultery: when
asked to choose from seven categories
of person with whom respondents had
been adulterous, high on the list (after
former boyfriends and girlfriends)
come those who cheated on their marriage
with a neighbour.
Of those who were sexually active,
4 per cent of men and 4 per cent of
women reported that they had their
first sexual relations with a relative.
Nearly 8 per cent of those married respondents
who admitted to adultery
(12/156) said they were adulterous
with a relative. If we just take this
idea, about the 4 per cent of people
who appear to have had their first sexual
experience with relatives (note:
only 2 per cent answered that they
had had sex with “blood relatives” in
a question about the incidence of incest,
so here the 4 per cent figure in-
28 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
THE SURVEY’S IMPLICIT MESSAGE IS THAT WHILST MARRIAGE
MAY WELL CONTINUE TO BE ABOUT APPROPRIATE ARRANGEMENT,
SEXUALITY IN INDIA IS WHERE PEOPLE HAVE CHOICE
GIREESH GV
Cover story GUESTCOMMENT
dicates that an equal number have
sex with affinal relations or rather,
those who fall in the category of potential
marital partners), the most obvious
issues are those of sexuality,
force and consent. Of those who had
sex with blood relatives, more than
half were sexual encounters between
siblings (53 per cent). Thirty-six per
cent declared that it “wasn’t consensual
sex” and that they were “forced
into it”. Rather tellingly, nearly one in
ten males (9 per cent) and rather
more women (15 per cent) said that
their first sexual encounter was without
their consent. So, for instance, of
the cities featuring the highest responses
of force for this question, in
Ahmedabad 29 per cent of the 187 female
respondents reported force, 28
per cent of the 179 Bangalore respondents,
25 per cent of the 154 responding
in Patna and 20 per cent of the 182
respondents from Chennai.
Three per cent of people say they
had their first sexual experience by
paying for it. Interestingly, the gender
breakdown of this was 4 per cent men
and 1 per cent women. Furthermore,
19 per cent of male respondents and
2 per cent of female respondents
claim that they have had sex with
prostitutes from the opposite sex.
When asked in a different question
specifically whether respondents had
had sex with hijras or eunuchs, 19 per
cent of men and 17 per cent of women
respond in the affirmative, an improbably
high number. I am genuinely surprised
at the high incidence of sex
with eunuchs amongst female respondents,
though the highest positive responses
for both men and women
come from a cluster of just three cities:
Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad.
Having recently read a news item on
the BBC.com about a small but noteworthy
number of gigolos working in
Calcutta servicing female clients with
wealth and resources, I find the information
about Indian women having
sex with eunuchs more credible than
I would have otherwise done. In terms
of non-heteronormative sexual practices,
we must remember that consensual
homosexuality is still unlawful in
India, a situation that criminalises
and socially stigmatises people on the
basis of personal actions and sexual
choices. Three per cent of respondents
declared that they desired only
same-sex relationships and were out
of the closet, 4 per cent that they desired
same-sex relations but were not
out, 81 per cent returned responses
that they were firmly heterosexual,
and 6 per cent responded that they
were bisexual. Finally, 6 per cent of
women and 16 per cent of men have
had homosexual experiences (an
average of 11 per cent). We must,
however, be conscious of the terminologies
we use to discuss these sexual
practices as the literature on
same-sex relations in India strongly
indicates that they do not necessarily
converge into a western style “gay” or
even “homosexual” identity so we
should be wary of glibly attaching
labels to a range of complex sexual
practices and social arrangements
that accommodate them. Whilst the
sexy secrets of this affluent generation
might appear interesting and titillating,
and reveal the extent to which
sex is being bought and pornographic
images sold, we must ask ourselves
more serious questions of how we
might respond as a public to the high
rates of sexual force and abuse particularly
of minors, and to the continuing
illegality of homosexuality in a
country in which same-sex relations
are clearly widespread.
The writer is Lecturer at the Department
of Social Anthropology, Cambridge
University, UK, and the author
of The Intimate State: Love-Marriage
and the Law in Delhi (Routledge).
SEX UNDER DURESS EXISTS AND IS NOW BEING SPOKEN OF.
NINE PER CENT MEN AND 15 PER CENT WOMEN SAID THEIR
FIRST SEXUAL ENCOUNTER WAS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

Cover story KINKYSEX
Do you think trying new
things in bed helps boost
your sex life?
YES18 NO67
Male 23, Female 13 Male 65, Female 70 Male 12, Female 17
For 3,923 of the total of 5,353 respondents who say they have had
sex. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent
Have you ever had sex
with a eunuch?
YES18 NO79
Male 19, Female 17 Male 78, Female 80 Male 3, Female 3
Creative
PURSUITS
The days of staid sex are over. Kink is the new sexual think as
urban Indians find that the bedroom can become an arena for
role-playing, with almost 20 per cent giving it a thumbs up.
By Samit Basu
For filth, I’m glad to say, is in
The mind of the beholder
When correctly viewed
Everything is lewd
Smut, 1965, Tom Lehrer
You’re lying on a four-poster bed, secured
by handcuffs, naked and covered in oil. By
the bed stands a middle-aged uncleji-type
man with a walrus moustache, wearing a shiny
PVC bodysuit accessorised with high-heeled
shoes and a ballerina’s tutu. He holds a whip
in one hand and a red rubber ball in the other.
As huge speakers play Thus Spake
Zarathustra, he minces towards you, saying
(ideally in a German accent) the following
mystic words: “Kinky sex: A broad range of
sexual activities that aim to take participants
beyond the boundaries of normal (vanilla)
sex using props, costumes and role-playing,
including such time-tested methods as spanking,
dominance, submission, sado-masochism
and bondage. Kinky sex heightens the
intimacy between partners and thus adds
new levels of experience to sex.”
“Like…orgies? Wife-swapping parties?”
you ask, baffled.
PER CENT
MEN CONSIDER
REAR ENTRY
THEIR FAVOURITE
POSITION
COMPARED TO ONLY
17 PER CENT WOMEN 40
No,would
like to 3
As many as 74 per cent respondents in Kolkata
have had sex with a eunuch, the highest for
any centre in the country. Chennai and
Ahmedabad follow at 60 and 29 per cent.
BACK IS BACK
It’s okay
sometimes
15
All figures in per cent

DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 31
For 3,923 of the total of 5,353 respondents who say they have had sex.
“The number of players is not important.
Two or above, like Monopoly.”
“So, like the woman who married the
Eiffel Tower?”
“Ah, Erika La Tour Eiffel. A good friend
of mine. You do know, of course, that she used
to be in a relationship with a bow? She became
a world-class archer as a result. But no; when
the prop or costume becomes the object of
sexual desire, not an aid to sex, then it’s a
fetish, not a kink.”
“Like Zoran Nikolovic from Belgrade, who
needed surgery after he had sex with a hedgehog?”
you ask, amazing yourself with your
own general knowledge.
“No,” he replies, cracking his whip. “And I
see, you like reading weird sex news on the
Internet. I like. Enough talk.”
Your chemistry teacher from school enters
the room, dressed as Catwoman, carrying a doctor’s
kit and a big jar full of a blue, bubbling liquid.
‘You’ve been very, very, naughty,’ she says.
If you did not find the passage above incred-
nThe missionary position is
preferred by 72% Indians,
especially women (76%).
n The classic cowgirl follows
with 43%votes and 85%
in Ludhiana favour it.
n Rear entry is preferred by 30%
Indians with 33% unmarried
respondents voting for it.
n 30% Indians like to do it
while they are sitting. More
men (35%) compared to
women (22%) prefer it.
n For 22%,the side swing
works the best.However, 74%
in Ludhiana like it this way.
Top5
Positions
IN BED
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
Cover story KINKYSEX
Have you ever used sex toys ?
YES10 NO90
Male 15, Female 5 Male 85, Female 95
For 3,923 of the total of 5,353 respondents who say they have had
sex. All figures in per cent
Do you like role-playing?
YES31 NO69
Male 39, Female 20 Male 61, Female 80
When it comes to usage of sex toys, the older the
naughtier. The figure was 8 per cent among the
respondents aged between 18 and 25, 10 per cent
for the 26-34 year bracket. It rose to 12 per cent
in the category of the 35-40-year-olds.
More young people are
inclined towards roleplaying.
Among the
respondents aged between
18 and 25, 34 per cent
Indians liked role-playing.
Only 31 per cent showed
their preference for it in
the 26-34 year bracket.
The figure went down
further to 28 per cent
among the respondents
aged between 35 and 40.
All figures in per cent
PER CENT OF
RESPONDENTS IN DELHI
FEEL THEIR PARTNERS
ARE ADVENTUROUS IN
BED, HIGHEST FOR ANY
CENTRE. IN BANGALORE,
JUST 45 PER CENT AGREE. 70
WALK ON
WILD SIDE
City-O-Meter
Top three
cities of
sexual
mischief
CHENNAI 60%of respondents
here who have had
sex say they have done it
with a eunuch too.
HYDERABAD 54%of
people in Hyderabad who have
had sex, tried swapping their
partners; 88 per cent
like experimenting with
different sex positions.
LUDHIANA75%in Ludhiana
like experimenting with different
positions. It’s called building a
body of knowledge.
ibly arousing, here’s a newsflash: Chances are
you’re not into kinky sex. But, according to this
INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey I have
been devouring with growing fascination, a lot of
your fellow Indians are, and you, and I for that
matter, are merely a part of the vanilla majority.
Three out of 10 Indian women who’ve had sex
approve of kinky sex, and 13 per cent want it all the
time. One in five men approximately think kinky sex
improves their relationship; in Mumbai, one in
three men are into it. Hyderabad is overall the kinkiest
city, with 45 per cent of the total respondents
approving of kinky sex, at least sometimes.
What kind of kinky sex are we talking about?
The survey offers tantalising glimpses: 15
per cent men have used sex toys, with Hyderabad
trailblazing once again with 41 per cent. On the
other hand, only one in 20 Indian women admits to
using sex toys, with Bangalore leading the way with
14 per cent. Which makes me realise again how
little I know; I thought sex toys were mostly for
women. So what toys are two out of every five
sexually active men from Hyderabad using? Moving
on, one out of five Indian women like role-playing,
though whether this is a kink or a defence mechanism
this survey cannot, of course, tell us. What we
do find, though, is that women in Ludhiana and
Lucknow feel the strongest need to play out roles
during sex. Men in, you guessed it, Hyderabad, are
the likeliest to be found role-playing during sex, at
a healthy 56 per cent. Exactly what roles Indians
like to enact during sex is, reasonably, a matter of
speculation. Slightly more eye-opening is the news
that 15 per cent of all respondents have tried BDSM
(Bondage-Domination-Sado-Masochism) sex, with
a staggering 97 per cent of men in Ludhiana claiming
to have had sado-masochistic sex. Strangely
enough, only 30 per cent of Ludhiana’s women say
they were involved in BDSM practices, so I would
assume one in three women in Ludhiana is experiencing
a severe amount of pain.
I find these figures extremely interesting in a
country where sex toys and pornography are offi-
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 33
Cover story KINKYSEX
cially illegal. In 2007, something as innocuous
as a vibrating condom caused a huge furore in
Madhya Pradesh, where the Government
refused to allow the sale of Hindustan Latex’s
Crezendo because it was, they said, a sex toy. I
bring this up not to rail against conservatism or
idiocy, but merely to ask a question: even if
there is a genuine need felt by Indians to have
kinky sex, where on earth do Indians find the
props and costumes required to facilitate said
kinky sex? A well-informed friend tells me
there is a market in every city where sex toys,
at least, can be found. For example, near
Flora Fountain in Mumbai, he says, there are
teeming hordes of dildos and vibrators
arranged on the ground, pointing to the sky,
sold under the lovely epithet “massage toys”.
But where does your average ill-informed kinkinclined
Indian go to for that naughty nurse
outfit, or a weekend furry costume? Is the
entire kinky sex economy import-driven, or do
we have a whole underground domestic scene
I have no information about?
Even more interestingly, where does the
Indian need for kinky sex come from? Practices
such as sadomasochism in the West have a
whole history behind them, and have evolved
from a genuine need to include guilt, pain and
violence as means of sexual gratification. Sex
is not a source of shame as far as public acceptance
is concerned, but private sexual needs can
be a source of guilt. On the other hand, in India,
culturally, sex is still seen as a source of joy and
pleasure, an act that is encouraged as long as
you keep it private. Sex is taboo only when other
people, usually a group of outsiders, deem it
Do you like experimenting
with different positions
while having sex?
YES63 NO37
Male 76, Female 46 Male 24, Female 54
Is your partner
adventurous in bed?
YES60 NO27
Male 66, Female 52 Male 23, Female 32 Male 11, Female 16
For 3,923 of the total of 5,353 respondents who say they have had
sex. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent
Do you like role-playing
while experimenting with
different positions?
YES34 NO66
Male 47, Female 19 Male 53, Female 81
In Hyderabad, 75 per cent of male respondents
admitted that they liked role-playing while
experimenting with different positions.
Never
talked13
improper based on whatever societal or community
norms they’re imposing on the people they’re trying
to repress. So is BDSM sex in India a result of a genuine,
evolved need for kinky sex, or is it merely a cultural
import, couples dressing up and playing
because it’s fun, or because they saw it in a film, or
in porn, and thought it was cool? If the latter, does
this qualify as being kinky, or merely imitative?
What is kinky and made in India? On the basis
of casual interviews and this survey, I’d say
the MMS phenomenon; homemade porn for the world
to see, a definite statement about breaking taboos,
being exhibitionists in a country where kissing in
films still makes news. One in five Hyderabadi pornwatching
men has already starred in his own porn
video, and one in three Bangalorean porn aficionados
wants to make one. In this desire they are ably
supported by Bangalorean women—one in four female
Bangalorean porn-watchers has starred in a
Whoever said that India was a
nation of prudes needs to go
through the INDIA TODAY-AC
Nielsen ORG MARG sex survey to realise
that the modern woman’s sexuality is
now almost completely released from
the Victorian prudery that dogged the
post-Independence generation.
Women now figure that they can do
just anything they want, out of bed or
in it. Sex in the city is curiously liberated,
and if you thought you knew
what women were thinking, you
probably got it wrong.
In Ahmedabad, lesbians are out of
the closet, in Lucknow, they fantasise
most about girl-on-girl-action. Male
prostitutes are popular with the
ladies of Ludhiana while Chennai
maamis think nothing of indulging in
underage sex. In Patna, adultery gets
a high approval rating, and
Bangalore goes WiFi with wife-swapping
when the batteries in their sex
toys run out. Kinky sex in Kolkata;
sex with eunuchs in Chennai. Anal
sex? Ayyo wokay! Sado-masochism?
Saru che! Pornography? Zindabad!
And of course incest is best.
But Indian women seem to have
had a figurative ghunghat firmly in
place when it comes to answering
personal questions. Much to everyone’s
chagrin, most do not admit to
ever having had a sexual fantasy.
Yeah, right. I then decided to conduct
Women have a knack of keeping their sexuality a secret
Calmasutra
Which celebrity would
you like to have sex with?
Males Aishwarya Rai (6)
Katrina Kaif (6)
Kareena Kapoor (4)
Females Salman Khan (2)
Shah Rukh Khan (2)
M.S.Dhoni (1)
All figures in per cent
Anal sex 29
Bisexual sex 20
Group sex 9
Homosexual sex 6
Sex with animals 1
Sex with children 1
Sado-masochism 15
None 47
Male Female
29 29
25 14
13 3
8 4
1 0
2 1
20 10
41 54
Have you ever tried any of
the following?
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5,353 who have had sex.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices.
All figures in per cent
By Prasad Bidapa
Cover story KINKYSEX
video herself. These aren’t the most tech-friendly
cities in India for nothing, you know.
Worldwide, kink is now mainstream: Earlier
this year, Formula One chief Max Mosley won a
case against the British tabloid, News of the
World, for alleging he was a closet Nazi when all
he had done, the poor man, was hire several
prostitutes to dress up as prison guards and prisoners
and whip him while he yelled at them in
German. In April, CNN’s Richard Quest was arrested
in Central Park, New York, with drugs in
his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied
to his genitals, and a sex toy in his shoe. As an
emerging superpower, surely we cannot afford
to be left behind, and we must make constant
notes of all relevant performance statistics. Sex
surveys are fascinating; they’re like the IPL, but
with less advertising and more balls. As we
continue, every year, to metaphorically lift up our
proud nation’s dhotis and saris and take status
reports, I’m sure we will always find things guaranteed
to enlighten, entertain and amuse.
The writer has written three fantasy novels, but
not THAT kind of fantasy.
Anal sex 28
Bisexual sex 19
Group sex 9
Homosexual sex 5
Sex with animals 1
Sex with children 1
Sado-masochism 17
None 46
Male Female
28 28
24 13
14 3
6 3
1 1
2 1
22 10
41 53
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have
had sex. Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple
choices. All figures in per cent
Which of the following
would you like to try? my own personal poll with a wide
range of women friends whom I
know could be depended on to
tell me the truth. And tell me they
did—a free ranging choice of men
on the menu—my favourite a single
hotel industry professional
who said she steamed up on
Vladimir Putin, bringing a whole
new meaning to the title Vlad the
Impaler, to a socialite who yearned
for the long dead River Phoenix.
The definitive winners in my
poll were John Abraham and
George Clooney. What does that
mean? Do Indian girls fantasise
only about unmarried men?
On the other hand, Indian
men seem to have very active
fantasy lives and the incomparable
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan still
manages to corner the market on
fantasy even post marriage. So
does the fair and lovely Katrina
Kaif. But Indian men can
happily fantasise about sex
even while not getting much
action, and most seem to spend
their lives in a torpor of desire.
Yet, the modern Indian woman
has a lot of catching up to do if
she wants to be like the women
in Kama Sutra. She is still
frowned upon if she admits to
enjoying multiple orgasms with
multiple partners.
The writer is an image and
fashion consultant
Anal sex continues to be the most favoured by both
men and women. It is most commonly practised in
Chennai (59 per cent) and Mumbai (55 per cent).
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08

36 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story HOMOSEXUALITY
The “coming out” of sexuality is a significant
development of post-liberalisation India.
Provoking outrage in some and getting approval
from others, sexuality today is a bitterly
contested domain. One of the most visible examples of
this struggle is currently on view at the Delhi High
Court where the decriminalisation of homosexuality is
being debated. Drafted by Lord Macaulay in 1860,
Section 377 of the IPC criminalises “carnal intercourse
against the order of nature with any man, woman or
animal” with punishment by imprisonment extending
up to 10 years. In 2001, Naz Foundation, an NGO working
for HIV/AIDS, filed a petition in the Delhi High Court
demanding the decriminalisation of consensual sex
among adults. The petition is supported by Voices
Against 377 (a coalition of human rights groups and
individuals), the National AIDS Control Organisation
(NACO) and the Health Ministry. The petition is being
opposed by the Home Ministry (thereby placing the
Government in a peculiar paradox), an NGO called JACK
(which believes that the AIDS threat is a hoax) and
V.P. Singhal (brother of Ashok Singhal of the VHP) who
believes that criminalising homosexuality serves to
By Shohini Ghosh
Straight
from the
HEART
Men are moving out of the closet they had
hidden in.Asurprising 16 per cent admit they
have had sex with men,mostly friends. Clearly,
heterosexuality is not the only lifestyle choice.
PER CENT DIVORCED
MALES DISAPPROVE OF
HOMOSEXUALITY. THE
CORRESPONDING FIGURE
FOR MARRIED AND SINGLE
MEN IS 80 PER CENT. 22
SPLIT SHOWS 
Do you approve
of homosexuality?
YES16 NO84
Male 21, Female 10 Male 79, Female 90
At 17 per cent,women in Ahmedabad lead
other centres in having had a homosexual
experience.They are followed by the women of
Bangalore at 12 per cent and those in Patna
and Ludhiana at 8 per cent.
According to the survey, friends are the
most common homosexual partners for those
who report having had a homosexual
experience at the aggregate level (42 per
cent).Homosexual experiences with friends
across towns is highest in Delhi (59 per cent).
All figures in per cent
This is of the 606 of the total 5,353 respondents who admitted
to having same sex relationships. The figures have been
rounded to the nearest integer. All figures in per cent.
Whom did you share
a homosexual
experience with?
Friend 44
Colleague 14
Relative 9
Stranger 12
None of the above 22
Male Female
42 50
13 14
7 14
16 1
22 21
Photographs BY BANDEEP SINGH
38 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story HOMOSEXUALITY
Hyderabad is the least homophobic
and most sexually tolerant of
Indian cities,partly because of
its multicultural heritage
And, ladies and gentlemen, the Oscar goes
to Hyderabad. Even Titanic had received
only 14 Oscar nominations and won 11.
But Hyderabad, India’s second largest city, has
won more than 15 firsts in the INDIA TODAY-AC
Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey, 2008, thus confirming
that it is unarguably the sex capital of
India. Let’s look at these Sex Oscars. The city
leads India in these arenas: highest incidence of
adultery, wife-swapping, sex with prostitutes,
sanction and practice of homosexuality, use of
sex toys, practice of underage sex, role-playing,
different positions, sexual adventurousness, bisexuality,
heterosexual anal sex, use of pornography,
partner use of pornography, video
pornography, and even making of one’s own
porn videos. Hyderabad’s sexuality has been
chronicled in books like With Respect to Sex and
Asian Homosexuality among others.
During the reign of the Nizams (1724-
1948), Hyderabad was prosperous. Sex was
celebrated in this time, and polygamy and alternative
sexuality, including homosexuality
and paedophilia were accepted as a part of life.
Hijras, castrated eunuchs who guarded
harems, often doubled as homosexual partners.
There is even a record of two of an erstwhile
Nizam’s sons stabbing one another over
the love of a beautiful Hijra named Rehman.
Migration of people to Hyderabad brought in
aspects of feudal and Devadasi sexuality. It is
not surprising, therefore, that so many
Hyderabadis patronise prostitutes, swap wives
and practice adultery. The city’s prosperity has
attracted many young men and women from
faraway places, many of whom are ready to
mingle, whether married or single. The tolerant
and permissive sexual ethos of Hyderabad
has also made it a favourite LGBT (Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual & Trans-sexual) destination. A
disturbing downside to all this is that Andhra
Pradesh has the highest numbers of HIV/AIDSafflicted.
Another worry is the recent spurt in
homosexual sex crimes and killings.
LGBTs are everywhere in the city. The Yahoo
chat group, Gay Hyderabad, ranks among the
top ten. There are gay bars, gay groups like
Mithrudu, and we even have our own Ashok
Row Kavi, Hoshang Merchant, who authored
Yaarana: Gay Writing from India, and other
books. The real reason why Hyderabad tops
gay lists is because it is sexually tolerant. I’d
even say “evolved”. It is perhaps, the least
homophobic of Indian cities. One sees men
holding hands and nobody gives them a second
glance. The same is true of lesbians.
There is another reason. Californian law is
homophilic. San Francisco, for example, has a
higher homosexual population than many
other cities in the US. In contrast, Indian law is
homophobic, and gays face a lot of public ostracism.
In the absence of legal sanction,
societal sanction becomes an important determinant.
It can be stated that Hyderabad is the
nation’s LGBT headquarters at a time when a campaign
is on to recognise alternative sexuality.
The writer is an andrologist, a sexual
medicine expert and author of Sex is Not a
Four-Letter Word.
Alternative
DESTINATION
PER CENT
MEN IN
HYDERABAD
APPROVE OF
HOMOSEXUALITY,
THE
HIGHEST
IN THE
COUNTRY.
61
PROUD TO
BE GAY
A PRABHAKAR RAO
HYDERABAD IS
AFAVOURITE
LESBIAN,GAY,
BISEXUALAND
TRANS-SEXUAL
CENTRE
By Sudhakar Krishnamurti
uphold “Indian culture and values”. It is ironic
that for Singhal, a piece of colonial legislation
should come to the rescue of “Indian culture and
values”. I describe the dramatis personae and
their scripts in some detail because this unfolding
narrative could be an allegory of contemporary
India’s contestations around sexuality.
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex
survey is bad news for traditional moralists but
for everyone else, an opportunity to learn how
diverse our sexual cultures are. Responding
anonymously, men and women from four metros
and seven major cities share information about
their sexual preferences and practices. The survey
demonstrates the decline in conventional inhibitions
and a greater openness to a range of
sexual practices that lie outside the ambit of marriage,
monogamy and heterosexuality. There
seems to be an increasing willingness on the part
of the people to talk about their sexual lives when
anonymity is guaranteed. Clearly, the silence
around hitherto taboo topics like queer sexuality,
extramarital relationships (unfortunately called
“adultery” in the study) and pornography are definitively
broken. Take the findings on pornography
for instance. According to the survey, three
out of every five men and one out of every five
women “approve” of pornography. Since pornography
has always been considered a male preserve,
it is worth noting that 21 per cent of the
women respondents approve of pornography out
of which 45 per cent have been inspired to be sex-
Male Female
3 3
4 4
80 82
8 4
What is your sexual orientation?
Homosexual and out of the closet 3
Homosexual but not out of closet 4
Heterosexual 81
Bisexual 6
Rest Don’t Know/Can’t Say All figures in per cent
Five per cent of married respondents
admitted they were bisexual.

ually more inventive. Video is the most popular
format with the highest patrons in Hyderabad
(68 per cent) followed by Kolkata (59 per cent).
It’s interesting to note that one out of every 25
women who watch pornography admitted to
having made their own porn videos. Therefore,
not only are women watching porn, they are also
participating in its production. However, it should
not be assumed that the videos are being
produced for public circulation but possibly as
part of sexual play in intimate spaces. Today,
home videos permeate all parts of people’s lives
and the erotic space is no exception. The Internet
sexual adventures of Savita Bhabhi, an illustrated
porn series, could qualify as “home porn”.
Historically, the pornography debate has
been fraught. The traditional moralists and some
feminist groups (albeit for very different reasons)
have opposed pornography. The traditional
moralists view it as a preoccupation with sex that
is not related to the purpose of sex, which is reproduction.
They view pornography (and all sex
outside marriage) as a threat to traditional family
values. The feminist view of pornography has
a contentious history in the West. The antipornography
feminists known as the “radical
feminists” demand censorship of all pornography
because it is believed to encourage a culture of
rape and violence against women. In the 1980s
and ’90s, this position found its strongest supporters
in Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin
whose crusade for censorship took inspiration
from slogans like “pornography is the theory and
rape is the practice”.
The anti-censorship feminist position,
whose politics I share, draws attention to
the difference between sexist speech and sexually
explicit speech. All sexually explicit
speech is not sexist just as all sexist speech is
not sexual. Therefore, it is the sexism in the
genre that has to be fought and not the genre
itself. Anti-censorship feminists repeatedly
draw attention to the overwhelming data that
fails to show causal links between pornography
and violence including those used by radical
feminists to support their position. To this end,
they quote an important 1987 study which
reads: “Should harsher penalties be levelled
against persons who traffic in pornography?
We do not believe so. Rather, it is our opinion
that the most prudent course of action would
be development of educational programmes
that would teach viewers to be critical consumers
of the media.”
In India, pornography is common but usually
40 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story HOMOSEXUALITY
All figures in per cent
Do you ever fantasise
about having a
homosexual experience?
YES15 NO85
Male 22, Female 8 Male 78, Female 92
One out of five men has fantasised about a same
sex relationship at some point in his life.
PER CENT WOMEN
IN KOLKATA DECLARED
THEY WERE BISEXUAL,
THE HIGHEST IN
THE COUNTRY. 13
SWINGING
BOTH WAYS
discussed in whispers. Any public debate tends
to be met by hysterical outrage. In 1996, filmmaker
Mahesh Bhatt commented that those who
wished to watch pornography should have the
right to do so. This provoked some social and
women’s organisations to demand his removal
from the governing council of the FTII, Pune.
Similarly, when the late filmmaker Vijay Anand
as chairperson of the Central Board of Film
Certification suggested setting up theatres for
the exclusive screening of adult films, he had to
pay with his resignation.
Similarly, the findings on homosexuality
are likely to put the Home Ministry’s arguments
about Section 377 in jeopardy. The
dominance of heterosexuality notwithstanding,
16 per cent of the men and 6 per cent of the
women surveyed are homosexual. Moreover,
16 per cent of all men have had homosexual experiences.
One out of five men and one out of
10 women “approve” of homosexuality. Twenty
one per cent of all women surveyed in Ahmedabad
and 17 per cent in Bangalore claim to be
lesbian. Nineteen per cent of all women in Lucknow
and 15 per cent in Patna admit to having
lesbian fantasies. These figures provide a challenge
to the affidavit submitted by the Home
Ministry in the 377 case which states: “Indian
society strongly disapproves of homosexuality
and the disapproval is strong enough to justify
it being treated as a criminal offence even
where consenting adults indulge in it in private.”
Clearly, the Home Ministry has to catch
up with the people of India. The findings will
come as no surprise to those who work in the
area of sex and sexuality. They have for years
known that role-playing, sexual fantasies,
pornography, intergenerational relationships
and sex with sex workers are common.
It is said that writing and talking about sex
shapes the way in which it is perceived. Meanings
given to sexualities are socially organised and
sustained by a variety of languages embedded in
medicine, psychology, religion, moral treaties,
laws, social and cultural rituals. The history of
movements and language of sexuality reveal that
terms of self-identification keep mutating with
changing contexts. For instance, the term ‘queer’

42 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story HOMOSEXUALITY
has a complex history. It first emerged as a term
of social opprobrium and self-description. In the
’70s, the gay liberationists abandoned it because
of its connotations of self-loathing. In the ’90s, it
was revived to suggest a diverse range of nonheteronormative
sexual behaviour.
Similarly, the sex workers of Durbar
Mahila Samanwaya Committee prefer to
call themselves sex workers in order to challenge
the term ‘prostitute’ which, as their flyer
explains, “is rarely used to refer to an occupational
group who earn their livelihood through
providing sexual services (but) is deployed as a
descriptive term denoting a homogenised
category, usually of women, who pose threats
to public health, sexual morality and civic order.”
In order to foreground the notion of sex
work as labour, they have been demanding the
right to form a trade union. On the other hand,
the sex workers from Veshya AIDS Muqabla
Parishad (VAMP) in Sangli, Maharashtra, call
themselves “women in prostitution” and see
themselves engaged in an occupation (dhanda)
which is not to be equated with a profession.
The most useful part of this distinction is that it
compels people to recognise that women may
move in and out of prostitution, which is no different
from any other occupation. Consequently,
self-descriptions may vary over cultures.
Were we to regard sexualities in all their complexity,
we will find that our available resources
of words and understanding are limited. Therefore,
it is vital that open-minded sex surveys
abandon old-fashioned expressions like “adultery”,
“kinky sex” and “virgin” in favour of a vocabulary
that is free of stigma and moralism.
Sexuality studies and surveys must expand their
gender categories to include ‘transgenders’ if
they are to understand the complex range of genders
and sexualities that our society inhabits.
Like the characters in Mahabharata, the world
cannot be divided into ‘male’ and ‘female’. Our
bodies are only one indication of our genders and
sexualities. For the rest, it is important to remember
scholar Carol Vance’s wise observation that
the “most important organ in humans is located
between the ears”.
The author is the Zakir Hussain Chair Professor
at the A.J.K. Mass Communication Research
Centre, at Jamia Millia Islamia.
2007 sex survey
UNEQUALPARTNERS
Involved 2,563 couples between 21
and 50 across 11 cities.
Was intended to study the status
of sex and marriage
n The use of sex toys has gone
down this year with 90 per cent
saying that they do not need those
for sexual fulfilment compared to
81 per cent in 2007
n Not many seem to be experimenting
with various sexual positions.“
Missionary position”was
preferred by 72 per cent respondents
in 2008 compared to 57 per
cent in 2007, while “woman on top”
follows second at 43 per cent as
opposed to 16 per cent in 2007.
n More people are now experimenting
with kinky sex. The
number of respondents who have
tried anal sex has increased by 4
per cent in 2008 from 25 per cent
in 2007. Bisexual sex too has
shown a 5 per cent leap from 15
per cent in 2007.
2006 sex survey
MEN IN AMUDDLE
Involved 2,559 males aged between
16 and 25 across 11 cities.
To understand the unmarried
Indian man’s sexual preferences
n Almost two out of five respondents
in 2006 said they drew inspiration
from porn while having sex.
This figure has only marginally increased
to six out of 10 in 2008.
n Though Aishwarya Rai
Bachchan continues to remain
the most desired actor (6 per cent)
in 2008, she was far more popular
in 2006 when she was a single
woman and had a rating three
times higher than now, at 17
per cent.Moreover,Katrina
Kaif (6 per cent),Kareena
Kapoor (4 per cent) and Priyanka
Chopra (4 per cent) have replaced
the sex divas of 2006: Bipasha
Basu (13 per cent) and Mallika
Sherawat (10 per cent).
2005 sex survey
SEXAND THE
SINGLE WOMAN
Involved 2,035 single women
across 11 cities between the ages
of 18 and 30.
To identify an urban Indian unmarried
woman’s ideas of sex, fantasies
and desires
n 16 per cent women were fine
with adultery in 2005 compared
to only 8 per cent this year.
n Around 84 per cent women in
2005 had never watched Internet
porn.The figure is 73 per cent
in this survey.
2004 sex survey
WHATMEN WANT
Involved 2,499 married and unmarried
men across 11 cities between
18 and 55 years.
To understand an average Indian
male’s sexual preferences.
n There is a minimal difference between
men who have admitted to a
homosexual experience, willingly
or unwillingly, in 2008 (16 per cent)
and 2004 (19 per cent).
n The number of men having sex
with prostitutes has dropped from
one out of three in 2004 to one out
of five in 2008.
2003 sex survey
SEXAND THE
INDIAN WOMAN
Involved 2,305 women across 10
cities between 19 and 50 years.
To understand an average Indian
female’s sexual preferences
n 53 per cent women in 2003 said
that they preferred the missionary
position compared to a much
higher 76 per cent in 2008.
n 22 per cent women admitting to
having committed adultery said
they had sex with their husband’s
friends. In 2008, the former
boyfriend got the highest votes
(45 per cent).
SEXAND THE SURVEYS
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
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44 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
By Srimati Basu
Do you approve
of adultery?
YES26 NO74
Male 43, Female 8 Male 57, Female 92
Two out of five men approve
of adultery. In Hyderabad,
72 per cent gave their sanction
to it.Delhi followed
next at 62 per cent.
Icons of romance in India are rarely monogamous and married:
the Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan for a favoured wife though
he had two others; Krishna’s vehicle of ultimate love was his
uncle’s wife, Radha. In contrast to multiple systems of organising
marriage and sexuality that were (and still are) prevalent in India,
adultery as a marital offence is a relatively new experiment whose
boundaries are being tried.
How is adultery understood? As intercourse outside marriage?
Anxieties in this regard have often been about policing women’s sexuality
in order to harness their reproductive power, to ensure that
the offspring were biologically part of the patriline so that property
might be passed along. Harsh laws against adultery (such as in
Pakistan’s Hudood ordinance which criminalises adultery and holds
rape testimonials to be tantamount to adultery confessions) mark it
as a violation against male property, requiring monetary compensation
or even corporal punishment. Or is adultery a betrayal of affection
or emotion that threatens the conjugal bond? In the film Mr &
Mrs Iyer, for example, Meenakshi and Raja share intense trauma,
emotional and artistic sensibilities, and finally a kiss—the charged
guilt around her husband’s reappearance indicates that we are privy
to a secret affair. Similarly, the recent film Anuronon plays on
whether the extra-conjugal relationship becomes scandalous even
without sex. In the 2007 INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG survey,
when asked whether “emotional infidelity” equalled an “affair”, 51
per cent respondents answered in the affirmative—this response too
indicates ambivalence about whether fidelity is about conjugal trust
rather than property or children. Do the 41 per cent male and 8
per cent female among the 2008 survey respondents who
admit to committing adultery mark it in terms of intercourse,
or follow broader definitions of sex?
Multiple marital and sexual partners have been
regularly available for men (mainly elite men)
over the centuries. We have only to think of
the heroic characters in the epics, or em-
PER CENT RESPONDENTS
IN LUDHIANA
HAVE COMMITTED
ADULTERY. DELHI
COMES SECOND AT
39 PER CENT. 47
INDIA’S
ADULTERY
CAPITAL
Coverstory ADULTERY
Those Close
ENCOUNTERS
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH, Location courtesy HOTEL AMBASSADOR,NEW DELHI
Those Close
ENCOUNTERS
Conjugal exclusivity has long been the Indian’s
sole mode of sexual expression. Clearly though,
it’s not a natural choice with as many as 41 per
cent of men admitting they were unfaithful.
Conjugal exclusivity has long been the Indian’s
sole mode of sexual expression. Clearly though,
it’s not a natural choice with as many as 41 per
cent of men admitting they were unfaithful.
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 45

Cover story ADULTERY
perors such as the Mauryas or the Mughals (Indu
Sundaresan’s recent book on Mehrunnisa designates her
as the Emperor Jehangir’s 20th wife). Marriage was
often seen to cement alliances and bring in new
territories in these groups. Bengali Kulin men in the 19th
century served as professional husbands, sometimes to
hundreds of women at a time, using the currency of their
privileged caste status and the fear of inauspiciousness
of unmarried women. Outside of marriage, concubinage
was widespread. Upper caste men seized sexual access
to women in lower caste groups, often with ritual sanction.
Women had no expectation of sexual exclusivity in
these scenarios.
There are also a few examples of South Asian marriage
systems where multiple sexual partners for
women have been the norm. Nyinba polyandry, where
brothers in a household married a single wife (or two sisters),
is a case in point. Sambandham marriages for Nair
women, in which women may choose a series of ‘visiting
husbands’ who return to their own homes after intimate
encounters, has been another example beloved of anthropologists.
In both these cases, there is no strict anxiety
about exact biological fatherhood, and there are
clear rules by which offspring are assigned parentage
and accepted within the community. Nor does the notion
of adultery clarify the significance of same-sex relation-
PER CENT OF MEN
ADMITTED THEY
HAD STRAYED
WHILE ONLY 8 PER
CENT OF THE
WOMEN SAID THEY
WERE UNFAITHFUL 41
THE PRICE
OF LOYALTY
Has your partner ever asked
you to be party to swapping
wife/husband or girlfriend/
boyfriend?
For 1,037 of the total of 3,923 respondents,
who say they have committed adultery
YES18 NO77
Male 19, Female 16 Male 78, Female 72 Male 3, Female 12
Have
thought
about it4
Rest don’t know/ can’t say. All figures in per cent
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48 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story ADULTERY
ships, sexual or otherwise intimate. Despite the
paucity of data, long-standing literary traditions
of same-sex love in India make it seem likely that
structures of compulsory heterosexuality (and reproduction)
hid other affective or physical relations.
Did such same-sex bonds constitute
adultery since they did not pose a threat to the
“legitimacy” of offspring? Would the same-sex
relationships of married people now meet the
other definition of adultery as a transgression of
conjugal exclusivity?
The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 established
monogamy as a radically different norm of
modernity imagined for the new post-colonial
subject. Historians have suggested that new
ways of thinking may have come earlier, in late
19th and early 20th century discourses which
saw marriage in terms of compatibility and
companionship, connected to a robust nationalism.
The Act may have reflected such norms in
the ways in which it assumes equality in
marital relations, but non-Hindu women were
left behind in that legislative moment. Muslim
polygyny continued to be the law, with scant
protections for first wives to have a say in
subsequent marriages (as Bangladesh
mandates). Until recently, Christian marriage
law required women seeking divorce to prove
adultery as well as an additional ground such as
neglect or cruelty.
The 2008 INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex
survey figures indicate that cultural norms around
monogamy may be more fluid than the legal standard.
Eight per cent women and 43 per cent men
reported approval of adultery, 8 per cent women
and 41 per cent men reported committing adultery
(27 per cent and 19 per cent of whom respectively
reported swapping partners). Three per
cent married men reported “having sex with a
blood relation”, 16 per cent married men reported
having had a homosexual relationship, 18 per cent
married men reported “having sex with a
eunuch,” and 21 per cent married men reported
visiting sex workers (54 per cent of whom reported
paying for it “all the time” or “sometimes”). The
corresponding numbers for married women are 1
per cent, 6 per cent, 6 per cent and 2 per cent (51
per cent) respectively. It is unclear whether incest,
same-sex relationships or paid sex constitute
adultery for these people within the time frame of
the marriage.
These survey figures need not, however, indicate
a rising trend of adultery; they may just as
well signal that conjugal exclusivity has not become,
or has never been, the singular mode of
Have you ever tried swapping
your wife/husband or
girlfriend/boyfriend?
Of the females who have committed adultery, 27 per cent of
those interviewed said they were engaged in swapping partners,
with the highest incidence in Bangalore (58 per cent) and
Patna (57 per cent).
YES20 NO75
Male 19, Female 27 Male 77, Female 61 Male 4, Female 12
Have
thought
about it5
All figures in per cent
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 49
Cover story ADULTERY
sexual expression. I received the survey figures
at about the same time that I read in a
lifestyle article in Anandabazar Patrika of a
trio who had opted to be a married unit: two
sisters chose to marry the same man (one of
them legally) in a convenient sexual, labour
and residential arrangement. A few days later,
the paper reported the abandonment of an
AIDS-afflicted woman by her in-laws, who
chose instead to care for her husband with
AIDS—even though he appeared to have been
the primary carrier, she was depicted as sexually
promiscuous and contaminated. It is
through these daily stories that we notice nonmonogamy
and sexual diversity pervading social
life. And yet, as the AIDS narrative
illustrates, sexual power relations may not be
favourable to women, and they may bear the
economic and social brunt of sexual diversity
whether they have made that choice or not.
My research on family courts and family violence
in Kolkata over the last few years has
only confirmed my conviction of the primacy
of marriage as an economic arrangement in
the post-colonial state. The majority of cases
deal with much lower socio-economic strata
than the survey subjects represent, and the
economic security promised by marriage is
usually a woman’s sole means of sustenance.
Economic anxieties include the affordability
of urban residential space, sharing resources
and power in the extended household,
financial responsibility of wives’ families and
wives’ limited incomes. Marital fidelity is a currency
in these negotiations. Allegations
against wives on grounds of pre-marital involvement
or ongoing relationships is routine
(as Flavia Agnes also points out in the 2007
INDIA TODAY article accompanying the surveys),
alongside allegations that wives are not behaving
appropriately in the joint family, that they
are domestically incompetent, or that they
have unreported sources of income. Wives
often allege that husbands are sexually or
emotionally involved (with family members or
neighbours) as well, but they typically seek the
right to demand conjugal space and affection
as a condition of returning to the marriage.
However, economic survival can be the
bottom line, making marital exclusivity
a moot point. There were numerous cases
of known bigamy in the courts which Hindu
wives were loath to prosecute because they
could not afford for their maintenance money
to be cut off if husbands were jailed. Family
court judges, too, would ignore bigamy questions
and focus on ensuring maintenance to
wives and children as the prime goal. The
economic perils of bigamy were illustrated in
the case of a Muslim woman, a younger wife
who neither wanted to live in the household
with the first wife and her children and
grandchildren, nor liked the solitary rental
room where she saw her husband once a
week, nor could she live with her family who
exploited her labour. Most poignantly, a destitute
and long-divorced woman in court
seeking some of her ex-husband’s pension as
maintenance, had requested for her basic
survival that he let her live in his house again
and help with housework as an extra domestic
worker might, knowing that his current
wife’s swollen feet did not allow her to do
housework and that he and his adult sons
were managing with difficulty. He refused.
Norms of conjugality may have shifted in the
20th century to idealise the married couple,
who are to be each others’ sole sources of sex,
romance and companionship. But neither marriage
nor sexual behaviour has conformed comfortably
to monogamy.
The author is an Associate Professor
of Gender and Women’s Studies at the
University of Kentucky.
Hyderabad: 72
Delhi: 62
Ludhiana: 61
Ahmedabad: 50
Mumbai: 42
WHERE MEN
APPROVE OF
ADULTERY
Chennai: 18
Ludhiana: 17
Bangalore: 12
Patna: 10
Mumbai: 9
Lucknow: 9
5 TOP
cities
WHERE WOMEN
APPROVE OF
ADULTERY
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
All figures in per cent www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
Model’s outfit by MANGO
Samantha Jones, the woman who was always
out there, almost always had the
best lines in the1990s hit series, Sex &
The City, said, “Money is power. Sex is
power. Therefore money for sex is an exchange
of power.” But that was 10 years ago, and it was
New York. In India, the screws are so tightened,
metaphorically speaking, that paying for sex is all
about getting on the wrong side of the powers
that be. But with the unavailability of a free sexual
atmosphere, paid sex remains an easy way to
access forbidden pleasures.
All around us, money and sexual pleasures
exchange themselves, some overtly, some a little
sophisticated in their sales pitch. On the one hand
are gyrating music videos that reach to us in our
drawing rooms, and then there are these crude
versions of pay for porn in every self-respecting
electrified village in India masquerading as an innocuous
video parlour, giving adolescents their
first taste of the nether world. There are phone
calls you can make and unknowingly pay a bomb
for husky voices to ask you what you’re wearing,
and there are cruder variations of Playboy selling
in city sidewalks in plastic covers, ensuring
that you have to pay even if you want to look.
Author Bill Bryson, in his book about his
Cover story PAID SEX
All figures in per cent
Do you approve of paid sex?
YES16 NO84
Male 24, Female 9 Male 76, Female 91
Priced
PLEASURES
In a country where sex is still talked about in hushed
tones, sex at a cost is rampant, with nearly one in every
five men having visited a prostitute at least once
For 551 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have had
sex with a prostitute. The figures have been rounded-off to the
nearest integer. All figures in per cent.
How often have you
paid to have sex?
All the time 15
Sometimes 42
Rarely 40
Never 4
Male Female
15 9
42 47
40 30
3 15
By Swagata Sen
Nine per cent of the females had no problems in
having sex with male prostitutes and this is highest
in four metros (Delhi,Mumbai,Kolkata and Chennai)
PER CENT ENGAGED
URBAN INDIANS
APPROVED OF PAID
SEX COMPARED TO
17 PER CENT OF
MARRIED PEOPLE. 24
DEAR AFFAIR

childhood in ’50s America, The Life and Times
of the Thunderbolt Kid, says that sex was a lot
easier to get without money during his boyhood
years, and one of the reasons was that
Playboy came without the plastic jacket, so
you could just flip through it while your parents
were buying groceries. In India,
the best known local porn website,
desibaba.com, faced an untimely demise a
few years ago, although new versions still operate.
But that could be the problem of the
new millennium. Everything, not just the magazines,
comes in a jacket now. People wear
clothes at Woodstock revival concerts and the
naked dress is a dress that makes sure you’re
not naked. There’s even the Immoral Traffic
(Prevention) Act (ITPA) of 1956 and its proposed
amendment dealing with sex work in
India, which is so heavily cloaked that we
don’t even know what is legal and what isn’t.
But that is precisely why the powers that
be should take into account the INDIA TODAY-AC
Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey. A fourth of the
male respondents in this country approve of
sex with prostitutes, and a fifth admit to having
had sex with them. Clearly, in a country
where sex doesn’t come easy, paying for it
seems to be the way to go about it. This is even
more evident in the so-called traditional
towns where sex is still an unutterable word.
The men of Chennai (30 per cent), Ludhiana
(33 per cent), Ahmedabad (25 per cent) and
Hyderabad (22 per cent) have had much more
sex with prostitutes than those in Delhi,
Kolkata or Mumbai, which have much more
accessibility to the trade. Clearly, money is the
answer to everything. Or so say the respondents,
15 per cent of which claim they have
always paid for the sex they have had.
It is certainly a time when paid sex is
becoming more and more acceptable, be it in
the virtual or real world. Pornography, for
example, seems to have gripped the nation.
About 62 per cent of Indian men like pornography
and what’s surprising is, even those
who don’t like it have still watched it (73 per
cent). And pornography seems to have become
a social activity, and even one of those
things that couples do together considering
that 40 per cent of the users watch it with
partners and 47 per cent with friends.
Anyway, half of the country watches pornography
and a little less than that watched it as
teenagers, so here’s guessing visual sex has
found its place in the sun.
As for actual sex, if paid sex is on its decline
in the metros, is it to be deduced that
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 51
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH, Girl’s outfit byMANGO 
52 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story PAID SEX
metrosexual men have decreased libidos and can
only afford to watch, not do? Not quite. For bigger
pleasures await them. In Mumbai, for example,
there is a plethora of foreign prostitutes, and 27
per cent of the city has encountered them.
Immune from laws, this also becomes a “safer
way” for some to have sex. The foreigners are
aware of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases,
and they take precautions to make it a healthy,
wholesome experience, read, a condom, which remains
an unnecessary safeguard for many people.
India’s prostitution industry anyway is doing
roaring business, with a reported annual turnover
of Rs 2,000 crore. One of the biggest revelations
is, it is men now who have a fair share of the
pie. In the metros, more and more women engage
male prostitutes, or approve of it—17 per cent
in Mumbai, 15 per cent in Delhi and 13 per cent
in Kolkata. Bangalore is where foreign male prostitutes
(62 per cent of women who engaged gigolos
prefer exotic varieties) seem to be having a
great time, and why not, considering 40 per cent
of India’s expat population lives here, and some
of the women on assignments can get very lonely.
But while the country’s men and women
indulge in paid sex, it remains a grey area legally.
ITPA criminalises neither sex work nor sex workers,
but makes solicitation in a “public place”
illegal. India’s sex workers’ unions have long rallied
against the Act, because it leads to harassment
by the police. The proposed amendment to the
Act in 2005, which criminalised the customer, and
could earn him a jail term of three years, and not
the sex worker, was even more violently opposed.
But a simplistic argument could be that if paid sex
is available in so many forms, why not this one? In
any case, laws don’t seem to put a clamp on prostitution,
which finds a new cloak to sell itself. If
physical solicitation puts you behind bars, there’s
always Internet soliciting.
But if paying for sex is not an option, consider
others. Pick up the phone or buy that magazine in
a jacket. Or simply visit the local video parlour. If
you have the money, you have the power.
For 551 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have had sex
with a prostitute. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent
Have you ever had sex with a prostitute
from a different country?
YES15 NO52
But I would like to
32
Male 14, Female 26 Male 52, Female 55 Male 34, Female 19
Fourteen per cent of the men who
have had sex with a prostitute,
say they have slept with a foreign
prostitute at least once.
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
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Cover story INCEST
Silence
of the
LAMBS
Incest and other forms of sexual
abuse of a child are far more
common than we assume.
But it is also a shame that
dares not speak its name.
Have you ever had sex with a blood relation?
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent
By Mike Lew
Throughout history and everywhere in the
world, societies have struggled with the
issue of incest. I know of no society that
does not prohibit sexual activity between
family members, although the definition of “relative”
varies. In all the cultures I am aware of, sexual
activity between parent and child and between
siblings is viewed as incestuous and prohibited.
Most societies extend the prohibition to other categories
of relatives in the extended family or clan.
There is no need to prohibit something that
doesn’t exist. Incest taboos exist everywhere
because every culture recognises the need to protect
children from incestuous abuse. Therapists
and counsellors who specialise in sexual abuse
treatment expand the concept of incest beyond
the traditional definition of sexual activity
between close relatives. Professionals and support
organisations of incest survivors share a
broader working definition: incest is a violation
of a position of trust, power and protection. Sex
between close blood relatives is one part of this
larger, more inclusive view of incest.
Incest differs from other forms of sexual
abuse, as here the perpetrator is assumed to stand
in a protective role to the victim. For this to be a
traumatic experience, it is not necessary that the
“parenting” figure should be a family member.
YES2 NO97
Male 3, Female 1 Male 96, Female 97 Male 1, Female 1
But,
I want to1
Was your sexual encounter with the
blood relation consensual?
YES64 NO,I WAS FORCED36
Male 69, Female 54 Male 31, Female 46
For 116 respondents of the
total of 5,353 who had
experienced incest.
All figures in per cent
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH Silence
of the
LAMBS
Sexual exploitation by any older caretaker is, by this
definition, incestuous because it destroys that natural
trust. This is true whether the perpetrator is a
relative by blood or marriage, parent, step-parent,
older sibling, neighbour, family friend, teacher,
member of the clergy, therapist, physician, baby-sitter,
camp counsellor, or any other caretaker. The effects
are similar: the child’s environment becomes
unsafe, confusing and frightening.
Due in part to the prohibition against incest, it is
less likely to be disclosed than any other form of sexual
contact. A number of factors contribute to maintaining
secrecy and silence, leading a psychiatrist
who works with victims of sexual abuse to say,
“There is no taboo against incest; the taboo is against
talking about it.” Regardless of its origin, its taboo
plays a role in maintaining secrecy, fear and shame
about the activity. Thus, paradoxically, it may serve
to sustain the very behaviours it seeks to prevent.
Factors beyond the prohibition itself contribute
to keeping the child victim or adult incest survivor
silent, including:
w In many societies the family is seen as sacrosanct.
Psychotherapists and counsellors who work
with Indian clients have noted that the centrality of
family in Indian life makes it virtually impossible to
work with an individual without understanding the
larger family context.
w The child victim fights with the conflict of love
and loyalty toward the perpetrator.
w The incest victim, regardless of age or specific
circumstances, often carries a burden of personal
shame about the experience.
w In some societies, particularly for girls, there
is a fear that disclosing sexual activity will cause her
to be treated as “damaged goods”, destroying her
marriageability, or leading to severe punishment.
w Boy victims may fear being shamed as weak or
not masculine enough.
w In the case of same-sex incest, cultural homophobia
(the fear of being seen as homosexual) contributes
to keeping the child or adult survivor silent.
w If any part of the experience felt pleasurable or
arousing, it may not be perceived as harmful.
w There is widespread
ignorance,
denial, minimisation,
and even romanticising
of the
harmful effects of
childhood abuse.
w Perpetrators
employ a variety of
means to ensure
PER CENT RESPONDENTS
IN CHENNAI
ADMITTED TO
INCESTUOUS TIES,
WHILE 3 PER CENT
WANTED TO
HAVE ONE. 6
RELATIVE
DISCOMFORT

56 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story INCEST
For 116 of the total of 5,353 respondents who say they had
experienced incest. Figures add up to more than 100
because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent
Which blood relation have
you had sex with?
Brother 22
Sister 35
Mother 4
Father 4
None of the above 41
Male Female
14 36
52 3
5 3
5 3
34 56
Of the married women respondents who had
experienced an incestuous relationship,
36 per cent had it with their brothers.
PARADISE
LOST:
In John Milton’s
1667 epic poem,
Satan commits
incest with
daughter Sin and
their child,Death,
rapes his mother
ONE HUNDRED
YEARS OF
SOLITUDE:
Gabriel García
Márquez’s
1967 novel shows
several cases of
sexual intimacy
between relatives.
CHINATOWN:
This 1974 Roman
Polanski classic
has Faye Dunaway
giving birth to
her own sister
after an affair
with her father.
THE CEMENT
GARDEN: In Ian
McEwan’s compelling
and dark
1978 novel,Jack
has a relationship
with his elder
sister Julie.
THE GOD OF
SMALL
THINGS:
Arundhati Roy’s
1997 novel shows
fraternal twins
sharing a sexual
experience.
the child’s silence. These include treats, bribery,
coercion, and lies. Given the child’s limited experience
and understanding, these tactics are often
successful for decades of the adult survivor’s life.
Where do we draw the line between sexual
experimentation and abuse? It is a tricky question,
especially with sibling incest. Although some
writers use an age difference of three years or the
legal definition of majority, the answer is not that
simple. Sexual abuse is not simply a matter of age,
size, and strength, but disparity of power.
In the 2008 INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex
survey, the largest number of respondents who
have had sex with blood relatives indicate it was
with a sibling. While sibling incest might be the
most frequent type, it is also possible that it’s considered
less shameful than parent-child sexual activity,
and, therefore, is more likely to be disclosed.
Given the factors that keep people silent, we
may never know the true incidence of incest.
Statistics generally accepted by researchers and
clinicians indicate that one-third to half of girls
and one-eighth to one-sixth of boys are sexually
abused by the age of 18. Most professionals think
these estimates are very conservative, and the
actual numbers are much higher.
Is incestuous activity always harmful? I doubt
that we can answer this question. It is possible
that some children who experience incest move
on easily from the experience, suffering no longlasting
ill effects. It is not unusual for incest survivors
to struggle in isolation for decades before
disclosing to anyone, and seeking help and support.
Before they begin their recovery they are
likely to engage in strategies to avoid, hide, distract
from, or numb their pain. These can include
excessive use of alcohol and other drugs, food,
sex, work, exercise, religion, use of pornography,
compulsive care giving, and many more. When
first discovered by the child victim or adult survivor,
these survival strategies work to reduce the
pain. Over the time, however, its effectiveness diminishes
and the survivor resorts to more of this
“medication”. Ultimately, the survival strategy
becomes an addiction or compulsion.
The incest survivor is not wrong to have
adopted these survival strategies. These are the
best he or she could do at the time. A child victim,
possessing limited size, strength, understanding
and resources, has only one task: to get
through the experience in any possible way until
he or she has developed enough safety and resources
to begin healing.
Recovery from the hurts of incest and other
sexual abuse can be a long and often painful
process, but the results justify the effort. The survivor’s
life improves. Relationships become
healthier, life more integrated, and there are
even times of joy.
There are many resources available to survivors
worldwide: books, support organisations,
online forums, websites, groups, workshops,
counsellors, and therapists. There is no need to
continue suffering in silence and isolation.
The writer is a US-based psychotherapist and author
of the book Victims No Longer: The Classic Guide for
Men Recovering from Sexual Child Abuse.
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 57
Cover story
Watch her gyrate. Her body shapes like plasticine,
bouncy-jiggly steps here, shimmying-
strutting hips there. She pouts, she tugs
at her jeans, she bares her thongs, eyes
wide, crimson lipstick glistening in the arc-lights. No
Bollywood diva, just a 14-year-old trying to sashay
from a reality television talent show to national headlines.
“It’s because of my parents that I am here today,”
she says, tossing her thick curls and snapping on
chewing gum. As the pyrotechnics fade and the dry-ice
fog streaming over the studio audience dies out, the
camera pans in on the parents—suburban and
white-collared—the father beaming proudly and the
mother silently mouthing the daughter’s answers. It
makes for uncomfortable viewing. But it’s like holding
up a mirror to the new realities of life that refuse to be
nipped or tucked.
Sweet 16 and never been kissed? That was yesterday.
The shifting contours of the post-globalisation
family has created the New Teen. Brought up on an
untested diet of western soap operas, cable TV and increasingly
globalised values, those under 18, the age of
consent, are defying every norm that has bound them
Minority
REPORT
Sweet 16 and never been kissed? That
was yesterday.Today’s adolescents
are forging beyond foreplay.
Do you approve of
underage sex?
YES26 NO74
Male 38, Female 14 Male 62, Female 86
UNDERAGE SEX
All figures in per cent.
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have had sex.
Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent.
Whom did you have sex
with for the first time?
Partner 45
Boyfriend/Girlfriend 28
Casual acquaintance 3
One-night stand 3
Relative 4
Neighbour 9
Paid 3
Colleague 2
Male Female
26 70
37 16
5 2
5 1
4 4
13 4
4 1
3 2
By Damayanti Datta
In Hyderabad, 15 per cent men had their first sexual
experience in a one-night stand. For women, the highest
was 2 per cent in Chennai and Lucknow.
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
Cover story UNDERAGE SEX
for thousands of years. Time was,
when Indian parents controlled children
with an iron rod. But in a world
where families spend “quality time” at
the mall and parents bend themselves
backward to provide children with
every advantage—cell phones with
the latest bells, all the way to a thick
pay packet for that elite college
abroad—teenage has taken on a
whole new meaning. They have more
money, more choice, more knowledge
and more know-how than ever before.
And nowhere is this more obvious
than in the way they are expressing
their sexuality. As Dr M.K.C. Nair, who
heads the Indian Academy of
Paediatrics, points out: out of 100
teenage girls in a big-city school, at
least 15 are sexually experienced, 25
sexually active, eight seek out doctors
and two encounter sexual abuse.
When did it all start? The year was
2004, when a sex clip, passed around
by a bragging schoolboy to his friends,
made its way to video disc-sellers in
Delhi. It did not draw much attention
until an IIT student booked it for sale
on an Internet auction. The MMS scandal
and the unapologetic hero and
heroine of the moment sent shock
waves in urban India. But it was
hardly a one-off. The year before,
doctors at Delhi’s Max Hospitals had
reported a peaking of pregnancy
queries and of adolescents seeking
abortion. In 2005, the nation was
shaken up when two small-town girls
in Uttar Pradesh spectacularly eloped
to get married to each other and another
lesbian couple tried to commit
suicide. In 2006, the National AIDS
Control Organisation reported that a
third of AIDS infections across India
were in the 15-29 age group. Yet in
2007, the nation broke out in a sweat
over the introduction of sex education
in schools, as state after state found
the course material “disgraceful and
capable of corrupting the minds of the
young”. That very year, the first Indian
“condom disco” opened inside
Did you ever
tell anybody
about your
first encounter?
YES35 NO65
Male 42, Female 26 Male 58, Female 74
Who made the first move?
ME44 PARTNER56
Male 71, Female 10 Male 29, Female 90
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5.353 who have had sex. All figures in per cent.
Women tend to be less
frank about their first
sexual encounter. While 70
per cent men in Bangalore
had talked about it, the
highest for women was 44
per cent in Ludhiana.
60 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story UNDERAGE SEX
Chandigarh’s Kalagram arts village complex.
This year’s INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex
survey captures this attitudinal sea change as young
men and women across India shed their prudish pasts
and embrace a new era of openness. Out of 5,353
respondents, 37 per cent men and 17 per cent women
claim to have had their first sexual experience before
age 20. Premarital sex finds favour among women in
most metros, with Delhi girls topping the charts at 27
per cent. If the previous generation found first sex
mostly in marriage (60 per cent with wives), for the
youth brigade sexual awakening happens in casual
relationships, namely “friends”. For a culture that
has long kept hidden its sexuality under wraps, sex is
now on display—in movies, soap operas, media and
among young couples canoodling in parks. No wonder,
37 per cent of young men and women like to “talk”
about their encounters. But for all the dare, their
approach to sex is straightlaced: 83 per cent don’t
approve of sex with sex workers, 68 per cent don’t
believe in sexual experimentation, 92 per cent have
never used sex toys, 71 per cent prefer men-on-top, 81
per cent are heterosexual and 86 per cent don’t
approve of homosexuality.
Underneath, however, the love life of teen India is
teeming with ignorance. Studies show that young
Indians do not know enough about sex. Delhi-based
TARSHI, which runs a helpline on sexual information,
received over 59,000 calls last year from young men,
seeking information on women’s anatomy, the “suhag
raat”, what would happen if they failed to perform on
the first night and how to make their wives happy and
sexually fulfilled. Over 33 per cent of the callers were
between ages 15 and 24. In 2005, the Kamasutra sex
survey among people in the age band of 18 to 30 in
Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore reported that the majority
acquired their knowledge primarily through
“self-reading”, “friends” and “blue films” or the brutal
mechanics of Internet porn. The survey, too, shows
up the primacy of porn: while 42 per cent men and
women across age bands got into pornography first
as a teenager, 62 per cent watch it regularly. Be it girls
or boys, their partners in crime and curiosity are invariably
friends (nearly 50 per cent).
“Yes, definitely, young India is talking more openly
about sex,” says Sudhakar Krishnamurti, author of Sex
is Not a Four-Letter Word and director of Andromeda
Andrology Center, Hyderabad. A lot of it is happening
on the Internet. Nearly 60 per cent of Internet users
are below age 25 in India, says the India Online 2007
user behaviour survey by research consultants Juxt-
Consult. Nineteen-year-old Mukesh of Hans Raj
College of Delhi sums up the spirit of the time. “It’s not
like in the old days when it was like, ‘Oh, please tell me
what it’s like to have sex!’,” he says . “If I wanted to
know, I could go online and talk to somebody random.”
Just a rite of passage? Or a silent revolution
in the making?
How active were you sexually
after the first time?
Male Female
14 9
46 36
37 53
3 2
For 3,923 respondents of the total of 5.353 who have had sex. Rest
don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent. The figures have been
rounded off to the nearest integer.
Once 12
Sometimes 42
Often 44
Till I turned 18 3
PER CENT MEN
AND 17 PER CENT
WOMEN HAD THEIR
FIRST SEXUAL
EXPERIENCE BEFORE
THEY TURNED 20 37
VIRGIN
TERRITORY
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
62 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008 Cover story PORNOGRAPHY

Take Savita Bhabhi, the big-breasted typical
online Indian woman who fantasises about a
visiting cousin who took her virginity, a new
servant who she heard serviced a friend, a bra
salesman who is very naughty, even two 18-year-old
neighbourhood boys. Now transpose her into the real
world. Like the data on pornography in the INDIA TODAYAC
Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey, there are two sides to
Savita Bhabhi. Is she a fantasy conjured up by very
raunchy young men sitting somewhere in the Silicon
Valley benched by the global recession? Or is she a
composite of several real life bhabhijis, measuring life
not in coffee spoons but in clicks of the remote, as she
toys with her brand new household gadgets? Yes,
ladies and gentleman, consider this. If television
brought possibility into Savita Bhabhi’s humdrum life,
then the DVD player and PC have ushered in its practice.
Move over desperate housewives. It’s dirty housewives
instead. Say goodbye to the domestic goddess.
Say hello to the domestic sex goddess, whose action
station is moving from the kitchen to the bedroom. If
the urban Indian man has a healthy appetite for virtual
smut, apparently the Indian woman is right behind
him, often at the appropriate respectful
three-step distance. That 62 per cent of the men approve
of pornography is not new. What is interesting
is that one in five women approves of it, and more,
nearly one in four watch it. What is also interesting is
DECEMBER 1, 2008 u INDIA TODAY 63
Boogie
NIGHTS
Indian women discover triple X
technology usually in their 20s but
make up for lost time with one in
10 wanting to star in her very
own dirtymovie.Say hello to the
domestic sex goddess.
All figures in per cent
Do you approve of pornography?
YES42 NO58
Male 62, Female 21 Male 38, Female 79
All figures in per cent
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have watched
pornography. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent
Have you ever watched
pornography before?
YES50 NO50
Male 73, Female 27 Male 27, Female 73
How often do you watch
pornography?
Every day 3
Often 23
Sometimes 36
Only before sex 5
Rarely 23
Only once 10
Male Female
3 1
27 11
39 28
5 5
21 26
4 28
While three in five men approve of pornography, the
proportion of those actually watching it is higher, with
nearly three in four saying they have watched it.Pornithology
is particularly widespread in Chennai and Delhi.
By Kaveree Bamzai
BANDEEP SINGH
Cover story PORNOGRAPHY
Shakeela
This 35-year-old southern siren has
courted controversy for her boldness.
She recently shared screen
space with Mohanlal in Chotta Mumbai.
Shabina a.k.a.Destiny Deville
Changed name before entering the UK film industry. This 23-yearold
is famous for her porn movie Kick Ass Chicks 43: Indian Girls.
Sahara Knite
This 33-year-old hit fame after her
lesbian film with fellow Indian Anjali Kara.
Priya Trivedi
Sunny
Leone
A27-year-old Indian-Canadian pornographic
actor and Penthouse Pet of the Year 2003.
She is one of the few actors of Indian origin in
the porn industry to have made a mark.
Her claim to fame: the nude shoot she did in Playboy,
making her one of the first Indians to do so.
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have watched
pornography. The figures have been rounded to the nearest integer.
All figures in per cent
When did you first watch a
pornographic film?
As a teenager 42
In the 20s 53
In the 30s 5
Male Female
47 28
51 61
3 10
PORN
Stars
5
Desi
that among those who have watched porn, nearly one
in four women (23 per cent) was single and one in three
(29 per cent) was married. If any proof was needed that
pornography is becoming a home-grown industry, it is
here—one in five women discovered pornography at
home. And nearly half also devotedly used it at home,
in the bedroom to be precise, with 45 per cent of all
women inspired by pornography to try new positions.
It’s a sanction they have from their significant others,
with 55 per cent saying their sex partners approve of
pornography. It is not just feeding their fantasy, it is also
redefining their intimacy.
Video rentals are the most common form of
pornography while one in 10 porn-viewing
women say they are willing to star in their own skin
film given a chance. Bangalore has the highest
percentage of such women, with 19 per cent of the
porn-watching women saying so. What does it mean
in a world where pornography is seen mostly as
masculine territory, a licence to thrill? One aspect
could be of coercion, as it was with Jammu’s Anara
Gupta in 2004. One in every 10 women in Ludhiana
says she was made to watch porn under duress.
Another element could be of liberation, of empower-
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have watched pornography. ment, enhanced by the women’s confessional mode.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices. All figures in per cent
What type of pornographic film do
you like watching?
Celebrity porn 40
Schoolgirls/children 18
Asians 29
Bondage 8
Bisexual 17
Homosexual 16
MMS 10
Sado-Masochistic 15
Hentai 6
Indian porn 40
Orgies 5
Rape 13
Watch everything 24
Male Female
43 32
22 7
31 21
10 3
17 15
17 14
10 9
17 11
7 5
44 31
6 2
13 14
27 15
AP PHOTO/RAJESH KUMAR SINGH
64 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
66 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story PORNOGRAPHY
About a quarter of all porn-watching
women in Jaipur and 16 per cent in Patna
said they watched porn without letting their
partners know. Women are learning fast,
though they are new to this game. While
men are introduced to porn in their teens, a
majority of women come to it in their 20s.
So while the men are split between watching
porn and reading it in print, the women
stick to watching.
Writer and publisher Urvashi Butalia sees
this is a combination of curiosity and experimentation
which is not restricted to the
privileged classes. “Technology has allowed
women to indulge in their fantasies in private.
There is no danger of being exposed in public.”
Indeed, there are no social avenues for
women to watch porn without being shamed.
It could also be a counter to what writer
Rukmini Bhaya Nair calls the greatest postmodern
emotion, boredom. “Ugly feelings like
anxiety and tedium are usually countered by
entering the domain of ugliness, of the forbidden.”
With three in five men approving
of pornography and nearly three in four
saying they have indulged in it, pornography
n  It’s like buying a
ticket to see a
football or cricket
match.What’s your
contribution? Zilch.
Just sit back,watch,
and fantasise.
n  Breaking the rules
is always thrilling.
In India,watching
porn isn’t socially
accepted. Let’s face
it, no family will
discuss it over dinner.
Doing what you’re
told not to makes it
all the more exciting.
n  Celebrity porn is
the highest form of
entertainment.You
get to see someone
you have obsessed
about getting their
kit off.Seemingly
just for you.
n  We are born
voyeurs. When I was
growing up in Delhi,
a couple of friends
lived in a DDAsociety
and if there was a
fight, all activity would
cease until every
word was ingested
and then discussed
over dinner. This is
what shows like Big
Boss are based on.
They follow the
peep-hole theory.
People spend 18 to 20
hours in a day looking
at people through it.
n  Pornography is
intrinsic to the psyche
of man. It’s inherent to
his naughty nature.
by Cyrus Sahukar
The writer is a
VJ with MTV.
Does your partner approve of your watching porn?
YES49 NO33
Forced
her/him6
Male 47, Female 55 Male 33, Female 32 Male 7, Female 4 Male 13, Female 9
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have watched pornography.
All figures in per cent
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have watched
pornography. All figures in per cent
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who say they have watched
pornography. All figures in per cent
Whom do you watch porn with?
With partner 40
With friends 47
Alone 13 10 19
Male Female
37 49
53 32
Where did you first watch a
pornographic film?
In school 7
With colleagues 6
With friends 65
I downloaded it 3
I bought it 5
My relatives showed it to me 7
I discovered it at home 7
Male Female
8 4
6 7
74 41
2 4
4 7
5 15
1 22
Five reasons
why men
WATCH
PORN
There is a near equal split between print and video formats with one in every two porn-viewing man
reporting either.Video porn finds the most patrons in Hyderabad (68 per cent). Its patrons in
Ludhiana (65 per cent) and Jaipur (62 per cent), on the other hand, are partial to the print medium.
Doesn’t
know 12
SAVITABHABHI
IN ACTION
clearly is no longer a no-no.
But what is porn in a universe where Gstrings
are worn in music videos and A-list stars
almost bare their butts in blockbuster movies?
Indeed what does classify as porn? Is it just filling
the blanks onscreen in a visual culture that is
still heavily censored? It could be the Tina Fey
character, who in the wildly funny television series
30 Rock, quickly decides to get rid of her Colin
Firth DVD collection in case the visiting adoption
agency representative thinks of it as erotica (and
therefore of her as an unsuitable mother). It
could be a demure housewife devouring a modern
Mills and Boon, all steamy scenes and hot sex
on the first date. It could be the busy husband
tuning in to late night Sun TV song clips to be
turned on. In a new slacker comedy to hit the US,
Zack and Miri Make a Porno, a platonic couple
discovers love after they make an X-rated
Internet video to fight a mountain of debt.
Predictably they find success after their film, the
grossly named Swallowing Cockaccino, becomes
a hit, and their company produces home movies
to help jaded couples revive their sex lives. Given
the smut glut during lean times, a business
opportunity beckons in India.
Each age has its own definition of pornography.
In a country where carnal comedies masquerading
as family films are watched by
68 INDIA TODAY u DECEMBER 1, 2008
Cover story PORNOGRAPHY
For 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who have watched porn.
All figures in per cent
Have you tried any
position that you saw in
a pornographic film?
YES62 NO38
Male 68, Female 45 Male 32, Female 55
Of the male respondents who have watched
pornography,Bangalore men fantasise the most
about participating in a porn video or making
their own, taking the lead at 33 per cent.
42
HOT CITY
PER CENT WOMEN HAVE
WATCHED PORNOGRAPHY
IN CHENNAI COMPARED
TO ONLY 5 PER CENT IN
HYDERABAD, THE LOWEST
FOR ANY CENTRE.
BANDEEP SINGH, Outfit byKUNCHALS

wide-eyed children and yet kissing onscreen can still
make news, it’s a definition that is a work in progress.
Consider this as well. If there is porn being consumed
in air-conditioned homes as a libido-enhancer, it is
also being produced in dank rooms under coercion as
a terrorism-financer, if reports about north-eastern
rebels forcing women to participate in them are true.
Both Indian men and women prefer the desi girl and
desi boy in pornography, as they do celebrities. But
the danger is the more they objectify each other, the
less connected they are emotionally. Pushing the limits
of their sexual play is all very well as long as it remains
a sport. Or as Nair says, an eclectic form of bird
watching, pornithology.
Have you ever made a home
pornographic video?
YES7 NO93
Male 8, Female 4 Male 92, Female 96
Do you fantasise about
making or participating in
a pornographic video?
YES14 NO86
Male 17, Female 6 Male 83, Female 94
For the 2,661 respondents of the total of 5,353 who have watched
pornography. Rest don’t know/can’t say. All figures in per cent
If given a chance,would you
like being in a porn video?
YES11 NO79
Male 14, Female 3 Male 75, Female 90 Male 10, Female 7
Maybe9
While 20 per cent of porn-viewing men in Hyderabad
admit to making a home porn video, it is the women
in Bangalore who show the way at 25 per cent.
For past surveys, interactive graphics visit:
www.indiatoday.in/sexsurvey08
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They were young, educated,
and both virgins on this,
their wedding night, and
they lived in a time when
conversation about sexual
difficulties was plainly difficult.
But it is never easy.
Ian McEwan was writing
about a couple in 1962
England in On Chesil
Beach (he, er, arrives too
soon in bed and she runs
away in disgust), but he may
well be speaking of thousands
of contemporary marriages
in India. The INDIA
TODAY AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG
Survey of Urban Marriage,
the fifth in our series of sex
studies, spotlights what goes
on behind fluttering lace
curtains, away from the
glossy fantasies of warm
satin sheets, cool raindrenched
greens and steamfilled
showers.
Call it a byproduct of the
growth in GDP or the result of
social transformation, but
the things that make life
more fulfilling have also
made it more open to cracks.
If love is the triumph of
imagination over intelligence,
then the urban Indian
marriage is the victory of opportunity
over occasion.
Greater infidelity on the part
of men, increasing resistance
of the woman to coercive
sex, even the lessening
appeal of the woman postmarriage
are all indicative of
a relationship under
tremendous strain. The men
and women are at odds with
each other, not just in the act
but also in attitude, creating
an unequal partnership
where there should be comfort-
giving compatibility.
While 52 per cent of the men
say they have sex thrice a
week, only 27 per cent of the
women agree, a yawning
gap not explained entirely by
the man’s braggadocio.
What’s more, 39 per cent of
the women are bored with
sex in marriage, up from 8
per cent in the 2003 survey.
If the survey were to be
distilled into a book, its title
would be from the man’s
point of view: ‘I’m OK, and
You, Hey, Are You There?’
The bedroom seems to be
the man’s preserve, his kingdom,
his haven, while the
woman seems to be at her
sati-savitri suffering best.
Almost 40 per cent of the
married women said their
partner’s pleasure was more
important than their own,
which was almost a 30 per
cent jump over the 2003 survey
of what women want.
Such timidity in the bedroom
seems to have emboldened
the man—over three-fourth
of the men believe it is their
marital right to have sex,
again consistent with the
response in 2004. As for
women professionals in nuclear
families, they have it
bad both ways, points out sociologist
Shiv Visvanathan,
lacking both the protection
of the joint family and being
subjected to husbands who
seem to be distracted by the
seductions of the city.
Family above individual
and duty before pleasure, it
is as if the sexual explicitness
of an increasingly promiscuous
society is passing the
married women by—yes,
they are conscious of the absence
of it but unable to pursue
gratification outside
marriage (after all, 31 per
cent of men admitted to
infidelity while just 6 per
cent women accepted it).
None of the traditional
stereotypes seem to have
changed, especially when it
comes to men. More than
half the men interviewed believe
housewives have better
married lives compared to
working women, while 48
per cent of working women
think that housewives won’t
necessarily have better mar-
52 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
WAKING UP IS HARD TO DO BUT IF THE URBAN INDIAN MAN DOESN’T WANT TO
LOSE HIS WIFE, IT’S TIME HE DID. MARRIAGE SEEMS TO HAVE GIVEN HIM A
LICENCE TO THRILL, EVEN AS IT SEEMS TO HAVE CAGED THE WOMAN’S SPIRIT.
UNEQUAL
PARTNERS
n By Kaveree Bamzai
[55% MEN PREFER THE MAN ON TOP POSITION
WHILE 19% LIKE THE WOMAN BEING ON TOP
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
e s s a y
ried lives. Add to it the act of
sex itself being hasty (70 per
cent spend less than 10 minutes
on foreplay compared
to a majority of American
couples spending over 25
minutes making love) and
where exactly does that
leave the principle of pleasure
in marriage? More precisely
where does that leave
marriage, still overwhelmingly
arranged for Indians
who clearly seem to regard
the institution as a family
rather than an individual
unit? Especially when the
survey shows that the family
that stays together
doesn’t stray—couples who
live in joint families tend to
have more sex than those in
nuclear families.
Clearly, the woman’s
sentiments have outstripped
her circumstances.
If in the 2003 survey 57 per
cent of the women said an
orgasm was important for
their sexual fulfilment, now
a mere 28 per cent say they
always have an orgasm. Yet,
they are more open to
foreplay and are also willing
to talk about it this year.
From 27 per cent women in
2003 pleading ignorance
about foreplay, only 11 per
cent didn’t know about it
today. If the men could tune
in to the women’s frequency,
it would make their
marriage the funfair they
seem to want.
One of the essayists has
written potently about a
new definition of marriage
and pointed to the lack of
friendship—not love—that
makes for unhappy marriages.
It doesn’t mean the
death of desire. The alternative
to coercion is caring, as
sociologist Ravi Nandan
Singh puts it, but it is not one
the woman can apply alone.
It just requires the man to
wake up and smell the
morning coffee or tea—
preferably from a pot he has
made himself. A marriage is
made up of a thousand such
gestures, and not all of them
need to be made in bed.
with Bushra Ahmed
50% OF COUPLES BELIEVE SEX IS A SOURCE OF PLEASURE
Atotal of 2,563 couples between 21 and 50 years of age,
across 11 cities ranging from Mumbai and Delhi to
Lucknow and Ludhiana were interviewed as part of the
INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG Sex Survey 2007. The respondents
belonged to three age groups: 21-30 years; 31-40
years and 41-50 years, from the middle and upper middleclass
(Sec A and Sec B) socio-economic strata. They were divided
almost equally between two age groups—1,384 in the
21-35 years category and 1,179 in the 36-50 years category.
There was a set of questions that was prepared exclusively for
the 1,274 male respondents, while some questions were only
for the 1,289 women. The couples were asked basic demographic
questions and were assured of confidentiality. Even
though a system of secret ballot was used, the couples refused
to answer a lot of questions. The survey covered a vast range
of topics and gives an insight into the different facets of sexuality
of married men and women—from satisfaction in their
sex lives to the issues of family planning, and how social setups
like joint family and work affect their married lives.
[26% OF THOSE WHO HAD LOVE MARRIAGES
ADMITTED HAVING EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS
Street-corner sampling was used to target 2,499 male respondents
across 11 cities rather than direct interviews. The age group
covered was between 18 and 55 years and the men belonged to
the middle and upper middle-class (Sec A and Sec B). The survey
turned up contrasts as far as the sexual fetishes, fantasies and expectations
of men were concerned. With Lolita-esque fantasies,
45 per cent of men preferred much younger partners. Where 54
per cent went for the traditional sari-clad woman, giving vent to
their nice-woman fantasies, 21 per cent had a fetish for women
with long nails, long hair and loud make-up. An equal number
even liked women in leopard-print lingerie. The survey revealed
that Indian men still fantasised about actors—Aishwarya Rai
topped the list with 6 per cent of men fantasising about her—while
16 per cent fantasised about having sex with acquaintances.
In 2003, 2,305 women were interviewed across 10 cities belonging
to three age groups: 19-24 years, 25-34 years and 35-
50 years, and included those who were unmarried, married,
divorced/separated or widowed. The survey showed up women
who were perhaps giving their sexual side free play but who still
wanted to be good wives or girlfriends. Fifteen per cent said they
would have sex even if they were not in love with their partner
and 58 per cent even disclosed the number of sexual partners
they had had. Twenty-two per cent said they had extra marital
affairs mostly with their spouse’s friends. However, 85 per cent
still had their first tryst with sexuality only after marriage.
S n a p s h o t 2 0 0 4
S n a p s h o t 2 0 0 3
Methodology: Sex and Marriage 2007
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
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A History How long have you
been married?
INDIA TODAY AC NIELSEN-ORG-MARG
SEX SURVEY
How old were you when you
got married?
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
MALE FEMALE
0-5 years 30
6-10 years 25
11-15 years 20
16-20 years 15
More than 20 years 10
41 18
26 25
17 23
11 19
5 15
MALE FEMALE
18 years or less 9
19-21 years 23
22-25 years 36
26-30 years 28
31 years and above 2
2 16
12 34
37 35
41 13
7 1
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
o v e r v i e w
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
Whether one likes it or
not, sex surveys of
the Indian middle
class are coming in
thick and fast. Initially, no
doubt, these surveys had a
certain shock value, like the
post-War Kinsey reports
which revealed that the
Americans were not totally
enamoured of the missionary
position and that homosexuality
was a remarkably
common experience; or the
post-feminist Hite Report
that gave new credibility to
the female orgasm. Now that
they are routine media fare,
Indian sex surveys must find
different ways to appeal to
the narcissistic self-fascination
of India’s expanding
middle class.
For the Indian consumers
of such surveys, evidence
of the liberalisation of
sexual mores gives rise to
collective frisson, if not also
to crippling dread of sexual
inadequacy and moral panic.
On the other hand, if surveys
suggest that nothing much is
changing—and the continued
prevalence of “arranged
marriage” is a case in point—
this is equally a cause for
public excitement because it
contradicts the expectation
that Indian society, like the
economy, is liberalising at a
very fast rate. In fact, of
course, you cannot expect to
see an 8 to 10 per cent annual
increase in sexual voracity
any more than you can
expect to discern definitive
trends in sexual behaviour
between INDIA TODAY’S pioneering
surveys of the sexual
habits of Indian women and
men in 2003 and 2004, and
the present survey of 2007.
Sometimes taking a longterm
perspective can put
things in a better, or rather
less breathless, proportion.
For instance, about 70 years
ago, an eminent Bombay
of Intimacy
THE URBAN INDIAN’S APPETITE FOR EVERYTHING, EXCEPT SEX WITHIN
MARRIAGE, HAS INCREASED. IN THE FOUR YEARS SINCE THE LAST
SURVEY, IT SEEMS THAT MARRIAGE IS THE ONLY THING COUPLES HAVE
IN COMMON. ON FREQUENCY, IMPORTANCE AND REASONS FOR HAVING
SEX, MEN AND WOMEN HAVE WILDLY DIVERGENT VIEWS.
Did you have sexual partners before
marriage? If yes, whom did you
have sex with?
Did you ask your spouse if he\she was a virgin?
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more than 100
because of multiple choices.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
19% COUPLES PREFER SEX IN THE BATHROOM WHILE 8% PREFER THE KITCHEN
n By Patricia Uberoi
MALE FEMALE
Never had sex before marriage 69
Girlfriend/boyfriend 16
Casual acquaintances 7
Had paid sex 5
One night stand 4
Relatives 4
55 83
25 6
10 3
9 1
7 2
6 1
64
NO
Yes 31
No 62
Yes 30
No 66
SACRED MATTERS
Only 10 per cent of the respondents had sex with their fiancee before
marriage while 5 per cent reported having had oral sex. More couples
in smaller cities like Bangalore, Lucknow, Jaipur and Ahmedabad
admitted to having pre-marital sex with their fiancee compared to
the bigger cities. Delhi and Hyderabad surprise us with their primness
with 57 and 56 per cent saying they shared no intimacies before
marriage, not even kissing or holding hands.
30
YES

sociologist, G.S. Ghurye,
conducted what he claimed
to be the first-ever survey of
the ‘Sex Habits of a Sample
of Middle Class People of
Bombay’, a report which he
presented at the second All-
India Population and first
Family Hygiene Conference
of 1938. The larger ambience,
as the occasion suggests,
was the scientific
interest and public curiosity
generated by Havelock
Ellis’s Psychology of Sex and
the works of American
human biologist/ eugenicist
Raymond Pearl. On the
other hand were the strident
writings of birth control advocates
like Marie Stopes
and Margaret Sanger, and
the public controversies provoked
by Katherine Mayo’s
notorious Mother India. This
double invocation of ‘science’
and ‘family hygiene’
provided cover for probing a
tabooed subject. Today, population
control—coded as
questions on ‘contraception’—
continues to give legitimacy
to the investigation
of Indian sexuality, while
‘family hygiene’ is re-coded
as ‘sexual health’ in the context
of HIV/AIDS. The difference
between then and now
is the great expansion of
space for sexual pleasure to
which many of the contemporary
questionnaires point:
questions on foreplay, on
coital positions, on fantasies
and desire, on sex-toys and
pornography, and on strategies
for revitalising flagging
conjugal energies.
Though Ghurye’s report
referred to the sex habits of
“middle class people”, in fact
he interviewed only men.
Today, of course, women too
are surveyed, and one of the
interesting aspects of the
2007 INDIA TODAY survey is the
discrepancy in the responses
58 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
38% PATNA RESPONDENTS SPEND MAXIMUM TIME ON FOREPLAY
Do you have foreplay before sex?
MALE FEMALE
Do not generally have foreplay 13
For 5 minutes 27
For 10 minutes 30
How long does it take to get
your partner into the mood? 25
12 14
28 27
31 30
25 24
What do you prefer in foreplay?
MALE FEMALE
Kissing 68
Massage 40
Looking at the body 30
Undressing partner 29
Watching a blue film 7
69 67
42 37
40 20
37 21
7 7 All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more
than 100 because of multiple choices.
LIGHTING THE FIRE
Men’s preferences in foreplay have not
changed compared to the 2004 male
survey. But there is a stark difference in
women. They want more foreplay. Their
desire for kissing has jumped from 55
per cent in 2003 to 67 per cent.
GETTING STARTED
The percentage of males preferring to
look at the body in foreplay is twice that
of females. One does wonder about the
11 per cent women who don’t know
about their preferences. Ludhiana at 16
per cent scores highest when it comes to
seeing blue films as part of foreplay.
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
of husbands and wives. This
is not merely in respect to
the double standard that enables
men to be more sexually
adventurous both before
and after marriage, or in the
male exaggeration and female
underestimation of
coital frequency (52 per cent
husbands to 27 per cent
wives claim to have sex
more than thrice a week),
but also in their perceptions
of the importance of sex in
their lives, the reasons for
having sex (one’s own vs the
partner’s pleasure), and the
impact of joint family living
on conjugal relations—a bit
of a dampener, according to
many men (but interestingly
not women) in the sample.
Compared to today’s
lengthy multi-question,
multi-option surveys,
Ghurye’s survey was remarkably
concise: just 13
questions, of which the first
five sought material details
about the age, education
and occupation of husband
and wife, and the length of
their marriage. As against
today’s market-survey questionnaires,
where the respondent
is obliged to tick off
one or the other of the predetermined
responses or fall
into the statistically anomalous
don’t know/ won’t say
category, Ghurye’s subjects
actually gave voice to some
very personal predilections
and dilemmas. As Ghurye
faithfully recorded, for many
men, the frequency of coitus
was something that was
sternly governed by self-imposed
rules of conduct
(coitus every day; every
other day; for a few days in
succession followed by a gap
of some days; every alternate
day beginning a week
after the end of his wife’s period;
or only on auspicious
days of the month, generally
numbering about five). In
other words, coitus—
60 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
How long does sex generally last?
MALE FEMALE
10-15 minutes 38
Five minutes 19
About half an hour 19
Till my partner is satisfied 18
40 36
19 19
23 16
13 24
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Where do you prefer having sex?
MALE FEMALE
Only on the bed 80
Bathroom 19
On the carpet 11
On the couch 10
Kitchen 8
Car 4
77 84
23 14
12 10
13 08
10 06
5 4
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more than 100
because of multiple choices.
Do you watch porn with your spouse?
39
55
NO
YES
Yes 38
No 56
Yes 41
No 54
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
REVVING UP INTIMACY
Amazingly, Lucknow tops the list
with 26 per cent couples having
sex till their partner is
satisfied. As far as experimenting
is concerned and places where
sexual play is extended to,
Bangalore tops the list, with a
high 24 per cent making love in
the kitchen. No other city came
close. The acceptance of pornography
as a form of sexual play
has also increased amongst
women. In 2003, only 28 per cent
women were ready to see porn
with their partner even as 16 per
cent refused it outright. The
figure has risen in 2007 with 41
per cent admitting to watching
porn with their husbands.
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
whether frequent or
sparse—was seen as having
something to do with the exercise
of autonomy and selfcontrol,
maybe even with a
sense of duty, more than
with spontaneity, instinct or
passion. Apparently, some
men were, though others
were not, prepared to adjust
their coital timetables in
case their wives were unenthusiastic.
One young man,
Ghurye recorded, “who is an
MA and married for over
four years, has coitus every
night but is thinking of lessening
the frequency to once
aweek. He laments that both
he and his wife are unable to
take to this new rule as they
cannot control themselves,
he more than his wife. He
further regrets that owing to
the habit of masturbation he
has very little control over
his passion. He used to get
excited sometimes at the
sight of a lady so much as to
have discharge. This lack of
control, he further regrets,
has told both on his career
and health.” Not unexpectedly,
today’s surveys give no
hint of the Hindu moral
value of abstinence, encoded
in the teacher’s wavering resolve,
but assume the
“pleasure principle” ipso
facto. For that matter, they
also ignore auto-stimulation
as an aspect of male or female
sexual behaviour, an
omission which, considering
its prominence in popular
sex manuals and self-help
literature, is actually quite
remarkable.
A big difference between
then and now, from which
much else flows, is the age of
middle class women at marriage.
In Ghurye’s survey,
over 17 per cent of the
women were married at age
13 or below, with the average
age being just 16.2
years; their husbands were
more than eight years older,
averaging 24.5 years. A
Fit to be Tied
MODERN MARRIAGES ARE NOT WHAT THEY USED TO BE. THE ENCHANTED CLICHES
REQUIRE A LOT OF ADJUSTMENT TO THE DIAPERS-AND-DISHES ROUTINE.
1. PRAGMATIC TO THE CORE
They aren’t scoffing at the idea of happilyever-
after, but add a few more reasons
apart from love to their vow list. They
choose to be together due to certain reasons—
society, family, children or money. It
is predominantly women who adjust to
such a relationship. They set their priorities
in the marriage practically, while performing
their roles with utmost dedication.
2. A CONVENIENT ARRANGEMENT
Love unites them, but as the years roll by,
increasing responsibilities drive them
apart. Many couples feel trapped as they
don’t share the same equation with their
spouses. Not meeting each other daily
doesn’t really obstruct their lives, although
an unspoken wish to share more than
household expenses remains. They are career
oriented, independent decision makers
and financially at par.
3. DOCILE DEPENDENCE
Either both or one partner is blindly dependent
on the other. Such couples might
seem to be made for each other, but with
time they start taking each other for
granted and expectations soar to
unimaginable heights. The next level
is evidently, possessiveness. Being
completely dependent, they don’t
see beyond their partner and
therefore regress socially.
4. GETTING EVEN
When “my way is the only way” becomes
a constant state of existence,
anger and resentment plague the
relationship. With this outlook, communication
becomes volatile often
leading to verbal and physical
abuse. Couples look for opportunities
to get even with each other. Sex
becomes a tool for settling scores.
Getting along with people becomes
difficult. Varkha Chulani, clinical psychologist
at Lilavati Hospital,
Mumbai, advises, “Couples should
learn to accept the idiosyncrasies of
each other and also develop more of a you
approach to life.”
5. STATUS SYMBOL
Marriage is equivalent to social status,
which leads to a crippled relationship.
Sometimes amidst the union of two big
families, which is often not less than a business
merger, the purpose of marriage is
forgotten and materialism takes front seat.
Such marriages need more work as they
can be emotionally defeating.
6. ABSENT AND INVISIBLE
Work or social activity becomes primary to
a partner, leaving the other with a feeling
of being married to an invisible person.
These are marriages where extra marital
relationships increase and children feel unwanted.
Family life is affected and the invisible
spouse doesn’t even realise it. “The
need of the hour is reduce outside time and
increase together time. It might seem like
a great sacrifice, but it’ll help figure out
what things to streamline to strengthen the
bond,” says Anjali Chhabria, psychiatrist
and psychotherapist, Mind Temple,
Mumbai. by Purvi Malhotra
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
M a r i t a l T h e r a p y
major objective of Ghurye’s
survey, for reasons that are
not entirely transparent but
which might have to do with
demonstrating a potential
correlation with immature
marriage and higher infant
mortality, was to determine
the average gap between
marriage and the beginning
of conjugal sex-life. While almost
60 per cent of the couples
initiated sexual
relations in the first three
months of marriage, the others
(and, significantly, not
just the immature couples
among them) took their
time—up to 14 years in one
notable instance. In the
present-day sample, by contrast,
women were on an average
22 at marriage, their
husbands being around
three-and-a-half years
older. In their case it is assumed
that sexual relations
had followed—in the natural
64 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
Never 22
Once a month 20
Less than once a month 16
Once a week 15
Twice a week 12
Once in a fortnight 10
Only when my husband
is not around 4
Never 18
Once in a month 18
Less than once a month 17
Once a week 15
Once a fortnight 14
Twice a week 12
Do you generally
have morning tea in
night clothes?
46
52
NO
YES
BUDDY TIME
Poker nights are out, The very Western concept of all male get-togethers
is not common here. Only 5 per cent of men admitted to doing
so, that too especially when their wives are away. Even for
women it is the same story, with bigger cities like Mumbai (16 per
cent) expectedly having more women who have such get-togethers.
How often do you have a get-together
of female friends at home?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
How often do you have a
get-together of male
friends at home?
MALE FEMALE
Who is likely to have a better married life?
HOME RUN
Fifty two per cent men think that
housewives have better married lives,
but 48 per cent of working women
do not think that it is true.
Housewives 47
Working women 21
No difference 28
52 42
19 22
23 32
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t
know/Won’t say.
SE
SURVEY
33% OF WOMEN IN AHMEDABAD DON’T MEET THEIR GIRLFRIENDS
COVER STORY
course or by the husband’s
exercise of his “right”—very
soon after marriage. In all
except a handful of Ghurye’s
304 cases, the wives were
housewives which meant
that the present concern
with the declining libido of
the working wife or her presumed
propensity for a fling
or two outside marriage,
was hardly an issue.
As with contemporary
surveys, Ghurye laid
much stress on
“methodology”. After all, it
was important for him to
demonstrate that his inquiry
was motivated by scientific,
not merely prurient, interest.
Then, and now, the respondents
were assured of
confidentiality. One of them
in fact regretted that a
schedule on such “a very
vital issue” was so short.
Assisted by second, thirdyear
students and friends,
nearly 2,000 questionnaires
were distributed to middle
class men in Bombay city, resulting—
after “repeated
calls”—in 311 responses
from Hindu males. Seven of
these, Ghurye regretted, had
to be rejected because the
answers were defective or
self-contradictory, “or because
the desire of the person
replying to crack jokes
was apparent”.
On the whole, most sex
surveys nowadays seek to
monitor behavioural trends
from one survey to the next,
or else to map a sexual geography—
across the world
or, as in the INDIA TODAY survey,
across the metros of a
large and diverse country.
So it is newsworthy that
Indian women have begun
relishing foreplay as never
before; that the French do
not live up to their reputation
as great lovers; or that
virginity at marriage is
more important in Delhi,
Ludhiana and Ahmedabad
SMRITI SHARMA, 23, Project manager
ABHINAV BHASKAR, 26, Businessman
Smriti Sharma has memories of her
father going the extra mile to take out
time for the family despite a demanding
career. She expects the same commitment
for the family that she will
start with Bhaskar, when the Delhi
couple marries next year. “I enjoy my
work but I don’t think it is fair to have
children and leave them to the nanny
to bring up,” says Sharma. It’s a sentiment
Bhaskar shares. “It may sound
stereotypical, but I’d like Smriti to be
at home to look after the children as
initially a mother’s role is crucial,”
he says. But he does not expect her
to give up her career completely. She
plans to continue working on freelance
projects after her babies.
PRIYA SHARMA, 25, Graduate
NAVNEET GUPTA, 27, Software engineer
They met at a wedding, fell in love
and decided to tie the knot. A marriage
to Gupta is, “a socially acceptable
way to share a life,” even
though they would have been happy
in a live-in relationship. Despite the
offer by Gupta’s parents to live with
them, the Delhi couple plans to rent
out an apartment. Sharma says,
“This way, we have space and lead
a life our parents may not agree with.” Their take on sex? Gupta believes in open
relationships and finds the idea of a single sexual partner completely unnatural.
Exactly opposite to what Sharma believes in. Both know they may get attracted to
someone else, but being honest with each other will help in the long run.
Out of the joint family
Y. LALITHA, 25, PR professsional
K. HEMANT, 29, Software professional
Keen to find their own partners,
Lalitha from Chennai and Hemant
from Hyderabad registered on a
marriage portal. “It was easy to meet
guys from across the country,” says
Lalitha, who wanted to marry within
the caste and to someone who spoke
her language. “I think it makes life
easy if you find someone familiar with
your way of life,” she says. Hemant
adds, “it was an ideal situation. Our
family backgrounds were similar and
we hit it off well.” After online chats
and phone calls, they spoke to their
parents. “Their blessings and consent
matter to us,” says Lalitha.
Love, not arranged
Bringing up babies
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
by Deepika Khatri and Akhila Krishnamurthy
T w o T o g e t h e r
than it is elsewhere in India.
Coming up with an average
monthly coital frequency of
10.2, excluding the exceptional
case of a couple who
had relations only once or
twice a year, Ghurye urged
that this figure, based on
present practice, must be
treated as an underestimation.
Many of his respondents
had spoken quite
wistfully of higher levels of
performance in their
“younger days”.
In Ghurye’s account,
one material fact of life that
posed a challenge to theory,
methodology and statistical
analysis was the occurrence
of the wife’s monthly
period. To begin with, marital
relations could not be
initiated until after the
wife’s puberty. But even
thereafter, Ghurye hypothesised
that the unexplained
delay in consummation in
some cases might be accounted
for by the “vestiges
of old custom” whereby,
“according to the orthodox
Hindu custom, sex-life can
begun only during the first
16 days of the monthly period.”
Thereafter, the taboo
on sex during menstruation
left only 24 days or three
and a half weeks from
which to estimate average
monthly frequency of intercourse.
Today, it seems that
neither the scientific community
nor the public
wishes to be reminded of
nature’s rhythms. Contemporary
surveys make no
mention of this simple fact of
life, however prominent it
might be in real-life coital
NOVEMBER 5, 2007 u INDIA TODAY 67
Are you currently using contraceptives?
MALE FEMALE
Not using any 38
Male condoms 36
Oral pills 10
Sterilisation 9
Copper T/Similar products 5
Withdrawal method 5
Sterilisation 1
Others 2
39 37
45 27
7 13
5 12
2 7
4 7
1 1
1 2
Why do you use contraceptives?
MALE FEMALE
To postpone having children 79
To prevent passing on STDs/HIV 24
77 81
32 15
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more
than 100 because of multiple choices.
MALE FEMALE
Both husband and wife 68
Husband 18
Wife 11
66 71
21 16
12 10
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Are you comfortable buying them?
Who do you think should be responsible for
family planning and contraception?
YES
NO
Yes 59
No 25
Yes 43
No 39
51
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Did you plan your first child?
57
YES
NO
Yes 61
No 32
Yes 53
37 No 42
PREVENTIVE MEASURES
Seventy nine per cent of the respondents use contraceptives
to postpone having children and 32 per cent of men use it to
prevent passing on STDs/HIV. One-third of the total feel
uncomfortable while buying contraceptives, Amitabh Bachchan
asking for them in Cheeni Kum notwithstanding .
32
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more
than 100 because of multiple choices.
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
calculations of married
couples, let alone of the consequences
for conjugal intimacy
of lactational
amenorrhoea or
menopause. We may feel
sexually liberated in the
new millennium, but there
are topics that are still, or
rather, have in fact recently
become, distasteful and
prudishly unmentionable.
Two questions seemed
to have interested Ghurye
especially. His parsimonious
questionnaire probed them
explicitly, and his analyses
Do you use sex toys to stimulate
your partner?
11
81
NO
YES
Yes 15
No 78
Yes 8
No 85
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
How important is sex in your life?
MALE FEMALE
Very important 42
Important 41
Indifferent 12
Not important 2
52 33
35 47
10 15
1 3
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
VIRTUAL PLEASURE
Though 11 per cent talk of using sex toys, its use is much
higher amongst males. As many as 31 per cent of Chennai’s
couples indulge in sex via the phone and Internet.
At my parents’ home 44
At my husband’s home 38
At my in-law’s home 16
Elsewhere 3
Where was your first child born?
All figures in per cent.
Figures add up to more
than 100 because of
multiple choices.
BABY BOOMERS
In the case of 32 per cent
of the women, the child’s
expenses were borne by
their parents.
Who paid for the child’s expenses?
My husband 59
My parents 32
Shared by all 6
Myself 2
All figures in per cent. Rest:
Don’t know/Won’t say.
Has the frequency of
sex decreased since
you had children?
31
62
NO
YES
Yes 28
No 67
Yes 34
No 57
All figures in
per cent.
Rest: Don’t
know/Won’t say.
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
were extravagantly detailed.
By contrast, he completely
forgot to tabulate the information
from his three questions
on birth control. The
first was the “Living apart of
Husband and Wife for some
time as a Routine Practice’
which, according to Ghurye,
was an aspect of “the Hindu
way of living”. The second,
on which he lavished much
attention, was the prevalence
of “multiple coitus”.
More than 50 per cent of
those who answered the latter
question admitted to
(boasted of) multiple coitus,
in the early days of marriage
or even later, some 12 per
cent claiming coitus between
two and six times a night and,
in one exaggerated case,
eight times. Here, once
again, the professor was confronted
with theoretical,
methodological, and statistical
dilemmas. Do overall estimates
of frequency of coitus
include counts of multiple
coitus? Apparently not. Is
there a seasonal variation in
sexual frequency and multiple
coitus? Maybe yes, the
winter being more conducive
than summer, according to at
least one informant. Is the
education level or occupation
of the practitioners of multiple
coitus at all significant? It
doesn’t seem so. And, most
important of all, do those
who regularly engage in multiple
coitus routinely have
sex on more days in the
month? Indeed they do.
Actually, it seems that
Ghurye’s two preoccupations—
the “living apart of
husband and wife for some
time as routine practice”
and the phenomenon of
multiple coitus—were
somehow intimately related.
“Sexolo-gists”, he claimed,
“would seem to agree that
temporary separation as a
periodic practice is conducive
to married happiness.”
In fact, a large
number of his subjects who
had been separated from
their wives for varying periods
noted a positive change
in the frequency of coitus.
Many of them attested, in
graphic detail, to “gushing”
desire and multiple coitus,
“even during daytime”. In a
particularly analytical selfreflection,
one subject—“a
pleader” who had moved to
a separate bed from his
wife’s—testified to the reduced
frequency but a distinctly
greater pleasure of
intercourse that was no
longer on this account just a
“routine affair”.
For whatever reason, on
which one can only speculate
here, neither the benefits
of temporary separation
nor the preoccupation with
multiple coitus find a place
in the 2007 INDIA TODAY survey
of conjugal sexuality. All
of which leads one to conclude
either that times have
really changed, 70 years on;
that the good professor had
his quirks; or that maximum
togetherness is not, after all,
the secret of marital bliss.
The writer is director of the
Institute of Chinese Studies
of the Centre for Study of
Developing Societies
Yes 30
No 64
Yes 9
No 86
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Do you ever talk about sex on
the phone or the Internet?
19
75
NO
YES
Working women are more sexually liberated. Do you agree?
MALE FEMALE
Agree to a large extent 31
Agree somewhat 40
Disagree somewhat 12
Disagree to a large extent 8
35 26
39 41
10 13
5 11
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Did you have sex with your
wife when she was pregnant?
Initially during first trimester 33
During the second trimester 25
All the time 23
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
BABY BLUES
Thirty-four per cent women feel the
frequency of sex declines after children.
In 2003, 22% women felt poor body image
reduced their sexual pleasure. More women
connect the body with healthy sexuality now.
YES TO SEX
Men always thought sex was important—
76% of them in 2004 believed in equal
pleasure for their wives in bed. Women
too agree now—the percentage who
feel sex is important has gone up
from 23% in 2003 to 33% in 2007.

Secrets and Lies INFIDELITY IS THE INVISIBLE MONSTER IN THE MARRIAGE BED, WITH
ONE-THIRD MEN ADMITTING TO EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS AND ALMOST HALF
INSISTING THAT EMOTIONAL INFIDELITY IS DIFFERENT FROM SEXUAL PROMISCUITY
Have you had an extra marital affair?
78 18
NO
YES
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Yes 31
No 65
Yes 6
No 90
Yes 36
No 47
Yes 30
No 56
Is emotional infidelity the same as
having an extra marital affair?
33
51
NO
YES
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
I n f i d e l i t y
Sagar, 32, married for
eight years, seeks counselling
as he has found his
soul mate and realised his
marriage was a mistake. His
wife wants to work on the
relationship and their sixyear-
old son suffers from
insecurity. But he doesn’t
want to let go of his “love”
who is his wife’s best friend.
Sagar is not an oddity.
Infidelity is rising, and marriage
seems to be its most
fertile ground. Clearly, it’s a
male thing—31 per cent of
men say they had extra marital
affairs while only 6 per
cent women admit to it.
Monogamy is increasingly
going out of fashion, not just
in daily soaps but also in
daily life. Research suggests
there is a 30-50 per cent
increase in the rate of cases
of infidelity. But why? As a
practising psychiatrist, it is
amazing how often this
breach of trust occurs
accidentally—a drinking
session, a flirtatious colleague
or sheer propinquity
with friends. It is probably
one of these reasons, or all in
unison, that makes a person
step out of the sanctity of a
committed relationship.
Infidelity at times is the
outcome of a problematic
marriage and sometimes it
is the cause of such a marriage.
Which comes first
may be difficult to understand.
The reasons are
many: boredom, incompatibility,
conflicts and sometimes
children. At times, it
has nothing to do with the
quality of marriage, but with
the spouse’s personality. But
perhaps the most dangerous
reason is sexual addiction
outside marriage—the
desire to be with someone
just for the thrill. Infidelity
can be sexual or emotional
and each individual has a
different definition of cheating.
Forty-seven per cent
men feel emotional infidelity
does not mean an extra
marital affair. Many men
also feel having a sexual
relation outside the marriage
is not infidelity. But for
a woman, sexual or emotional
infidelity is cheating
(30 per cent). In fact, 35 per
cent of men said they had an
extra marital affair with
their ex-girlfriends, closely
followed by neighbours (29
per cent) and colleagues (24
per cent), which may explain
their view about working
women. Thirty-five per
cent think working women
are more sexually liberated.
Rahila, 30, says she had
been happily married for
four years. Then out of
nowhere, she began feeling
bored. She tried looking for
answers. “All the information
I received made me
believe that my husband was
the culprit. And I wanted to
Whom did you have an
extra marital affair with?
MALE FEMALE
Ex-girlfriend/boyfriend 34
Neighbour 27
Colleague 23
Paid sex 18
One-night stand 14
Relative 12
Friend 11
Spouse’s friend 11
35 28
29 18
24 19
21 4
15 5
13 9
12 7
12 11
All figures in per cent.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices.
28% IN CONSERVATIVE CHENNAI ADMIT TO EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS
n By Anjali Chhabria

bring happiness in my life.”
Most people are likely to
file for divorce in their late
20s and 30s, after an average
of four years of
marriage. During this time,
both men and women experience
a pre-midlife crisis.
In many cases “loss of sexual
desire” leads to the first
crack in the relationship—
the fact that 52 per cent of
men feel sex is important in
a marriage while 33 per
cent women feel the same
way is a pointer to the difference.
This leads to a disinterest
in the relationship for
many men. This sexual
desire is reawakened in a
new encounter outside the
marriage. Whether these
encounters involve sex or
remain platonic, they are
emotionally significant. This
is followed by people experiencing
feelings unlike they
have experienced before.
They feel “alive” again and
many believe they have
found their soul mates.
Some of them experience
the trauma of choosing
between their spouses and
new love interests. They
believe they are being unfair
to their spouses, and yet are
unable to end their affairs.
Some choose to stay
married and continue their
affairs, while others opt for
divorce. There are others
who end the relationship
with their lover. Breaking a
marriage is difficult but
rebuilding the trust is something
even more difficult.
Anita and Rahul came in
for marital therapy as Anita
was suffering from nerves.
She felt anxious every time
her husband left the house.
After an examination, it
was found that her husband
had confessed to an affair a
year back. Although Anita
decided to stay in the marriage,
her trust was shattered.
She frequently kept a
check on her husband’s
activities and slipped into a
deep depression.
So how does one handle
the invisible monster in the
bedroom? Like all things,
first deal with it, calmly and
rationally. Share your
emotional burden. Think
about the consequences of
your decision as they could
have major imp-lications.
Discuss the issue with your
partner. Many times,
couples want to fix the
relationship as infidelity
often happens on impulse.
It’s great to see couples
trying to mend the gaps
because marriage is the
witness of their love. Once
this decision is made, partners
should make efforts to
remain committed. The
victim of infidelity would feel
vulnerable at this point. The
wayward partner should
understand that despite all
negative emotions, the
partner chose to trust
him/her and that he/she
should be thankful for it.
It takes a lot of time to fix
a broken tie because the
damage is irreversible.
However, time is of the
essence. Spending more
time together could in time
heal the emotional wounds,
especially as the actual
sexual act and foreplay don’t
seem to occupy too much
time. Thirty-eight per cent
people in the survey say sex
lasts only 10 to 15 minutes.
There’s no need to rush as
it’s near impossible to repair
a marriage within weeks
after the discovery of infidelity.
Communicating honestly
with each other and
slowly rebuilding the trust
helps overcome the agony.
But as they say, precaution is
better than cure. Try to
cement your relationship
when you start seeing the
cracks first instead of
waiting for it to break down
and then create a new
foundation all over again.
The writer is a Mumbai-based
psychiatrist
72 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
10% BANGALORE COUPLES ARE ALWAYS BORED WITH MARITAL SEX
SEX DEFICIT
While 52 per cent men say they have sex
thrice a week, only 27 per cent women
corroborate the fact. The irregularity is
huge. One wonders where the men are finding
so much sex. In or out of the nuptial bed?
GENDER GAP
Women feel it’s high time they had some more sex and
fun. Thirty-nine per cent wives are bored with sex
compared to 8 per cent in the survey conducted in 2003.
The 31-40-year-olds are feeling the seven-year itch with
nearly half of them bored of sex in marriage. The Indian
bedroom needs some spicing up.
How many times do you have sex with your spouse?
MALE FEMALE
More than thrice a week 39
Once a week 34
Once a month 10
Only when my partner wants to 14
52 27
31 37
8 12
7 20
Are you bored with sex in marriage?
MALE FEMALE
Never 53
Sometimes 35
Mostly 5
Always 2
58 49
30 39
5 4
2 2
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
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Chastity is the most unnatural
of all sexual
perversions.” Aldous
Huxley, who wrote
this, wouldn’t have been
surprised by any such
survey. Indeed, had
monogamy been natural,
restrictions imposed by
marriage wouldn’t have
been required. Animal
behaviour is governed by
biological needs and multiple
sexual partners create
genetic variation essential
for evolution. Even in the
oft-quoted monogamous
birds, recent DNA studies reveal
that the male is often
not the father and
re-pairing occurs to improve
reproductive choices.
Human beings are no
different biologically.
People changed partners
liberally in nomadic
communities and paternity
wasn’t known. As man
settled, he wanted to ensure
the children he was bringing
up and who’d inherit his
possessions, were his own.
Marriage was conceived
to ensure fatherhood.
Polygamy and polyandry
was common throughout
history and one man-one
woman relationships are a
recent phenomenon.
Marriage demands
abstinence from extra marital
sex for either spouse,
but the desire is so strong
that marriage vows are
often broken. Like all moral
codes, marriage rules
are generally hypocritical.
Moral wrong doing, sexual
infections or unwanted
pregnancies may be the
reasons for some, but the
fear of breaking a marriage
by betrayal is the most common
deterrent. Like most
things pleasurable but forbidden,
extra marital sex is
sought when one is sure that
one will not be caught.
P.G. Wodehouse once
wrote that, “Fascination
with shooting as a sport depends
almost wholly upon
whether you are at the right
or the wrong end of the
gun.” Similarly, in adultery
the cheating spouse generally
claims that to betray you
must first belong, and so
there is no infidelity when
there has been no love. In
fact they often play the victim
of a loveless marriage.
While sex may sometimes
be sought due to an unfulfilled
need within marriage,
people often pursue extramarital
sex for variety. Most
people enter matrimony
expecting much, but soon
they develop a relationship
which is peculiar for each
couple and changes as life
goes on. As people grow up,
attitudes towards sex
change. For example an
overworked young mother
may behave differently once
she is a mature woman
with grown-up children.
There is social as well as
biological change and sexual
attitudes transform with
time. In fact most people
first venture outside marriage
at a later age, as a
middle-age phenomenon.
There may be more opportunities
these days to do
so with mobile phones,
Internet and intermixing of
sexes at workplace, but
extra marital sex is not new.
Traditionally it occurred in
conservative families inside
and around the house.
Flirtation amongst relationships
like brothers/sistersin-
law also has a fair bit of
social sanction, and numerous
folk songs centre
around this. Besides consensual
sex, sexual exploitation
also occurs inside the
family, in all societies.
A broad generalisation
in the sexual behaviour of
men and women also is an
over-simplification of a complex
relationship. The statistics
from such surveys
should therefore be interpreted
carefully keeping social
and biological
differences in mind. But essentially
all human beings
are similar and as Carl Jung
wrote, “Men and women
have more in common between
each other than there
are differences”.
This is certainly not to
say that sexual fidelity
is impossible or wrong
because it is not natural,
only that it takes some
effort. In fact besides the
moral reason to stay faithful,
there are prizes for
fidelity, and people who stay
in long-term monogamous
relationships tend to be very
healthy mentally.
The writer is an obstetrician and
women’s health activist
74 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
The Hypocrisy of Marriage
SEXUAL FIDELITY REQUIRES EFFORT. MAN’S BASIC INSTINCT IS TO HAVE
MULTIPLE PARTNERS AND SINGULAR TIES ARE A RECENT PHENOMENON.
P u n e e t B e d i
[26% OF THOSE WHO HAD LOVE MARRIAGES
ADMITTED HAVING EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
I n f i d e l i t y : M a l e V i e w p o i n t
Matrimonial infidelity
or adultery used to
be the primary
ground for divorce.
But it is gradually being
replaced with cruelty
because of the wide definition
it has been awarded in
recent times. Also because
adultery is difficult to prove.
Direct evidence of adultery is
rare. The law also requires
that the adulterer/adulteress
be added as a co-respondent
in a petition for divorce
making the procedure difficult.
It is simpler to use cruelty
even while the
allegation is of adultery,
since every act of adultery
would constitute mental
cruelty to the spouse.
The reasons for using
adultery as the primary
ground for divorce are
inherited from the English
matrimonial law. Historically,
Christian marriages
were monogamous and the
strict rule of matrimonial
fidelity applied both to men
and women equally, unlike
Hindu or Muslim marriages
where only women were
governed by the norm
of sexual fidelity. When
English marriages were
transformed to dissoluble
contract in 1857, adultery,
which is a violation of the
vow of matrimonial fidelity,
was reason enough for the
dissolution of marriage.
(Later other grounds such as
cruelty, desertion, insanity
and conversion were
added.) English law has now
reached the stage of “no
fault divorce” where divorce
can be obtained by pleading
that the marriage has “irretrievably
broken down”.
Rather curiously, when
the polygamous Hindu marriages,
which were deemed
indissoluble, were rendered
contractual and
monogamous in 1955, adultery
was made a primary
ground for divorce. Cruelty
and desertion were included
later in 1976. Since
polygamous marriages are
accepted under the Muslim
law, the grounds for obtaining
divorce on the basis of
adultery under the Dissolution
of Muslim Marriages
Act are worded slightly differently
as “associating
with women of ill repute”.
In Hindu law, although
marriages were rendered
monogamous, on the
ground level, adultery and
bigamy were still accepted.
Adultery is also condoned
by wives for whom marriage
is not just a sexual
contract but an economic
arrangement and a social
transaction. Women seldom
approach the courts for
divorce on the sole ground
of husband’s adultery.
There is a tendency to view
it as “occasional lapses from
virtue”. Women would demand
an assurance that the
husband terminate the
adulterous relationship
rather than approach the
courts for divorce as that
would enable the husband
to legitimise his illegitimate
affair. Women feel they have
far more to lose.
Take Meena, who has
two grown daughters. She
found out that her husband
was having an affair with
one of his colleagues. She
came to me regarding her
options. When I suggested
divorce she was aghast.
“Why should I? I have two
grown daughters. Divorce
will be a stigma. I will never
set him free. Even if he does
not come back to me, let him
suffer,” she said. According
to her, divorce would only
help her husband to make
his affair official.
But adultery by wives is
viewed far more seriously
by husbands. In fact, it
is very common to allege
infidelity and immoral
conduct on the part of the
wife. The allegations of immorality
are used not only to
obtain a divorce but also to
deny women maintenance
or as a defence against a
petition filed by the wife on
the plea of cruelty or
desertion. I have not come
across any pleading on
behalf of a husband, where
the wife’s character has
not been made into a
contentious issue. This is
done mainly as a means of
character assassination and
to humiliate women during
court proceedings. This
ground has been overused
to such an extent that courts
today are wary of these
allegations and take them
with a pinch of salt.
The writer is a Mumbai-based
women’s rights lawyer and
director of the Legal Resource
Centre of Majlis
NOVEMBER 5, 2007 u INDIA TODAY 75
Skewed Scheme of Things
MARRIAGES WERE SEEN TO BE MONOGAMOUS IN HINDU LAW BUT ADULTERY
WAS ACCEPTED. THIS FLEXIBILITY HOWEVER WAS NOT ALLOWED TO WOMEN.
F l a v i a A g n e s
[23% OF WORKING WOMEN ADMIT TO HAVING
AFFAIRS WITH THEIR COLLEAGUES AT WORK
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
I n f i d e l i t y : F e m a l e V i e w p o i n t
Silence is her only
defence, and also the
surest reason for
collective condemnation.”
This sentence from
an editorial in a leading
Kolkata-based English daily
described the plight of
Priyanka Todi, the widow
of a young Muslim graphic
designer Rizwanur Rahman,
whose tragic death last
month has left the city of joy
in a state of shock, outrage,
and sadness. I read the
sentence on a Sunday morning
as the sounds of a city
getting ready to welcome the
goddess Durga—a symbol of
female might, agency, and
power—filtered through our
living room windows. With
thousands of Kolkatans and
tourists from the world over
preparing to marvel at the
power and beauty of the
goddess Durga, a feministminded
editorial from an
important English mouthpiece
urged us to empathise
with the fact that young
women in this city, even
educated, upper-class ones,
live in a world of severely
circumscribed choices.
This piece of information
isn’t new. For decades we
have been told about the
oppressive conditions of
Indian women and their
silence over it. I am
reminded of my own research
into the first well-publicised
case of a dowry death
in 1914 in colonial Bengal.
Snehalata Mukhopadhyay,
the young woman who set
herself afire, had allegedly
done so to save her father
from the plight of having to
cobble together a fat dowry
for her forthcoming wedding.
Without any records
from Mukhopadhyay, as a
historian, I had to make
sense of the babble of voices
that rocked the Bengali public
sphere. As feminist scholars
we learn to acknowledge
that women’s silences speak
volumes. Our task as commentators
and social analysts
is to weave narratives
of their pain by trying to
make sense of the reasons
that rendered them mute.
But is this still the historian’s
predicament today?
Do we have to go on reading
women’s “silences” because
their “voices” have not been
recorded? Might we not
entertain the hope, even if
briefly, that a new breed of
Indian women may have
begun to speak their minds?
The INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-
76 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
Silent No
Longer
SEX WITHOUT CONSENT IS STILL
A LIVING REALITY IN THE INDIAN
BEDROOM BUT WOMEN ARE NO
LONGER WILLING TO BE STOIC
SUFFERERS, ASSERTING INSTEAD,
THEIR RIGHT TO DEMAND PLEASURE
n By Rochona Majumdar
MALE FEMALE
Very often 42
Sometimes 42
Never 10
38 45
46 39
11 09
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
SEXUAL SPACE
More than three-fourth of all Indian
married men believe it’s their right to
have sex with their wives, more so in
cities like Chennai (95%), Ahmedabad
(87%) and Lucknow (81%). Of these,
74% fall between the ages of 21 and 30.
Has your spouse ever forced you to have sex?
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
M a r i t a l R a p e
ORG-MARG survey suggests
that such a hope may not be
misplaced. Many of the
responses indicate how
women have become more
assertive on matters relating
to their body, their pleasure
and their sexuality. But the
result of one of the queries
made me pause. The question
was, “Has your spouse
ever forced you to have
sex?” Significantly, 45 per
cent admitted to being
forced to have sex very often
with their spouse.
What name do we give to
such forcible sexual intercourse?
More important,
how do we explain the
reasons that impelled so
many female respondents,
scattered across the country,
to break their silence on a
subject that has for long
been shrouded in deafening
silence? Let me offer my
speculation on what has
42% NON-WORKING WOMEN SAY THEY HAVE SEX TO PLEASE THEIR SPOUSE
Do you think it’s
your right to
have sex with
your wife?
20
76
YES
NO
Age Yes No
21-30 74 21
31-40 76 20
41-50 78 18
All figures in per cent. Male respondents
only. Rest:Don’t know/Won’t say.

changed with the help of a
few episodes of marital rape
in recorded Indian history.
On January 9, 1891, the
British government passed
a law that forbade sexual
intercourse with a girl below
the age of 12. Historians
have noted that this law did
not interfere with the
practice of child marriage,
but with the problem of
premature consummation
of such marriages. The
proper age for heterosexual
intercourse became a
matter of grave concern for
the colonial government and
the reformist intelligentsia
when a young Bengali girl
Phulmonee died in 1889
after being brutally raped by
her 35-year-old husband
Hari Mohan Maitee.
Two features of this
debate are of interest. First,
it was conducted primarily
by male spokespersons of
both the colonising and the
colonised elite. Second,
opponents of the bill argued
that the inclusion of a marital
rape clause in the Indian
Consent Act would be a discriminatory
measure as
there was no such clause
in the British Consent Act.
One opponent, Manmohun
Ghose, an otherwise progressive
man who stood for
female education and other
reforms for women, argued
that colonial policies were
intent on humiliating the
Indian man and deliberately
wanted to include the marital
rape provision. It denied
the Indian husband “lawful
access” to his wife, something
guaranteed to the
English male through the
matrimonial contract.
This debate failed to
note what the girl bride or
woman felt. Ghose’s concerns
and the British
Consent Act remained silent
on the fact that the “lawful”
confines of marriage couldn’t
stop wives from being
raped by some husbands.
The law—ironically called
“the Age of Consent”—may
have made a difference to
the age when a wife becomes
“accessible” to her
husband but did nothing to
change the nature of access.
For me, the survey demonstrates
a collective feminine
will engaged in a
struggle to claim for women
the right to sexual sovereignty.
Gone is the prudery
associated with sex. A
woman who demands the
right to pleasure is no longer
an object of scorn and contempt.
Contemporary public
culture clearly highlights
this resolve. We need only
to remember Rituporno
Ghosh’s film Antarmahal or
Jag Mundhra’s Provoked to
realise that purveyors of
modern Indian culture do
not shy away from depicting
the hideousness of rape and
female protests to such
grievous injustice. The
survey demonstrates that
some women are not afraid
of calling a spade by that
name. Marriage and
children remain important
landmarks in most women’s
lives. But many today will
work—at the expense of
considerable hardship—to
ensure that the terms on
which these goals are
met remain just and enjoyable
for them.
As social scientists we
also need to take serious
note of these changes. It
is time that we altered our
critical vocabulary to recognise
that a woman who is
vocal about her needs—
sexual, emotional, financial—
is not an exception in
Indian society but an emergent
figure fighting for a
new definition of sexual
norms. Empathy for
women’s silence was once a
respectful form of practice
on part of the feminist historian,
for silence was treated
as a sign of women’s condition.
Today, there is no reason
to say that women are
“silent”, believing that they
do not have any choice in
matters affecting their conditions.
The media, human
rights organisations,
women’s shelters and associations
are making a difference.
This survey suggests
that women are raising, in
the public sphere, questions
about the role of consent
and pleasure in sexual relations.
The future historian of
women in this country will
have to orient herself to
these changed conditions.
The writer is a historian of
women and family, and teaches
at the University of Chicago
78 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
41% IN THE 31-40 AGE GROUP SAY THEY’RE FORCED TO HAVE SEX
What is the most important reason for you to have sex?
MALE FEMALE
For pleasure 50
To please my spouse 29
For children 17
57 43
18 39
21 14
MUTUAL PLEASURE
The motivation for sex is varied across the
country. Those in Mumbai and Delhi want it
for pleasure and while in Chennai for children.
Patna, with 67%, surprisingly tops
the list of cities wanting sex for pleasure. All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
Your hands were made
to cup my face!” a
delighted young lover
exclaims in the
American musical Finian’s
Rainbow. This is among the
most beautiful thoughts I’ve
come across on the awakening
of love and sexual desire.
Yet, a sag in emotions,
something like a concavity of
despair, even depression,
often follows passion. The
INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-
ORG-MARG Survey announces
that post-marital depression
is on the rise, through every
phase of married life. Why is
it so? The phenomena that
attend erotic love interest
me, not so much their
sociological manifestations,
though various life situations
impact differently, and, of
course, should be studied. I,
however, see the issue
primarily as a philosophical
80 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
32
49
NO
YES
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Do you find your
wife somewhat
less attractive
after childbirth?
Living Happily
Never After
n By Priya Sarukkai
Chabria
THE VOID BETWEEN THE
DREAM OF HONEYMOON
AND THE REALITY OF
MARRIAGE HAS TO BE
FILLED BY RECLAIMING
FRIENDSHIP, THE
BIRTHRIGHT OF
EVERY COUPLE
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH P o s t - n u p t i a l A n x i e t y
one: how we view ourselves,
and, profoundly, what is our
understanding of the nature
of sexual passion. A degree
of ordinariness creeps up
on us as we move away in
time from the intimacy of
lovemaking, from its dark
and sparkling terrain.
Honey-mooners experience
this even as they discover the
textures of pleasure. With
the birth of erotic love come
some of its withdrawal
symptoms; loss is inscribed
into its first cry.
Once back home, we are
made to buckle down to the
institutionalised relationship
of marriage. We have to
morph into everyday beings.
Saddened, we descend from
dense clouds of desire to fall
into the gridlock of routine.
We need to adapt and accept
changes while our inner and
outer geographies of identity
are in dislocation.
Yet, most of all, it is erotic
love itself that dislocates us,
enlarges us, withers us. We
know sexual passion momentarily
frees each one from all
the rules, all at once. For, in
a sense we create Time
by freezing it while making
love, we destroy Space for
we contain it in our bodies
during lovemaking. Thus, we
preserve ourselves in an
everlasting present—for the
few moments of climax.
Beyond discovery and
play, beyond intensity and
thankfulness, beyond the
body’s pleasures that are
set aflame, then soothed
into the quietest water, lovemaking
performs these
miracles each time. It’s
hardly surprising that we are
enchanted by it; it’s therefore
also hardly surprising
that loss inevitably follows.
Between dreams and reality
lies not a connecting space
but a void. This void or zone
needs to be filled. It often is,
with losses of many colours
and shapes, rather than the
scents of discovery and joy
that are equally present.
We also attempt to fill the
void with the prospect of chil-
82 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
44% IN BANGALORE FIND WIVES LESS ATTRACTIVE AFTER CHILDBIRTH
SE
SURVEY
COVER STORY
Does not affect the number
of times you have sex 47
Reduces the frequency of sex 32
Increases the frequency of sex 11
41 54
34 29
14 7
MALE FEMALE
One year 49
Two years 31
Three years 13
Four-five years 4
More than five years 3
45 52
35 28
14 12
3 4
3 3
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
MALE FEMALE
Go out on a weekend 35
Infuse more romance 33
Talk to spouse about what he/she
needs from sex life 28
Try doing different things
together, like sports 14
34 37
34 32
24 32
19 9
4 3
How do you revitalise your sex life?
Does living in a joint family affect your
sex life? If so, how?
THE BIG DESCENT
Loss is inscribed in the first cry of erotic love. Once back home,
couples are made to buckle down to the institution of marriage.
Almost half say they had their first child in the first year of marriage.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
After how many years of marriage did you
have your first child?
Go to a counsellor 4
39
54
NO
YES
Yes 50
No 42
Yes 60
No 35
Do you get enough time alone to spend with
your spouse in a joint family?
All figures in per cent.
Figures add up to more than 100 because of multiple choices.
MALE FEMALE
dren, with new life. We shift
our self-image from carefree
lover to becoming potential
caretaker of a family. Ageing
adds to this progression, and
its acceptance. As with every
phase of maturation, a loss is
entailed. We mourn the
passing of time. Even as we
celebrate the possibility of
progeny and continuation of
genes—this diamond-dew
pendant of marriage—we
mourn the certainty of our
own demise. This probably, is
the darkest stirring that lies
beneath sexual activity.
Living as best we can in
reality, we nevertheless
dream, dreams of all kinds
leach out of us open eyed and
fluttering. No wonder it’s
said, “dreams die hard,” a
statement that suggests
pain and irretrievable loss.
However, I wonder if we
should allow dreams to die
merely because they cannot
make the crossover and
harden into reality. Instead,
wouldn’t it be wiser if we
evolved other dreams, for life
must progress always? Why
not, then, face the problematic
wholeheartedly? Why
not, then, broaden our vision
of erotic love as well?
We move through the rite
of birth of marriage to
become a socially acceptable
couple; it is imperative
therefore that we move to
claim its birthright—which
is friendship. Else, we give
marriage a short shrift.
My thinking on erotic
love is about learning to shift.
To fill the void between
dreams and reality with a
friendship that is neither
dream nor reality but
contains both. The void then
becomes, in part, a supportive
bridge imbued with a less
possessive idea of body and
identity sharing; it becomes
more tender and translucent.
Both partners need to
make this bridge, not from
opposing sides, but together,
side-by-side and step-bystep.
This is a long journey.
For, we cannot tame the
spirit of sringara—Eros. We
can only seduce it down to a
very different path.
The writer is a poet and has
authored a novel—The Other
Garden
NOVEMBER 5, 2007 u INDIA TODAY 83
As working professionals, how does work
affect your relationship?
Brings you closer together MALE FEMALE
as you have more to share 33
Does not affect your relationship 22
Drastically cuts down time, putting
a strain on the relationship 32
34 32
28 17
22 41
46 39
NO YES
Yes 41
No 39
Yes 37
No 52
Do your professional ambitions as a couple
make you postpone having children?
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
Who accompanies you when you go
out on a vacation?
MALE FEMALE
Only two of us with children 60
Husband’s family 16
Families from both the sides 9
Wife’s parents 6
Friends/colleagues 5
58 61
15 17
9 9
8 5
5 6
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
HAPPY TOGETHER
Indian couples need to spend more time in each other’s company.
For a marriage to be successful, it is imperative for the partners to
develop a bond of friendship which can fill the void once the charm
of physical love abates. Busy professional schedules and family
commitments make such quality time difficult to come by. Sixty per
cent couples go on holidays with children, though nuclear families
go on vacations together more often than the ones in joint families.
NO TIME FOR LOVE
The new rules of the gender equation have rocked the steady
foundation of Indian marriage. Forty-one per cent of working
women think that their professional lives adversely affect
their relationship. Stereotypes still abound as 39 per cent male
respondents and even 43 per cent stay-a-home women feel working
womenare more sexually liberated or are more open-minded.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
48% OF DELHI COUPLES SAY WEEKEND BREAKS BOOST SEX LIVES
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
My mother’s heart
aches every time
she knits a fluffy
woollen sweater for
another new grand niece or
nephew. “My fingers are
getting arthritic. Who
knows if I’ll be able to knit
another one?” she complains,
sitting in the buttery
sunshine of a Kolkata
winter, the ball of wool
rolling on the bedspread.
The question she doesn’t
ask hangs in the air: “When
will I get to knit something
for your children?”
My grandmother carefully
preserved my mother’s
clothes so my sister and I
could wear them as children.
My nephew still wears
my old sweaters and long
out-of-fashion corduroys.
But in my coming out, my
mother fears, that carefully
nurtured thread of continuity
is somewhere snapping.
Coming out in India is
really about marriage. In
fact, the standard comingout
line is, “Ma, Baba, I don’t
think I am going to get married
at all.” But as long as
you don’t marry, you also
don’t grow up. “I can
squeeze your cheeks just
like when you were a boy,” a
neighbour told me on a
recent visit to India. In their
eyes I am not gay. I am simply
“unmarried”, one of the
“lost boys” trapped in Peter
Pan’s Neverland.
But S. was the real lost
boy. He went to my school,
now runs his own company
and was active in the alumni
society. I remember being so
excited when I went to his
office to meet him, sure we
would have so much to talk
about. But S. was already
married with a child. All I
remember is the darting
terror in his eyes as if my
mere presence would out
him. We never met again.
But I hear his story in
the voices of gays and
lesbians who feel they’ve
run out of all excuses to put
off marriage—graduate
school, Ph.D., job-hunt. I see
it in desperate ads—25-
year-old professional Indian
gay, 5’9”, good job, looking
for pretty, feminine Indian
lesbian facing similar family
pressure. There was even a
website devoted to Assisting
Matrimonial Arrangements
for Lesbians and Gays from
India, complete with a
“gaylerry” of posted ads.
My friend told me about
how he was having sex with
a man he had met and in
the middle his wife
called and he kept talking
to her. My friend got up
and left. He could leave,
but the man was stuck.
That’s why what impressed
me most about the story of
Manvendra Singh Gohil,
the prince of Rajpipla, was
not that he came out and
risked being disowned
by his family, but that
he publicly apologised to
his ex-wife in the courtroom.
That’s a far braver
act than marching down
the main street of
San Francisco during Gay
Pride in kurtas, while the
sound system on the caparisoned
truck blares,
“Pyar kiya to darna kiya.”
In 1993, my friend
Aditya went to India with his
boyfriend Michael and complained
to his mother that
no one would ever come to
his wedding. She promptly
organised a ceremony. The
family swamiji presided
over it. “Openly gay and
married in my parents’
drawing room at the age of
30,” marvelled Aditya.
“Right on schedule as a good
Indian boy should be.” I recently
watched his wedding
video again at his home in
Berkeley. In 2007, with all
the talk of same-sex marriage,
it still felt like a fairy
tale, a lump-in-the-throat
act of domestic revolution.
But the real revolution,
says a friend, will come not
when he can kiss his
boyfriend on Park Street in
Kolkata, not even when his
parents will accept his sexuality.
That already happens.
The revolution will
happen, he says, when his
parents will find him a husband
from a good family. It’s
time for a gay arranged
marriage. And he’s ready.
84 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
Trapped in the Closet
AS LONG AS YOU DON’T MARRY, YOU DON’T GROW UP. NEITHER YOU NOR
YOUR FAMILY IS FORCED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU MAY BE GAY.
S a n d e e p R o y
[15% MARRIED MEN ADMIT TO GAY FANTASIES,
DOWN FROM 21% IN THE 2004 SURVEY
The writer was editor of Trikone
Magazine which covers South
Asian lesbian-gay-bisexualtransgender
issues
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
G u e s t C o l u m n
BANDEEP SINGH
The consensus in favour
of arranged marriages
in our country through
the centuries has been
truly astonishing. The only
text that I know which
considers love marriage
as the highest form of
marriage is the revolutionary
Kamasutra. What is
perhaps even more surprising
is that arranged
marriages are not only a
pan-Indian norm, cutting
across divides in education,
social class, religion and
regions but, more important,
they are rarely seen as
an imposition by the young
people who overwhelmingly
prefer them to the love
marriage, which is so
typical of Western societies.
The INDIA TODAY AC
Nielsen-ORG-MARG survey is
no different. Not only are 80
per cent of the marriages of
the respondents arranged
but also 77 per cent prefer
such arrangements to love
marriages. There is, of
course, a wide variety of
marriages that fall under
the rubric “arranged”,
depending on how much a
young girl or boy participates
in, or even guides the
process of selecting a mate.
At one extreme is an
arrangement where the
young people never meet
before marriage and are
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
MALE FEMALE
Arranged by family, relatives 80
Love marriage 19
79 81
20 18
What sort of marriage did you have?
n By Sudhir Kakar
Match Fixing THE DEMANDS OF THE FAMILY
CONTINUE TO OUTWEIGH THE
PRIMACY OF THE COUPLE, EXALTED
IN MODERN WESTERN SOCIETIES
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
A r r a n g e d M a r r i a g e s
merely informed about the
coming nuptials. The other
extreme is the self-arranged
marriage where the young
people who fall in love unconsciously
make sure that
the potential mate fulfils all
the criteria the family
expects of the marriage
partner. An intriguing form
of arranged marriage,
masquerading as a marriage
out of love, is seen in Indian
movies where the young
lovers finally get married
after defying vehement
opposition of their families.
In the feeling of well-being
produced by the movie’s
happy end, we often fail to
notice that the love marriage
of the hero and the heroine
has become an arranged one
when one or the other set of
parents withdraws its
opposition to the love match
and both sets of parents
come together at the end of
the movie to bless the couple.
The Indian preference
for arranged marriage is
partly based on the young
person’s acceptance of
the cultural definition of
marriage as a family rather
than individual affair, where
harmony and shared values
that come from a common
background are more
important than individual
fascination. More significant,
though, is the operation
of a less conscious
cultural norm which
perceives the parent-son
and fraternal bonds as the
foundation of the family
rather than the husbandwife
tie exalted in modern
Western societies. In the
traditional Indian view,
which still exerts a powerful
influence on how most
Indians view marriage, the
couple is not the primary
constituent of the family.
The tension between
these two different visions of
the foundation of family life
is the basis of the popularity
of the saas-bahu—the
cruel mother-in-law and the
suffering daughter-in-law
(including the eventual
triumph of the younger
woman over her older
antagonist)—stories which
are the staple of many
women’s songs, folktales
and television soaps.
Whereas the bahu stands for
the primacy of the couple,
the saas is a symbol for
the continuing preeminence
of filial and fraternal bonds.
Abundantly aware of the
power of sexual love to
overturn time-honoured
norms, the larger family is
rightly concerned that the
young wife may become the
reason for her husband neglecting
his duties as a son,
as a brother, a nephew, an
uncle; of transferring his loyalty
and affection to the new
wife rather than remaining
truly a son of the house.
These are not either/or
choices; however, custom,
tradition and interests
of the family demand
that in the realignment of
roles and relationships initiated
by the son’s marriage,
the couple does not take
centre stage, at least not in
the early years of marriage.
The much-maligned saas is
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY

then no more than the
family’s designated agent to
neutralise the threat posed
by the young daughterin-
law. Such overt struggles
may be going underground
in Westernised families
which feel compelled to pay
lip service to the modern
ideal of the couple as the
primary constituent of the
family. Their underlying
rationale, however, has left
deep markings on the Indian
psyche in its preference for
arranged marriages.
Perhaps the greatest
attraction of an
arranged marriage is
that it takes away the young
person’s anxiety around
finding a mate. Whether you
are plain or good-looking,
fat or thin, you can be
reasonably sure that a
suitable mate will be found
for you. Although physical
beauty is important for the
Indian girl, it does not command
the same premium in
the selection of a partner as
it does in Western societies.
What, then, of the
universal dream of love
that constitutes and seeks
to find its culmination in
the couple? The imperiousness
of erotic passion, a
love that demands (in
Tolstoy’s words) “madder
music, stronger wine”,
which is seen by many
young Western men and
women as their birthright, a
promise that the life must
redeem, is recognised as a
fantasy by most Indians. It is
afantasy, however, that does
not lose its magnetic power
by being acknowledged as
such. The fantasy finds a
home, for instance, in Indian
movies where love marriage
reigns and is depicted as the
royal road to conjugal
happiness. In a culture that
is deeply hierarchical, with
caste and class barriers
which are not easy to cross
even by the god Kama,
the dream is of love unimpeded
by the shackles
of family obligations and
duties toward the old and
all the other keepers of
society’s traditions. The
pleasure we take in this
subversion is one of the
many enduring fascinations
of the Bollywood love story,
a vehicle for the vicarious
satisfaction of our hidden
desires and obscure longings.
Indian movies are thus
not a guide to Indian
marriages but a doorway
into the universal dream of
love; what they offer are not
role models for the young
but romantic nostalgia for
the freshness of love’s vision
to men and women of all
ages. In other words, Indian
movies of impossible loves
have been delegated the
unenviable task of making
us forget the reality of
arranged marriage lurking
beyond the dark foyers of
the cinema hall.
The dream of finding
love does not disappear in
an arranged marriage. This
love, though, is a quieter
affair, without the delicious
delirium that can mark
the periods of courtship
and the beginning of a
marriage in the West. Its
feeling-tone is of contented
togetherness rather than
ecstasy. In other words, the
dream of love remains
necessary to a marriage.
The difference is that in
arranged marriages, it is expected
that love will be less
MALE FEMALE
Arranged marriage 77
Love marriage 20
76 78
22 19
MERGER AND UNION
Seventy six per cent of Indian men still prefer a marriage arranged
by their parents as do 78 per cent of women. Where 72 per cent
of the youth between the ages of 21 and 30 believe in arranged
marriages, the figure climbs to 81 per cent as expected in couples
between the ages of 41 and 50. Even the Indian working woman
seems to prefer seeking her parent’s permission, with 74 per
cent saying arranged marriage is better. It seems Indian men
and women are still content being tied to the umbilical cord.
Between an arranged and love marriage,
which do you think is better?
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
69% OF RESPONDENTS CLAIM THEY DID NOT HAVE SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE 
romantically or erotically
imperious and that it does
not have to prefigure marriage
but can waft in gently
afterwards, sometimes may
be years later when the couple
is well into adulthood.
Traditionally, there
were, of course, objective
conditions for the likelihood
of the couple falling in love
after marriage. The
hormonal pressure created
by enforced celibacy during
youth, and a lack of experience
with the opposite sex,
ensure that the young
person is biologically and
emotionally primed to fall in
love if the marriage partner
is even reasonably satisfactory.
In fact, arranged
marriages work best, and
perhaps can only work, if
the sexes are kept apart in
youth and if marriages take
place early, before young
men and women have had
an opportunity to compare a
range of potential partners.
But even among the metropolitan
elite, with a freer
mixing between the sexes,
the very existence of
arranged marriage puts a
mental roadblock in the way
of a young person’s, especially
a young girl’s, sexual
experimentation because of
the possible blot on her
reputation which will make
her soiled goods in the
marriage market and adversely
affect the marriage
prospects of her siblings.
Which explains why 69 per
cent of the respondents
have never had sex before
marriage and 30 per cent
confirm with their spouse if
he or she is a virgin.
As for the future, the fate
of arranged marriages
is tied to changes in our
vision of the right balance
between the demands of
the larger family and those
of the couple. Such a
change is evident. More
people (23 per cent) in
the age group of 21 to 30
have had love marriage
than in the 31 to 40 age
group. I believe there is still
room for a greater accentuation
of the couple in our
family life, a needed corrective
to the excessive “familism”,
governing our
intimate relationships. But
if the balance tilts completely,
if the couple becomes
all-conquering in
Indian imagination, then it
can become a fortress that
shuts out all other relationships.
The couple’s intimacy
can easily degenerate into a
mutual ego boosting, a joint
self-centredness. If the
dream of constituting a
two-person universe becomes
all-consuming, then
arranged marriages may
find it harder to survive.
The writer is a psychoanalyst
and author of The Indians
88% PEOPLE IN DELHI PREFER TO HAVE ARRANGED MARRIAGES
MALE FEMALE
Once in a year 32
Once in three months/more often 16
Once in six months 16
Once in two-three years 14
Less often 9
Never go out 9
27 37
19 14
18 14
14 15
9 9
10 7
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say.
How often do you go on a vacation with your family?
THE BREAKAWAY CLUB
Whereas 32 per cent respondents
go on family vacations once a year,
more females (37 per cent) than
males (27 per cent) prefer such
vacations. Ludhiana scores the
highest with 44 per cent going on
an annual holiday and Hyderabad
the lowest (22 per cent).
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
Igot married a few weeks
ago. By Indian standards,
it is late. By now I
should have been a mum
a couple of times over and
worrying about homework.
Instead, I concentrated on
my career as a publisher.
The pressure to “settle
down” began in college with
my grandmother. There
were gentle suggestions,
“Don’t delay. It won’t be
easy finding a husband.”
Later, the pressure became
worse. It had insidious ways
of making its presence felt.
One day while on a walk
with nana, we met an old
friend who by way of polite
conversation, asked if I was
settled. Before I could reply,
nana said, “She has decided
not to get married.” (I was
25.) My parents supported
me and said, “Let her finish
her studies. Then she’ll decide.”
I was relieved. My
nani and mother may have
married at the “right age,”
but I had good examples in
my great-grandmothers
who married at 27 and 28.
One of them only after she
returned from Goucher
College, Baltimore, in 1907.
Her husband was at
Mumbai port waiting for the
ship to dock with red roses.
He had waited eight years.
The pressure intensified
when I joined the workforce.
I wasn’t making “sufficient”
progress in finding
the right partner, so concerned
adults started doing
the needful. I dreaded those
unexpected dinner invitations.
Initially, I went with
the flow. Slowly it dawned
on me that this was a futile
exercise. As I grew
in my career, the silliest
excuses were used by these
prospectives to fob me off.
Then my twin brother got
married. Instead of congratulating
me, I was being
commiserated with. And
then, when I crossed the
dreaded age of 30, came the
advice. The classic was,
“You should always keep
quiet and listen to what the
man has to say.” I gave up.
This was a hellish emotional
roller-coaster ride and
distracting for my career. I
swore I wouldn’t compromise.
I hated that people
passed judgement without
getting to know me. I heard
comments like, “You are a
beautiful and competent
girl, but men get intimidated
by strong women like you.” I
disliked their assumption
that I was career-oriented
and knew no other skills. I
refused to speak about
“homely” skills as there are
more life skills than “qualifications
for being a commodity
in the marriage market”.
But I don’t regret exploring
the arranged marriage
route. From the well-settled
NRI to a “good match” in
India, I saw and met the
spectrum. The idea is to sort
out all parameters—family,
education, value systems,
tastes, personalities etc. In
India, a marriage is not between
the bride and the
groom but also between the
families. It’s a far more complicated
procedure but it did
not work for me.
Instead I found my husband
on my own. Or rather,
we found each other. Jacob
and I registered on a matrimonial
website. He decided
within two minutes of meeting
me that I was going to be
his wife. He proposed in less
than 24 hours. I was horrified
and said no. But he persisted
until I said yes. I
suppose it is appropriate for
this modern day fairy tale
that he turned out to be a
“Cavalier” as he was
knighted last year by the
Italian President. Jacob too
met many prospective
brides and was familiar and
sensitive to my situation.
It was a pleasant coincidence
that we were from the
same community and denomination,
he is “well settled”,
we live within
sneezing distance of our
families and he is not intimidated
by my career. It’s a
love marriage that was
arranged by modern technology
and is a partnership
between equals. Having explored
both routes, it is hard
to conclude which one is better.
I guess if we hadn’t been
through the arranged route
umpteen times, we wouldn’t
have been able to assess
each other swiftly. Yet, there
is a sense of peace, that we
took the decision to choose
our partner ourselves.
The writer is Managing Editor,
Journals @ Routledge, Taylor
and Francis Group
92 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
Taking the Rite Turn
THE MARRIAGE MARKET IS FRAUGHT WITH DIFFICULTIES FOR A WORKING WOMAN.
BUT HAPPY ENDINGS ARE POSSIBLE, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM TECHNOLOGY.
J a y a B h a t t a c h a r j i R o s e
[88% IN LUDHIANA SAY THEIR MARRIAGES WERE
ARRANGED WHILE 40% IN KOLKATA SAY IT WAS LOVE
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
G u e s t C o l u m n
Sex is better done than
discussed but five
brave conversationalists
decided to debate
the INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-
ORG-MARG survey and its
somewhat alarming results
on infidelity, forced sex
and post-marital anxiety.
Forty eight-year-old psychiatrist
Dr Harish Shetty, 36-
year-old former veejay Luke
Kenny, 33-year-old artist
Payal Khandwala, and
designer duo, Falguni, 31,
and Shane Peacock, 33, got
together at a roundtable,
literally, and talked about
love, sex, marriage and
everything else in between.
DEVAYANI SHAHANE listened in.
Q. Will the rise in extra
marital relationships be
the biggest challenge for
most urban relationships?
Dr Harish Shetty (HS):
Well the word extra
marital is judgmental.
Evaluating contemporary
behaviour with yesterday’s
laws is unfair. The fastgrowing,
developing world
uses the home as a sleeping
bag and the office cubicle as
a garden of courtship. Skin
to skin is no sin, it helps to
relax and truly pluralistic
relationships are polygamous.
Fidelity has many
definitions and it is an insult
to the human heart when it
is divided into categories in
a reductionist manner.
Luke Kenny (LK): There
is nothing right or wrong
about infidelity. But there is
this moral and social guilt
associated with infidelity
within an institution.The
bottom line is that human
beings are sexual animals.
Payal Khandwala (PK):
Infidelity is not the biggest
challenge here. The biggest
responsibility instead is
balancing work and home,
defining new roles for
the genders and not
succumbing to the temptation
of ‘what more’ in a
generation that is plagued
with bigger and better.
Q. If your partner philandered,
would you be able to
forgive and forget?
PK: If it was a pattern
then I’d probably walk out,
but if it was a one-off thing I
might be willing to understand
why. I might be more
likely to leave if there was
physical and mental abuse.
96 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
SE COVER STORY
Let’s Talk About Sex A PSYCHIATRIST, A FORMER VEEJAY, AN ARTIST AND A DESIGNER DUO
TALK ON INFIDELITY, NUPTIAL ANXIETY AND THE THREE-LETTER WORD
r o u n d t a b l e
Photograph SHRIYA PATIL Location courtesy: OUT OF THE BLUE, Mumbai
SURVEY
Falguni Peacock (FP): It
is very different for a
woman. But as a mature
individual I would weigh the
pros and cons of what transpired.
A major part of the
marriage would be over, but
there would be an effort on
my part to look beyond it.
LK: Having an affair is
circumstantial. But I would
analyse to see whom it was
with, the intensity, the duration
and if it was impulsive
or whether there was a
thought process to it. I
would forgive and look
beyond. It doesn’t always
have to be severance. I don’t
equate everything with sex.
Q. Love marriages pale in
comparison with arranged
marriages, with 76 per
cent of Indian men still
preferring an arranged
marriage as do 78 per cent
of women. Comment.
HS: Men still choose
their spouse through their
parents in the urban
metropolis.The market has
grown much faster than the
minds. As glass buildings
soar and multiply, a large
proportion of those occupying
it are from small towns.
The development leap in
terms of choosing the
spouse will take a generation.
Also the feudal set-up
in families still exists. So
where is the time to decide
about a spouse?
PK: We are still a highly
patriarchal society in which
major decisions are made
by heads of families. Even
people who move to big
cities from smaller ones will
take a generation or so to be
truly integrated and adopt
so-called modern philosophies.
Until then the paradigm
won’t really shift.
Q. Does the liberated and
open-minded tag of
women today go bust with
45 per cent having been
subjected to forced sex?
HS: The definition of
“forced sex” again would
mean the refusal of the
modern women to be doormats.
It is an era of ambivalence
with the transition
from blind acceptance
to reluctant refusal, where
the woman yields but with
silent protest. This is a paradigm
shift that takes a generation.
Empowerment that
comes from holding a job
takes time to influence other
areas of life and other power
equations. Hence this finding
is not surprising but reveals
a society in transition
PK: Forced sex happens
irrespective of financial
independence. It’s based on
the idea that sex is a right for
the man. It’s a power thing
and one that will remain
until the man truly considers
a woman an equal
whether she is a bread
earner or a housewife.
Q. How would you react to
your child saying he was
homosexual?
HS: I would be shocked
and it would take time to get
over it. I would try and find
out if it was an experimental
thing and seek professional
help for him. I am a father
first, and a psychiatrist later.
PK: I wouldn’t care if my
child was homosexual...as
long as he or she is happy. I
would try to make their lives
easier. I would definitely
support them, their sexual
leanings are incidental
Shane Peacock (SP): I
would accept it. It is his
or her sexual choice. I
wouldn’t like it, because
after all we want our children
to be normal.
Q. Today, is pre-marital
sex a norm, making virginity
a thing of the past?
LK: Sex is a part of development.
The entire issue of
pre-marital sex is old fashioned
and virginity is passe.
The question of wanting to
preserve yourself for someone
special doesn’t mean
anything—what if he is not
so special after all?
PK: Today women stay
single till 30 plus. They too
have needs, why should
they suppress them?
Q. Are sexual attitudes in
India still conservative?
PK: Definitely. There is
no concept of a sex shop,
and the thought of a girl
going into shop to get a
vibrator is unheard of.
LK: Experimentation
has only gone to the point of
lingerie, not beyond.
Q. Is work the only factor
taking a toll on the sex
lives of married couples?
SP: Marriage is a commitment.
It involves give
and take. There are no set
rules. Post-nuptial depression
can take place. There
is an increase in stress at
work that extra marital
affairs provide an outlet to.
HS: Post-nuptial depression
could take place when
adjustment takes a long
time, there is a delay in having
children, you are temporarily
dislocated or if you
are married against your
will. But I do not see too
much of this, I see more distress
than depression.
Those who have a meaningful
vocation and a support
system around them will
live through this.
98 INDIA TODAY u NOVEMBER 5, 2007
41% OF WOMEN SAY THEY WATCH PORN WITH HUSBANDS
DR HARISH SHETTY 48
SOCIAL PSYCHIATRIST,
From Mumbai. Father
of two teenage boys.
PAYAL KHANDWALA 33
ARTIST, has shown in
galleries in India and
abroad. Is to marry soon.
LUKE KENNY 36
FORMER VJ, writer-producer
and fledgling director.
In a live-in relationship.
FALGUNI PEACOCK 31 &
SHANE PEACOCK 33
DESIGNERS, they specialise
in trousseau wear and
custom-made garments.
Parents of a six-year old,
they have been married
for seven years.
“EXPERIMENTATION HAS ONLY GONE TO THE
POINT OF LINGERIE.” [ LUKE KENNY
FORMER VJ AND PRODUCER
SE COVER STORY
SURVEY
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46% single
16-25-year-old
males have
had sex, 10%
higher than the
2004 survey
OFTEN HYPOCRITICAL,
OBSESSED WITH HIS
LOOKS, SEXUALLY SMUG
AND QUIETLY
HOMOEROTIC, THE SINGLE
YOUNG URBAN MALE IS
SURPRISINGLY STANDARD,
ACROSS BIG CITIES AND
SMALL. AN AVID CONSUMER
OF PORNOGRAPHY,
HE HAS A RICH FANTASY
LIFE, EVEN THOUGH HIS
PEER GROUP IS DOMINATED
BY MALES AND HIS
DEPENDENCE ON PARENTS
SUBSTANTIAL.
CORBIS

and urban sites determine who your
girlfriend is. In terms of introduction to
women, the peer group, trends, neighbourhood,
and college score over family.
Family is a poor fifth as a trigger for
introductions though it is as high as 33
per cent for Chennai, 26 per cent for
Hyderabad and 27 per cent for
Bangalore. The Internet is nibbling its
way in as a gigantic meeting place, responsible
as it is for 15 per cent of introductions
in Hyderabad and 16 per
cent in Ahmedabad. Yet, when it
comes to female friends dropping in for
a visit, the nays still dominate, Mumbai
being the only city bucking the trend.
Technology is driving relationships,
with people using
phones, SMSes and e-mails to
communicate. Cards appear
to be history. The telecommunications
and sexual revolutions are mutually
sustaining: the SIM card and the Single
Young Male (SYM) are perfect fits. The
three major topics for discussion are
movies, studies and fashion. Discussion
of sex with female friends ranks sixth
except in Delhi, which tops the trend in
sharing lewd jokes with women. The
priority of topics discussed with males
does not differ much from those
discussed with females, an indication
of media influence.
If peer groups are for fun, parents
are for serious issues. It is as if there is
geography to conversational topics.
Money worries and career woes figure
in domestic conversations, while peer
groups focus on the frivolous. The single
young man in public may be a glib
achiever, but with his parents, he can
be himself—unsure about his career
or troubled about money. But how
does the domestic space deal with the
inevitable intrusions? There is an
opening here that must be emphasised.
Parents seem to be fairly liberal
about relationships but 66 per cent object
to late nights. Ahmedabad reflects
a certain parental laxity at 49 per cent.
Except in Chennai, Ahmedabad and
Jaipur, men feel women in their home
have almost equal rights. Either as a
fact or perception, such an idea
remains interesting.
Equality, at least in the commercial
sense, is extended to men feeling quite
comfortable with women paying or
sharing costs. The ambit of consump-
38 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
YES NO
51
In 2005, in contrast, only 24 per cent
single women between the ages of 18 and
30 in the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG
survey had had sex.
46
Have you ever
had sex?
SEX SURVEY: 16-25-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MEN
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Do you expect the woman you marry to
be a virgin?
YES NO
63 24 All figures in per cent.
Rest: Does not matter/Don’t
know/Can’t say
In the 2005 survey of
single women, 66 per cent
agreed, saying women
should remain virgins till
they are married.
At what age did you
first have sex?
In the 2005 survey of single women, 42 per
cent said they had their first sexual
encounter between the ages of 19 and 21.
LESS THAN 15 YEARS 11
16-18 YEARS 41
18-21 YEARS 36
22-25 YEARS 12
All figures in per cent
PHOTOGRAPH BY BANDEEP SINGH, LOCATION COURTESY INTERCONTINENTAL NEHRU PLACE
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
The average age of first sexual encounter for
men has come down from 23 in 2004 to 18. 
tion also seems clear. The average
budget when going out with friends
ranges from Rs 100-150. There is no
radical shift between the North and the
South. Regardless of status, men are
ready to spend. The relationship between
boys and girls may not revolutionise
sex, but it is going to stimulate
retail therapy.
So what do boys do to attract girls?
The rituals of attraction hover around
grooming. One needs a self constructed
out of prominent brands to
stand out. Even body-building is more
an act of cultural affirmation, emerging
out of the collective wisdom of
gyms and VLCC. While conspicuous consumption
and good grooming ease the
mating game, one needs to smoke,
drink and throw parties to attract the
attention of girls. Behaving roughly
qualifies as an “attractor”, but percentages
are down except in Chennai.
40 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
What do you think about pre-marital sex?
Small towns Ludhiana and
Lucknow are the most
liberal, with as many as 60
per cent and 54 per cent,
respectively, saying their
thoughts on pre-marital sex
depended on the level of
commitment.
In the 2005 survey of single young women, 46 per cent were against pre-marital sex,
but 33 per cent were open about having sex with a person they were not in love with.
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent.
Rest Don’t know/Can’t say
In INDIA TODAY’s 2004 survey of 18-55-
year-old men, 51 per cent thought sex
was very important, while 77 per cent
had had sex—understandable given
the wider age span.
Thirty-four per cent of the single women
surveyed in 2005 said sex was important
to them and 26 per cent thought it was
very important. Twenty-eight per cent
were indifferent to it.
DEPENDS ON COMMITMENT 42
PERFECTLY FINE 26
WRONG 26
VERY IMPORTANT 47
IMPORTANT 33
INDIFFERENT 12
NOT IMPORTANT 4
How important is
sex in your life?
65% in Delhi
have sex once
a week or
more often
Photo: BANDEEP SINGH; Models: SHRUTI SETHI, AMIT TOKAS
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
Men generally hang around other
men, with Patna and Ludhiana more
prone to stag crowds and Bangalore
and Mumbai preferring mixed groups.
Ahmedabad again is the odd one out,
with crowds being disproportionately
female. When men are together they
haunt spaces like restaurants and
malls. When the sexes are mixed, the
park becomes a prominent refuge,
second only to the restaurant. The
friend’s place is another alternative to
take your girlfriend to. Home is still one
solution, with Mumbai and Lucknow
seeing it as a major option.
Enabled by technology, young men
are still circumscribed by society. Fear
of being seen with a girlfriend is not a
problem for Bangaloreans. What they
object to is being stared at. Fear of
manhandling by the moral police is
highest in Delhi (32 per cent) and
Hyderabad (26 per cent).
Now comes the inevitable question.
Who do men consider the sexiest
woman? The selection is predictable,
but it makes you wonder whether sexiness
is partly a construct of the media.
But let’s face it. North, South, East,
West, Aishwarya Rai is the sexiest. The
only threats come from Delhi and
Ludhiana, where Bipasha Basu has a
42 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
Summing it Up
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG Sex Survey 2006 was done to
understand the sexuality of the young Indian male. The survey was
conducted among men in the age group of 16-25 to delve deeper into
the sexuality of the unmarried man. We covered his sexual preferences and
attitudes as also socio-cultural factors which help shape that attitude—his
interaction with the opposite sex, his friends, his family and his economic
behaviour. With a robust sample size of 2,559 males across 11 cities (Delhi,
Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Patna,
Ludhiana, Kolkata and Chennai), street-corner sampling was used to find respondents.
These respondents were asked to complete a self-administered
questionnaire, which was put in a ballot box by him to ensure anonymity.
T H E F I G U R E S S O F A R
2003: SEX AND THE INDIAN WOMAN
India’s first ever, comprehensive, all-female survey that looked at a
woman’s basic instincts involved house-to-house interviews and central
location tests with 2,305 unmarried, married and separated women
between 19 and 50 across 10 cities. Though 66 per cent of the respondents
said sex was important to them, 85 per cent said they first had sex after
marriage, 87 per cent had never had kinky sex, 75 per cent had never masturbated
and 81 per cent had never had extramarital sex. Yet, 58 per cent
said they knew at least one woman who had had an extramarital affair.
2004: WHAT MEN WANT
The survey of 2,499 married and unmarried men between 18 and 55 was
conducted across 11 cities. Eighty-nine per cent said sex was important to
them, 54 per cent had not had sex before marriage and 72 per cent expected
the women they married to be virgins. Even more alarmingly, 40 per cent
thought condoms should not be used because they affected pleasure.
However, a majority were sensitive to their partners’ fulfilment.
2005: SEX AND THE SINGLE WOMAN
To understand the sexuality of the urban Indian unmarried woman, the
survey was conducted among 2,035 single women across 11 cities, between
the ages 18 and 30. One in four admitted to having had a sexual relationship
and one-third were comfortable with having sex with a man they were
not in love with. Over a quarter of the women surveyed had had their first
sexual experience by the time they turned 18.
YES NO
19 81
Do you personally
own any credit
card?
YES NO
71 29
All figures in
per cent
YES NO
19 81
All figures in
per cent
YES NO
44 56
All figures in
per cent
Do you visit a health
club, fitness centre
or gym on a regular
basis?
All figures in per cent
Do you personally
use a mobile?
Are you or anyone in
your family a
member of any club?
All figures in per cent
ONCE A MONTH 21
ONCE A WEEK 20
MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK 15
DO NOT EAT OUT AT ALL 5
How often, if at
all, do you eat out
at restaurants?
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
considerable following. Mallika
Sherawat, a favourite in Lucknow and
Patna, is a happy third. Almost disloyally,
the category “my girl friend” polls
an average of five, endearing but marginal.
When it comes to the sexiest
man, it is John Abraham doing well
except in Hyderabad. The hunks dominate
the list, with Hrithik Roshan,
Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar in
the top 10. New-age men like Aamir
Khan, Abhishek Bachchan and Shah
Rukh Khan still hold their place, and
Amitabh Bachchan leads the rear
guard at ninth position.
From sexiness to sex. The latter is
considered important across the
cities. The all-India average rests at 47
per cent for “very important” and 33
per cent for “important”. It is a
normality that is assuring. Hyderabad
responds with a thumping 66 per cent
saying sex is very important, while in
Lucknow, a good 23 per cent profess
to be indifferent.
In attitudes and values, we stumble
across the great hypocrisy reef of
India. The modern Indian man—as
many as 80 per cent in Hyderabad and
Do you believe in
equal pleasure
for men and
women in bed?
YES NO
67 20
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
In 2005, 63 per cent of the single women
surveyed believed in equal pleasure for
men and women in bed.
In Chennai, 33% men were
introduced to girls by their families
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
How did you come
in contact with the
girls in your
friends’ circle?
IN COLLEGE 56
IN SCHOOL 38
THROUGH COMMON FRIENDS 36
LIVED IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 31
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more
than 100 because of multiple choices.
VERY OFTEN 35
OCCASIONALLY 31
SELDOM 19
NEVER 13
How often do you
call your female
friends or get phone
calls from them?
92% single
young men in
Mumbai use a
mobile phone
44 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
HEMANT CHAWLA
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
Chennai—expects the woman he marries
to be a virgin. The duality persists.
When asked about pre-marital sex,
men seem willing as long as there is a
sense of commitment. Yet when asked
if they would marry a woman who admits
to having pre-marital sex, they
produce a resounding no. Mumbai
crosses the dissonance barrier, with 21
per cent saying yes. Most men add
rather cleverly that women often confuse
sex with commitment. The only
deviant response is Hyderabad, where
49 per cent don’t think so.
The survey probes further, trying to
understand where the sex appeal of a
woman lies. The answers go beyond the
predictable notion of beauty and identify
other factors like intelligence and
sexual skills. Chennai and Hyderabad
produce a smacker with 12 per cent
identifying sex appeal with submissiveness.
Small deviations can be seen in
Ahmedabad and Ludhiana, where 32
per cent and 40 per cent, respectively,
are ready to date or marry a much older
woman. Pornography is considered
good occasionally. Yet, most men would
not tell their girlfriends that they had a
one-night stand. Delhi is the only city
that breaks the hypocrite’s code.
There is a general equation
between revealing clothes and sexual
liberation. Only Lucknow and
Ahmedabad challenge this. Then there
is a general vote for equal pleasure for
men and women and a large aye for
condom use. The average age of the
first sexual encounter is dropping,
most men being initiated between 16
and 20, but with whom is a big question,
with the 2005 INDIA TODAY survey
of single young women showing that
46 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
Do your parents object
to your mixing with
female friends? YES NO
36 56
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
more than 100 because of multiple choices.
How do you keep
in touch with your
friends?
In Patna, 61 per cent think women who
wear revealing clothes are sexually
liberated. Delhi and Mumbai follow, with
58 per cent saying so.
25% discuss relationships and
affairs with their mothers
Do your parents
object to your staying
out late at night?
YES NO
66 30
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
PIYAL BHATTACHARJEE
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
PHONE CALLS 83
SMS 53
E-MAILS 26
FORWARDS 21
only 24 per cent had had sex. Men are
possessive about the women they have
had sex with. Most men confess to
some homosexual experience—37 per
cent have had at least one such experience—
but rarely talk about it.
Most are happy with their sexual
experiences but feel upset about sex
when it gets repetitive with the same
woman or if the woman shows emotional
expectations. A large percentage
feel they can impose their need for
sex regardless of their girlfriend’s
mood. Men are content with penis size
and insist that a majority of their
women have orgasms. A large fraction
seems to have engaged in group sex
and 11 per cent seem bisexual, with
Hyderabad revealing a high of 24 per
cent. Men prefer long foreplay with different
towns itemising different priorities.
A happy unity in diversity, not
really kinky, but may be a bit too content
about performance.
At least 49 per cent confess to at
least one encounter with sex workers.
As far as experimentation goes, sex in
front of a mirror or in cars seems common.
Disconcertingly, 14 per cent claim
to have had sex with family members.
So this is the single young urban
Indian male, homogeneous across
cities big and small, content about his
performance, openly hypocritical and
often contradictory. Cities, rather than
adding to sexual diversity, add homogeneity.
The survey sees sex as consumption
and even though 81 per cent
do not have credit cards, 56 per cent go
to gyms and 71 per cent have mobile
phones. The SYM does not really surprise
you, but with technology, urbanism
and consumption providing the
real triggers of sexuality, a slow standardisation
is afoot. The young man is
still not a man in full, unable to resolve
his sexual identity with the multiple
roles ahead: that of good son, great
buddy and a responsible adult. Placidly
confused today, he looks headed for
moral dilemmas tomorrow.
The writer is a cultural anthropologist.
48 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
Who are the sexiest man and woman in the film industry?
17 13
THE OTHER HOTTIES
MEN
Aamir Khan 10
Hrithik Roshan 8
Salman Khan 8
Abhishek Bachchan 7
Akshay Kumar 6
Shah Rukh Khan 5
Ajay Devgan 4
Amitabh Bachchan 4
Aftab Shivdasani 3
WOMEN
Bipasha Basu 13
Mallika Sherawat 10
Kareena Kapoor 5
Priyanka Chopra 5
Kajol 4
Amisha Patel 3
Esha Deol 3
Lara Dutta 3
Madhuri Dixit 3
AISHWARYA
RAI
JOHN
ABRAHAM
In Patna, 27 per cent think
Abraham is the sexiest man,
while 37 per cent in Hyderabad
think Rai is the sexiest woman.
46% in Ahmedabad are put off by
repeated sex with the same woman
HT/ RAJ K.RAJ
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
There was a time in the 1970s
when the catch phrase “youth
of India” signified a moral
force which, properly harnessed,
could be used—rather like big
dams—for the sake of the nation. While
not explicitly stated, it was clear that
this youthful moral force was all-male.
The youth themselves were neither
expected nor encouraged to give direction
to the country. That was still the
work of the khadi-clad “grown-ups”.
Today, Indians under 25 are
expected to rip through economic and
social barriers on a cultural bull run
and shape India’s future—immediately,
dramatically and on a global scale. The
matadors of modernity are a band of
well-groomed young men who can
party while striking tech-savvy deals.
Young women are included, but only
those who buy washing machines and
microwaves on Diwali and raise their
children on sunflower oil, emerging as
a new breed of family-friendly consumers.
The new youth of India lay
claim to a novel imaginary vision—the
great Indian shoppers’ stop where even
babies are consumers, expressing deep
contentment with branded nappies and
sleeping like munna rajas when silent
air-conditioners are switched on. The
youth of such a glorious desh are an
enchanted lot, flashing their credit
cards, hanging out in malls and
markets and wooing their sweethearts
with expensive gifts.
As always, reality is a bit grimmer.
Eighty-one per cent young men in
metros and small towns don’t personally
own credit cards. If any cards are
flaunted, they’re probably add-ons with
parents keeping a watch on credit
limits. Boys chill out in malls but rarely
spend more than a couple of hundred
rupees when they’re hanging out with
friends, though they’ll spend double
that amount when they go out with
their girlfriends.
Far from being big-spending decision
makers, young men are still in the
thrall of parental diktat. Parents disapprove
of late nights, impose prohibitions
on who can and cannot come
home for a visit, provide mobile
phones, but discourage calls from girls.
Almost 70 per cent of young men under
the age of 22 rarely, if ever, receive calls
from or make calls to female friends.
Sixteen to 18-year-olds in smaller cities
like Patna and Ludhiana are most
constrained, though a high percentage
of parents in the globalising metros of
Bangalore and Hyderabad object to
their sons mixing with girls. You’d
think that lounge bars and fast food
outlets of urban landscapes are symbols
of transformed gender relations.
However, even in bigger metros, mixedgender
groups are only half as likely as
single gendered ones.
Most young men meet girls in
college, though the boys in Chennai are
as likely to have met girls who live in the
same neighbourhood or girls who’ve
been introduced by family members.
Chennai neighbourhoods may be more
homogeneous in terms of caste affiliations
and the girl-next-door is considered
an appropriate friend. It’s clear that
families in India don’t liberate children
easily. A 25-year-old may be an earning
professional but he preserves parental
values. He’d want to marry a woman
who is a virgin, and while he may exchange
a dirty joke or two with female
friends, sex is hardly discussed.
Cherishing common values does not
translate into mutual candour between
parents and sons. Small-town mums are
50 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
cover story SEX SURVEY THE FEMALE FACTOR
Do your female
friends come home
to visit?
YES NO
While 56 per cent—and as many as 69
per cent in Kolkata—say their parents
do not object to their mixing with female
friends, 66 per cent say their parents
disapprove of staying out late at night.
43 54 All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
¦ By Radhika Chopra
Looking for Love
SEX SURVEY: 16-25-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MEN
UNABLE TO BREAK FREE OF PARENTAL CONTROL AND BATTLING
SEGREGATION, THE CONFUSED YOUNG MAN IS UP AGAINST THE ETERNAL
BRIDGET JONES QUESTION, BUT WITH A TWIST: WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?
NOVEMBER 13, 2006 . INDIA TODAY 51
PEOPLE STARING 37
FEAR OF BEING SEEN 25
PEOPLE EAVESDROPPING 22
MORAL POLICE 15
TEASING BY ROWDIES 12
YES NO
43 52
YES NO
45 46
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to more
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say than 100 due to multiple choices.
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Do you think women in your home have the same freedom as you?
What are the
privacy issues you
have faced when
out with your
girlfriend?
30% say they would tell their
partners about one-night stands
In the 2005 INDIA TODAY survey of single women,
a similar percentage (71) said they would not
marry a man who admits to having had an
intimate relationship with another woman.
YES NO
17 74
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Will you marry a
woman who admits
to having had premarital
sex with one
or few partners?
Have you ever made
a lewd comment
about a woman/girl?
Consistent with the 2004 INDIA TODAY male
survey, 77 per cent of the young men said
no. But over 80 per cent in Kolkata, Lucknow
and Ludhiana say they would not marry
women who have had pre-marital sex.
NEVER 33
OCCASIONALLY 25
VERY OFTEN 20
SELDOM 19
How often do you
share dirty jokes
with female friends?
PHOTOGRAPH BY HEMANT CHAWLA, LOCATION: POOLSIDE, HOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL NEHRU PLACE

fairly sensitive about the personal problems
of their betas, but overall, mothers
seem more concerned about money
and career issues. Fathers focus on careers
and money matters as well, with
the exception of those in Chennai and
Lucknow who do seem to think about
their sons’ personal problems. Even for
such fathers, “personal problems”
don’t include affairs gone awry.
A muddled young man turns to his
all-male group of friends with whom
he stays in constant touch, phoning
and messaging to discuss dilemmas,
fashion and movies. The group is
clearly fostered on a spirit of egalitarian
give-and-take. Pornography is
exchanged within the group like
cigarettes and coffee, bringing boys together
in a shared circle of friendship.
Almost 50 per cent discuss sex and relationships
with their male friends.
The big question for young men is:
where are the girls? In the 1980s and
the early 1990s, before Indians systematically
plugged into global lifestyles
and everything from consumer spendcover
story SEX SURVEY THE FEMALE FACTOR
Since Partition, when hungry-for-success refugees redefined its working
culture, Ludhiana has been an all-time incubator of rags-to-riches stories
and a trendsetter in ceaseless consumerism. Fancy cars and fairy
tale marriages are its defining leitmotif. But, behind the flashy veneer lies
its alternative reality—that of a consummate fantasy land, as is evident in
the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG annual survey of sexuality. Its flirtation
with money-powered modernity notwithstanding, its young singletons are
firmly wedded to traditional values—a subterranean streak confirmed by
81 per cent young men saying they
won’t marry a woman who is not a
virgin. Despite its brush with metropolitan
status, Ludhiana is still a
‘little big place’ with a closely-knit
society. “The city doesn’t afford any
anonymity for its young crowd to
experiment with liberal ideas like
dating,” says Neha Kapoor, a 20-
year-old college student.
A rich fantasy life—48 per cent
have had sex in front of a mirror and
32 per cent have had sex in a car—
stems from the scarcity of public
space and opportunities for the
young generation to hang out. It also
explains the dominance of pornography:
78 per cent, the highest
across cities, share pornographic
films with friends. The city has no
discotheque, just four pubs and only
one air-conditioned movie theatre.
The absence of a co-educational college and a small population of working
women are other barriers to inter-sex interaction. Little wonder then
that Ludhiana has the highest percentage of all-male buddies (70 per cent).
A majority of marriages are still arranged—especially as the youth in business
families are financially dependent on their parents. Boys and girls now
interact more freely, but the degree of intimacy is still bound by patriarchal
values. Two-thirds of the respondents report that their parents object to late
nights and an equal number say that women don’t come home to visit them.
Ludhiana has, in the past decade-and-a-half, seen a new crop of successful
entrepreneurs. The overnight affluence and the resulting occasional
deviations from well-entrenched taboos are triggering brash and criminal
behaviour. In June this year, a Britain-educated son of a leading business
family was killed allegedly for his relationship with a girl from abroad and
his gunshot-riddled body was recovered from Himachal Pradesh.
While Ludhiana’s social ethos dictates suppressed sexuality, its fastgrowing
glitterati is manifesting its fantasies in exhibitionist consumerism.
Over 80 per cent, again the highest across cities, say they are well-groomed
to attract women. From importing orchids to hiring Bollywood stars,
Ludhiana’s weddings are the ultimate indulgence. Of the 600-odd DJs in the
city, at least a dozen command more than Rs 1 lakh per performance.The
cash for consumable culture extends to even sex: 63 per cent, the highest
across the nation, have been with a sex worker. by Ramesh Vinayak
Where Cash Meets
Conservatism THE CITY OF LUDHIANA
IS ALL ABOUT DUALISM
70% men in
Ludhiana have
had sex, but 67%
can’t bring home
female friends
ZUBIN CHANAKYA BHAMBI
FANTASY LAND:
Youngsters at a
Ludhiana disco
ing to sexual attitudes allegedly
changed, a girlfriend was an incredible
but improbable miracle. Now, friends
smoothen the progress of love, acting
as helpful intermediaries.
The general lack of girls in a lad’s
life probably stems from gender
segregation that is evident in smaller
towns, but also present in some form
in emerging metros. Segregation
creates its own power regimes. Boys
below 18 demonstrate their manhood
by passing lewd comments on girls.
Men in Hyderabad and Bangalore are
as likely to harass a woman as those
in Ludhiana and Delhi. The
conversion of public space into danger
zones isn’t just a problem for women.
For young men, being with a girl in
public spaces becomes a trial, an ordeal
created for men by men. This
hostility towards love that makes gender-
mixing a hassle is the fountainhead
of the clash between the young
Indian male’s familial proclivities and
his camouflaged love life.
The writer is a sociologist.
54 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
cover story SEX SURVEY THE FEMALE FACTOR
Surprisingly, a large percentage of
men in towns like Jaipur and Ludhiana are
open to dating older women.
YES NO
27 63
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
YES NO
50 39
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Would you marry or
date a woman much
older to you in age?
Do you think women
who wear revealing
clothes are sexually
liberated?
How possessive are
you about your
sexual partner?
61% in Patna
think revealing
clothes are a
sign of liberation
EXTREMELY POSSESSIVE 38
POSSESSIVE 40
NOT POSSESSIVE 11
All figures in
per cent.
Rest: Don’t
know/Can’t
say
Are you happy with
your sex life?
In the 2004 survey of 18-55-year-old
males, 56 per cent said they were very
happy with their sex lives. Sexual satisfaction
is not the only thing that has come
down in this year’s survey. The number of
men who have sex every day has dropped
from 20 per cent to 10.
In the 2005 survey, women fared better:
47 per cent were very happy with their sex
lives, 28 per cent were reasonably happy and
19 per cent were just about satisfied.
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
42% in Delhi do not expect the
girls they marry to be virgins
Do you think
girls/women
take sex too
seriously and
confuse it
with commitment?
YES
53
NO
27
VERY HAPPY 39
REASONABLY HAPPY 23
JUST ABOUT SATISFIED 25
NOT AT ALL 7
Photo: BANDEEP SINGH; Model: AKUNUO KHEZI
Consider that you are a young,
unmarried man living in a
city and you are given a set of
questions on sex that you can
answer anonymously. I
would wager that some answers would
tap into your fantasy, some will reflect
interesting facts about the social milieu
within which you take your pleasures
and still others will be the artifacts of
the very questions that have been
asked. Sexual behaviour is notoriously
difficult to research as most public
health researchers writing on old and
new sexually transmitted diseases are
discovering. Yet there is a fascination
with the lives of the young and a great
emotional investment in them on the
part of policy makers, religious leaders
and, of course, parents.
But let us not jump to the question
of morals too quickly on the basis of the
survey on male sexuality. Let us instead
treat the results of the INDIA TODAY
survey as a lens with which to see
conflicting desires, self-creation and
the mediated environment in which
urban youth in India live today. The
world that the young inhabit is not that
of their parents. The futures they are
creating are paths they must learn to
walk without the shadows of their
elders constantly looming behind them.
The young too will learn in time that
sexuality is not only about stolen pleasures
but also about self-formation,
about intimacy and carrying the risks
of intimacy—for human beings can
pose great dangers to each other and
never more than when they are sexually
intimate and “in love”.
By definition, surveys can provide a
surface understanding of a phenomena
and they can tell us about the dimensions
of a problem. It is obvious from
this survey that the environment of a
city has a strong influence on sexual
attitudes. The city provides conditions
under which young men can meet
young women in ordinary settings such
as colleges, and explore the possibilities
of forming relationships. There is
strong evidence of the changes in the
communication environment of the
young. Though there are some differences
between the larger, more
cosmopolitan cities in the use of the
Internet, a very large number (two out
of three) use mobile phones to keep in
touch. Movies and television provide
not only images but also topics of
conversation. Much of the language of
love is usually taken from cinema.
The differences between social
classes on the topics of sexual pleasures
are marginal—the media has
created publics in which all social
classes participate. This impression is
confirmed by reality shows on television.
The Indian Idol could be a young
man hailing from a small town who
speaks no English, but in the course of
the competition his body language is
slowly transformed to suggest that he
is a “sexy” person with an appeal for a
widely dispersed audience. The role of
such public spectacles in creating a
picture of a non-threatening sexuality—
the boy swinging his hips and
singing an alluring song surrounded by
kin—is important. The camera often
focuses on the face of an anxious
mother and the contestants touching
the feet of the “guru”, or the judge,
suitably inscribing the idea of “tradition”
within song and dance.
I would be cautious in interpreting
the results of questions about the frequency
of sexual experience, or the positions
adopted or questions about
56 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006 DESPITE RAMPANT RESTRICTIONS, YOUNG MEN FIND EXTRAORDINARY WAYS
TO BE WITH YOUNG WOMEN. THEY WANT AN INVOLVEMENT BEYOND INTERCOURSE
AND INTIMACY OUTSIDE THE BEDROOM. SEX, BUT ALSO LOVE.
¦ By Veena Das
From a mere 38 per cent
in the 2004 INDIA TODAY
survey on male sexuality,
the number of men who
think a condom is a must
use during sex has gone
up significantly.
What do you think
about condom use?
MUST USE 53
SPOILS PLEASURE 15
DOESN’T AFFECT PLEASURE 12
NEVER USE 10
Basic Instincts cover story SEX SURVEY THE ACT

NOVEMBER 13, 2006 . INDIA TODAY 57
YES NO
30 56
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent.
Rest Don’t know/Can’t say
There hasn’t been much of a diversion from
the 2004 male survey, which revealed that 16
per cent considered it very important, 18 per
cent said it was important, and 28 per cent
said it wasn’t so important.
60% young men in Ahmedabad
think oral sex is important
Would you tell your
girlfriend/partner if
you had a casual
one-night stand?
In the 2005 INDIA TODAY survey of single
women, 57 per cent preferred
extended foreplay, while only 24 per
cent preferred quick sex.
BEAUTY 40
BRAINS 15
POSITIVE ATTITUDE 15
SEXUAL SKILLS 13
All figures in per cent
In the 2004 survey of men, 21 per cent
said a woman’s sex appeal lay in her
positive outlook towards life, while 34
per cent voted for beauty.
How important is
oral sex for you?
VERY IMPORTANT 15
IMPORTANT 20
NOT SO IMPORTANT 25
DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL 22
All figures in per cent.
Rest Don’t know/Can’t say
EXTENDED FOREPLAY 51
DEPENDS ON SITUATION 28
QUICK SEX 17
What do you
prefer—long
sexual encounters
or quickie sex?
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
SEX SURVEY: 16-25-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MEN
Where do you feel
the sex appeal of a
woman lies?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
How often do you
have sex?
There’s a clear gap. In the 2005
INDIA TODAY survey of single women,
as many as 64 per cent said they
had sex only once in a month or two.
DAILY 10
MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK 14
ONCE A WEEK 18
ONCE IN A MONTH OR TWO 42
NEVER 4
YES NO
43 45
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Do you boast or lie
about your sexual
encounters?
Which is your
favourite position?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/ Can’t say
In 2005, only 15 per cent women voted
for the woman on top, while 38 per cent
preferred the conventional man on top.
Does your girlfriend
tell you that you
are only interested
in sex?
In the 2004 male survey, 63 per cent men said they had never had sex with a sex worker.
Among unmarried men, however, the percentage was lower at 48.
YES NO
49 43
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Have you had sex
with a sex worker
or a call girl?
MAN ON TOP 41
WOMAN ON TOP 28
REAR ENTRY 12
SIDEWAYS 9
SITTING 5
ALWAYS 18
OFTEN 17
SOMETIMES 32
NEVER 30
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
cover story SEX SURVEY THE ACT
When and where
have you had sex?
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
more than 100 due to multiple choices.
In 2004, 59 per cent men said they had sex
at night in the bedroom, just 18 per cent
had sex any time, anywhere, and 13 per
cent had sex on Sundays and holidays.
ANY TIME, ANYWHERE 34
AT NIGHT IN THE BEDROOM 33
ON SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS 32
IN AFTERNOONS DURING BREAK 16
EARLY MORNINGS 15

experimental sex. Sometimes when
you give choices in a questionnaire
such as the ones given here (for example,
asking if you ever have sex before
a mirror) you might tap into a
fantasy or even provide a picture of
what sex could be rather than what it
is in someone’s life. Yet, I am quite
impressed that even as a thought
experiment about whether a woman
who is not a virgin would be acceptable
as a wife, about one-fourth of the
young men reported they would have
no objections. This suggests that the -
distinction between the good woman
(one who is good to marry) and the bad
woman (one who is good to have sex
with) might be loosening. And this is
encouraging.
There are some issues that come
up in this survey which alarm me. For
example, the sexual liberation
movement, or as some would say, the
sexual revolution of the 1960s, became
severely strained by the realisation
by feminists that sexual liberation
was less about a radical alternative to
rigid norms of sexuality and more
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
What do you fear
most in your
sexual life?
66% men in
Bangalore
have sex just
once in a
month or two
Have you tried any
of these?
All figures in per cent. Figures don’t add
up to 100 due to multiple choices. YES NO
14 82
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Have you ever
had sexual
intercourse with
a member of
your family?
SEXUAL DISEASE 27
DISLOYALTY 25
PREMATURE EJACULATION 16
IMPOTENCE 7
NOTHING 19
Do you insist on
having sex with
your girlfriend even
when she is not in
the mood?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
HER MOOD DOESN’T MATTER 18
VERY OFTEN 12
SOMETIMES 32
NEVER 32
SEX BEFORE A MIRROR 25
SEX IN A CAR 21
SEX IN THE OPEN 16
SEX ON DINING TABLE 12
SEX ON A TRAIN 9
NONE OF THE ABOVE 38
Fifty-three per cent of the single young
women surveyed in 2005 said they were
afraid of AIDS. Fifty-one per cent thought a
condom was a must-use during sex.
MODELS: SHRUTI SETHI, AMIT TOKAS
about making women’s bodies much
more available without any attendant
responsibilities on men. The second
event was the spread of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic. It alarms me that those who
design surveys do not think beyond
cursory questions about the dangers
of unprotected sex. Any probing questions,
except one on same-sex experiences,
are usually ignored. The media
might have contributed to the creation
of an environment in which
these issues are allowed to be eclipsed
while sexuality is made to appear as
completely devoid of any threat.
However, the increased awareness
about condom use—over 50 per cent
men think it is a must—is reassuring.
For the past several years I
have been researching the
nature of social networks in
urban neighbourhoods in
Delhi. It has given me an opportunity
to see how images of male sexuality
created in this highly mediated
environment circulate within locally
embedded publics. In low-income
areas in the city, groups of young men
who have dropped out of school because
they could not cope with
English and Maths roam around in
small groups, repeatedly discussing
ways of becoming rich. Parents of
adolescent girls consider these young
men to be a great danger to their
daughters and so restrict the movement
of girls in all sorts of ways.
Still, many alliances develop in the
neighbourhoods. There have been
cases where a girl has eloped with a
boy only to be “returned” after a couple
of years. Cases of rape against
young men are sometimes filed in
courts by the parents in connivance
with the police simply to punish a boy
for having had an affair with their
daughter. Sometimes love flourishes
across the boundaries of religion and
caste. Such young people seek the
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent. Figures don’t add up
to 100 due to multiple choices.
What puts you off
about sex with a
woman?
In 2005, 31 per cent single women
were put off by men’s inability to
understand their expectations.
In 2004, only 25 per cent had tried oral sex
and 34 per cent had tried none.
What do you prefer
in foreplay?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
ALWAYS 42
MOST OF THE TIME 26
SOMETIMES 17
DOESN’T MATTER 7
Do you make sure
that your girlfriend
has an orgasm?
KISSING 66
MASSAGE 42
UNDRESSING YOUR PARTNER 39
LOOKING AT BODY PARTS 36
WATCHING A BLUE FILM 16
HER DISINTEREST IN SEX 31
SEX WITH THE SAME WOMAN 27
HER EMOTIONAL EXPECTATION 21
HER BODY ODOUR 11
cover story SEX SURVEY THE ACT
ORAL SEX 43
ANAL SEX 32
GROUP SEX 18
BISEXUAL SEX 11
NONE 23
Which of these have
you tried?
protection of courts to register civil
marriages but are often chased by
relatives and political functionaries of
the RSS on the one hand and Jamaat
activists on the other, and by the police
to “recover’ the girl on behalf of her
parents. Yet I have also seen
extraordinary ways young people devise
to try to be together and in some
cases parents try to acknowledge the
genuine desire of a young boy or girl
to live with the one he or she loves. As
one Hindu woman explaining to me
why she was happy to have her son
and his Muslim bride live with her in a
joint family, said, “There are many
people who will carry forward the
Hindu tradition, but my child is my
child—how can I take away his
happiness?” I will let her words carry
the weight of my belief that in such
small acts of love we might learn to
endorse the simple idea that sexual
life is to be cherished as evidence of
our ability to care for the other.
The writer is an anthropologist.
In the 2005 survey of single women, 82
per cent had never masturbated, and
86 per cent had never masturbated in
front of their partners.
How often do you
masturbate?
Do you masturbate
in front of your
partner?
YES NO
36 59
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
YES NO
18 69
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Is your sexual
partner concerned
about penis size?
67% in Patna always make sure
their girlfriends have an orgasm
YES NO
24 72
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
Have you ever
tried girlfriend
swapping?
In the 2005 survey, 86 per cent
women said they had not tried
swapping boyfriends.
While 41 per cent between 16 and 18 of
age say yes, only 31 per cent between
the ages of 23 and 25 seem willing.
DAILY 9
MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK 20
OCCASIONALLY 38
NEVER 25
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know, Can’t say
Do you give oral sex
to your partner?
ALWAYS 16
OFTEN 15
SOMETIMES 26
NEVER 38
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know, Can’t say

S T E P 1
THE PHONE CALL
Modern love is nothing without the cell
phone. SMS, often considered a discreet
icebreaker, is used by 53 per cent of the
boys, while 83 per cent keep in touch with
their friends via phone calls. While 56 per
cent of the boys come into contact with
girls in college, only 43 per cent can have
female friends coming home to visit.
S T E P 2
THE FIRST DATE
The first brush with familiarity works if it’s something sufficiently
informal, like a quick cup of coffee. And chivalry doesn’t always
extend to the cheque book. About 30 per cent of the 16-25 yearold
men surveyed say it doesn’t matter who picks up the tab.
IT STARTS WITH A CASUAL COFFEE AND ENDS WITH AN
INTIMATE POST-COITAL CIGARETTE. HERE IS A GRAPHIC STEPBY-
STEP ACCOUNT OF CONTEMPORARY YOUNG LOVE.
Text: SUPRIYA DRAVID, Photographs: BANDEEP SINGH.
cover story SEX SURVEY PHOTO ESSAY
The
Mating
Game
LOCATION COURTESY: BARISTA
S T E P 3
THE JOURNEY
Public displays of affection in India
are more pain than pleasure.
Almost 52 per cent of testosteronetripping
boys say they face privacy
issues when they go out with their
girlfriends, what with people
staring or the moral police
catching them necking. No surprise
then that over 21 per cent of the
men have got their motor running
by having sex in a car. Even if,
as the data shows, only 19 per cent
actually own a credit card,
leave alone a car.

64 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
S T E P 4
THE BUILD-UP
Dinner on the third date is more about the grope than the grub.
Although 57 per cent of the boys prefer to schmooze at a
restaurant with their girlfriends, only nine per cent are willing
to spend between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. With 50 per cent of the
men believing that women who wear revealing clothes are
sexually liberated, it gives them a free hand to rev up the
raunch as part of the extended foreplay, their preference.
S T E P 6
IN THE BEDROOM
There’s no smoke
without some fire. Over 40
per cent of the boys
ensure that their girlfriend
has an orgasm, while
67 per cent believe men
and women should have
equal pleasure in bed.
They may be conventional
in their expectations from
marriage, but in their
sexual relationships, they
are more egalitarian, or at
least they appear to be
when they hope to ‘score’.
cover story SEX SURVEY PHOTO ESSAY
LOCATION COURTESY: AZZURRO
S T E P 5
TOP SHOT
This is where the innocent
‘wat u dng’ text graduates into a
full blown ‘wanna do me’ phone
sex conversation. For 47 per
cent of the young men, sex is
very important, but 53 per cent
also acknowledge that a
condom is a must, and their
greatest fear (27 per cent) is
contracting sexual diseases.
Safe sex clearly means smart
sex for today’s brat pack.

There is a joke about male
bonding. A man’s wife
doesn’t come home for the
night. The man calls up 10
of her friends and all of
them say she didn’t stay at their place.
One night, the man comes home in the
wee hours, and the wife calls 10 of his
friends to check. Eight say he had
stayed the night at their place, and two
say he’s still there.
Male bonding has often been misunderstood.
There are any number of
pop psychology books on male bonding
with pictures of men engaged in unconstitutional
activity. It exists in chimpanzees,
who form groups to fight
rivals in the wild, as much as it exists
among soldiers fighting a war together,
no less wild. Friendship between males
is an uncomplicated exercise of getting
together for a drink and talking about
whether you’re getting any.
That the battle of the sexes never
takes a break is as true as the fact that a
bottle of rum can resolve anything
between male friends. For women,
friendship is a long drawn-out exercise.
You build trust over the years and even
then you’re jealous of your friend’s new
bling buy. For men, it’s a simple matter
of love or hate. Hate leads to fistfights
and love often springs out of men who
hate each other but get drunk one night
and declare themselves friends for life.
In the Indian context, however, it is
difficult to fathom whether male
bonding happens because of societal
norms that don’t allow friendship with
girls without a sexual tag attached to
the relationship, or whether such
repression actually displays a lack of
understanding of the opposite sex.
As India flings open its windows to
the world, its men, newly globalised,
try to lay their hands on the duty-free
culture-and-attitudes store. On sale is
that most coveted foreign-made musthave—
sex, or at least a super-glamourised
illusion of it. Packaged as the
new definition of cool, it screams at the
young man wherever he goes. In a
rapid metamorphosis that requires a
revaluation of traditional boundaries,
he is treading unexplored social territory
in a state of limbo. They may be
physically mature, but emotionally
they cannot understand the true
nature of the sexes. This young adulthood
becomes a testing time, with no
one, except peers, to turn to.
Which is why, while responses
from cosmopolitan centres such as
Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad found
men saying they have a mixed composition
of male and female friends, in
relatively traditional towns such as
Lucknow (61 per cent), Patna (54 per
cent) and Ludhiana (70 per cent), men
have more men friends. Similar responses
prevailed when the men were
66 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006 ¦ By Swagata Sen
DEPRIVED OF MEETING GIRLS IN THEIR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT,
YOUNG MEN, EVEN IN THESE MODERN TIMES, STICK TO THEIR MALE
BUDDIES, TALKING MOVIES, CAREERS, FASHION AND YES, SEX
What would you say is
the composition of
your circle of friends?
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
50% in Delhi hang out in mixed
groups of men and women
Man’s Best
Friends
SEX SURVEY: 16-25-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MEN
cover story SEX SURVEY MALE BONDING
MORE MEN 53
MIXED 38
MORE WOMEN 8

NOVEMBER 13, 2006 . INDIA TODAY 67
About 70 per cent of men in Ludhiana have
predominantly male groups; in Hyderabad,
48 per cent say their group is mixed.
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
over 100 because of multiple choices.
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
72% young men in
Mumbai discuss
sex with their
male buddies
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
over 100 because of multiple choices.
MORE MEN 57
MIXED 32
MORE WOMEN 8
MOVIES 73
STUDIES/CAREER 58
FASHION 57
SEX 57
What do you discuss
with your male friends?
MOVIES 63
STUDIES/CAREER 51
FASHION 47
FRIENDS 35
BE WELL-GROOMED 58
USE EXPENSIVE PRODUCTS 50
SHARE JOKES 40
GIVE EXPENSIVE GIFTS 38
What do boys in your
group do to attract
the attention of girls?
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
over 100 because of multiple choices.
Where do you go
with girlfriends?
In conservative Chennai, only 13 per
cent of men say their women friends
come home for a visit.
When you hang out
with friends, does
the group have more
men or women? RESTAURANT 55
PARK 45
FAST FOOD JOINT 33
SHOPPING MALL 29
Photograph by BANDEEP SINGH, MODELS: AMIT ARORA AND AMIT TOKAS, LOCATION COURTESY INTERCONTINENTAL NEHRU PLACE
What do you discuss
with your female
friends?
Only 30 per cent discuss sex and 32 per cent
discuss relationships and affairs with their
female friends. But 45 per cent of men who
have had sex are comfortable discussing
intimacy with female friends.
asked about the friends they hang out
with. Delhi (50 per cent) was one city
where men preferred to hang out in
mixed company rather than just with
men (39 per cent), while three-fourths
of the men in Patna and Ludhiana preferred
hanging out with other men.
One of the reasons why the Indian
male sticks to his own sub-species is
that men often feel the pressure to
project a different image in front of
women. “If you live with a woman, you
can’t exactly walk around the house
without any clothes on,” says
Shiladitya Guha, who works in an IT
company in Bangalore. Guha and his
friend Debopriyo Dutta have been
sharing a flat for the past four years.
They were working in the same
company in Mumbai, and when Guha
got a job in Bangalore, Dutta followed
suit. Guha jokes about how, when they
marry their respective girlfriends, they
will still continue to share a flat.
“We’re different people, but our
opinions match,” says Guha, which is
more than he can say about women.
It’s the same with Madhurjya
Banerjee, Krishanadh Dulipala,
Rahul Jandhayala and Vishal
Ramasubramanian, who first met eight
years ago, in junior college in
Hyderabad. Their interests—Carnatic
music, photography and Calvin and
Hobbes—drew them together, and at
the Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani,
and even now, into their careers, they
believe they can trust each other with
the deepest, darkest secrets.
When men get together, it’s
not about gossip or
emotional distress. It is
often an activity that
binds them together. For Guha and
Dutta, it was their Saturday drinking
binges. For Nadir, Yusuf, Younus,
Taher and Shabbir—young, modern
Mumbai Muslims who have been
friends since they were seven years
old—it was Sunday cricket, visits to the
mosque, breaking Ramzan fasts
together and roaming their neighbourhood.
The group followed these
rituals unfailingly for almost 15 years.
“We’re very comfortable with one
another—they’re an important part of
my life and I can tell them just about
anything,” says Nadir Kanthawala.
This “just about anything” is what
cover storySEX SURVEY MALE BONDING
KRISHNA AND SUDAMA
Premanand, in his Sudama Charit, narrated the meeting of long-lost
friends Lord Krishna with Sudama, a poor Brahmin who was
Krishna’s childhood friend. An ode to life-long friendship.
JOHN LENNON AND PAUL MCCARTNEY
Perhaps the most recognisable pair of the 20th century, they
were the genius behind the Beatles, and ultimately the ones
whose egos saw the Liverpool band come apart.
BILLY AND WYATT IN EASY RIDER (1969)
Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda hit the road in this cult ’60s
flick—with the who’s who of the ’60s for a soundtrack that is as
much a take on the culture of the day as it is a portrait of America.
MUNNABHAI AND CIRCUIT
Munnabhai and Circuit, with two films to their name, have
won over the country with the warmth of their gangster
hearts, and the lovable crassness of their Mumbaiya lingo.
Illustrations by SAURABH SINGH Brothers in Arms
MALE DUOS IMMORTALISED IN MOVIES AND CLASSIC TEXTS
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
Alexandre Dumas’ legendary group of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and
d’Artagnan, who is not one of the titled ‘Musketeers’, responsible
for coining that immortal buddy phrase: “One for all and all for
ASTERIX AND OBELIX
The comic but adorable pair, with the help of a magic
potion, keep their fictional village in ancient Gaul free of the
much-feared Julius Caesar and the Roman Legions.
JAI AND VEERU IN SHOLAY (1975)
Buddies so thick that they needed to toss a coin to decide who would
go first into foreseeable trouble, Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra
stood shoulder to shoulder through thick and thin.
BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD ON MTV
The MTV characters are two loser high school students whose lifestyles
revolve around TV, nachos, Fruity Whips, shopping malls, heavy metal
music, and trying to “score with chicks”. Both constantly snicker.
VLADIMIR AND ESTRAGON IN BECKETT’S
WAITING FOR GODOT
The play by Samuel Beckett has the two fellow refugees indulging
in inane conversations as they wait for Godot to arrive.
GEORGE AND LENNY IN JOHN STEINBECK’S
OF MICE AND MEN
The book follows Lenny, a physically strong man with the mind of
a child, and George, a smaller, feeble-bodied man with quick wit.
by Gaurav Rajkhowa
Indian men cannot share with women
often enough. While 57 per cent of the
survey’s respondents can happily
discuss sex with their male friends,
only 30 per cent broach the subject
with their women friends. About 40
per cent can open up with their personal
problems to those of their sex,
while only 26 per cent can do that in
front of women. And when it comes to
sharing dirty jokes, 33 per cent never
do so with their women friends.
Apart from ingrained values of male
chauvinism, it could also be a case of
not having enough opportunity to meet
girls in a natural environment. The
survey reveals that even in these
modern times, the parents of 36 per
cent young men have objections to their
befriending girls.
In most cases, male bonding exists
due to necessity rather than choice, the
cover storySEX SURVEY
MULTIPLE REALITIES OF MALE
SEXUALITY ACROSS THE COUNTRY
DELHI: SOFT-HEARTED STUD
Sixty-five per cent of Delhi men have sex
once a week or more. Only 38 per cent
expect to marry a virgin and 42 per
cent would confess to their girlfriends
about a one-night stand.
MUMBAI: METRO MAN
Forty-seven per cent in Mumbai have a
mixed circle of friends when they hang out
and 16 per cent avail of spa facilities.
Thirty-three per cent go to a disco with their
girlfriend and 36 per cent own credit cards.
HYDERABAD: MIND OVER MATTER
Sex is very important for 66 per cent of the
men, yet for 28 per cent, a woman’s sex
appeal lies in her intellect. Disloyalty is a
worry for only 3 per cent, but a woman’s
emotional expectations put off 36 per cent.
BANGALORE: MAMA’S BOYS
Only 20 per cent have had sex, but 14
per cent don’t care whether their girlfriend
has an orgasm. Parents of 48 per
cent object to female friends, yet 45 per
cent discuss relationships with mothers.
KOLKATA: FAIR PLAY
Nineteen per cent are unhappy with
their sex lives, but 48 per cent men
never insist on sex when their girlfriends
are not in the mood. Eighty per cent
believe in equal pleasure for women.
CHENNAI: NEO-CONSERVATIVES
Only 29 per cent say their parents object
to female friends, yet 57 per cent feel
pre-marital sex is wrong. As many as 55
per cent of those who have had sex have
tried girlfriend swapping.
LUCKNOW: JEKYLL AND HYDE
Forty-seven per cent pay for coffee on a
date, but 34 per cent (the highest) do not
believe in equal pleasure for women and
82 per cent won’t marry a woman who
admits to having had other partners.
Where do you
go when you
are with women
friends?
City Snapshots
RESTAURANT 57
PARK 40
FAST FOOD JOINT 36
SHOPPING MALL 28
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
over 100 because of multiple choices.
Where do you
go when you
are with men
friends?
RESTAURANT 60
FAST FOOD JOINT 49
FRIEND’S PLACE 48
MARKET 40
All figures in per cent. Figures add up to
over 100 because of multiple choices.
HEMANT CHAWLA
seeds of which are sometimes sown
early due to the concept of all boys’
schools. Take the case of Abbas Khan,
currently taking a break before he
heads abroad for higher studies, and
MBA student Abhik Ghosh, who struck
up a friendship when they were
seated together, according to their roll
numbers, when they were in Class VI,
Naval Public School, Delhi. What sets
a ‘buddy’ apart, says Ghosh, “is that
after all these years, there can be no
pretensions. That macho image that
we all put up before others dissolves.”
Khan delves deeper: “Women will
discuss just about anything with
anyone while men are a bit more
reserved and more attuned to one’s
own wavelength.”
That might finally be the answer to
the great mystery of why males bond
better. They come from Mars, and
women, from Venus. And though one
has still to write on the Martian’s
friendship patterns, we’re guessing
this comes closest to it.
with Gaurav Rajkhowa, Riddhi Shah
and Mallika Raghunathan
DELHI: Twenty-two-year-olds Abbas
Khan and Abhik Ghosh established a
friendship when they were seated
together in Class VI. What sets a buddy
apart, says Ghosh, “is that after all these
years, there can be no pretensions”.
MUMBAI: Nadir, Yusuf, Younus, Taher
and Shabbir—young, modern,
Muslims—have been friends since
they were seven years old, breaking
Ramzan fasts together and playing
Sunday cricket.
HYDERABAD: Madhurjya Banerjee,
Krishanadh Dulipala, Rahul Jandhalaya
and Vishal Ramasubramanian, who
have been friends for eight years, have
common interests: Carnatic music,
photography and Calvin and Hobbes.
All figures in per cent
RS 50-100 18
RS 100-250
RS 250-500 19
ABOVE RS 500 13
27
All figures in per cent
Delhi men spend an average of
Rs 230 when out with friends
RS 50-100 31
RS 100-250 27
RS 250-500 14
ABOVE RS 500 6
How much do you
spend on an average
when you go out
with male friends?
How much
do you spend when
you go out with your
girlfriend?
SUMEET INDER SINGH
BHASKAR PAUL
Case Studies
In his controversial essay The East
is Blue, Salman Rushdie links
pornography to democracy—and
argues a free society should be
judged by its willingness to accept
pornography. Opinions on pornography
are like bisexuality: they swing
wildly. Rushdie sees porn as a barometer
of freedom, there are others who
say it is misogynistic and encourages
the objectification of women. Yet,
somehow, it is an undeniable part of
the sexual experience.
In India, it has had a remarkable
evolution—from visual to visceral, blueprint
to gigabyte and hard core to hard
disk. Cyclostyled copies of Hustler have
given way to DVDs, with online megamarts
stocking everything from porn
stars to fetishes, part of a $57-billion
(Rs 2,56,000-crore) global industry.
The apple tree in the garden of
Eden could well be a stash of porn
DVDs. It is still seen as an occasional
indulgence, say 25 per cent of the 16-
25-year-old men surveyed, while 22
per cent think it is great fun. Smaller
cities, thought to have restricted access
to pornography, could be the
largest consumers. For, when it becomes
more difficult for men and
women to get together, pornography
satisfies a more general need. In
Ludhiana, for instance,
78 per cent of the respondents
admitted
to watching porn,
pipping even a metro
like Mumbai. They
also established a
link with masturbation,
usually the end
result of the viewing.
Over 62 per cent of
our respondents said
they watched porn
clips with their friends.
Seventy per cent
belonged to the oldest
age group—23-25 years.
Yet, for all the underground
anonymity
associated with consuming
pornography,
it remains very much
male-bonding glue.
The glue, as Rushdie
would say, is blue. ¦
74 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
AS YOUNG MALES ACROSS URBAN INDIA ENTER ADULTHOOD, SELLERS OF STEAM FILL THE YAWNING
INFORMATION GAP LEFT BY PARENTS AND EDUCATORS, CREATING AT ONCE A CRAVING, AND A CRUTCH
¦ By Sandeep Unnithan
YES NO
62 34
What do you think
about pornography?
Do you watch
pornographic
films/clips with
your friends?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
In the 2005 INDIA TODAY survey
of young single women, it was
a thumbs down for pornography.
While 29 per cent said
pornography was bad, 11 per
cent said it was an important
sexual stimulant. Only 10 per
cent said it was great fun.
The XXX-Men
CORBIS
CORBIS
cover story SEX SURVEY PORNOGRAPHY
SEX SURVEY: 16-25-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MEN
GOOD ONCE IN A WHILE 25
GREAT FUN 22
MOST IMPORTANT SEX TOOL 19
DOESN’T MATTER 15
BAD 12
Over the past decade, things
have changed rapidly for gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered
citizens of India.
Today, an increasingly confident gay
community is talking about rights and
equality for Indian citizens who happen
to love people of the same sex.
There are many reasons for this, all of
which partly explain a phenomenon
that this survey of young male singletons
makes clear: the increasing ability
of gay men to be more open about
their sexual orientation, whether they
are in small towns or in big metros.
The data in this survey tells us that
homosexuality and homosexual experiences
are not limited to the “westernised”
big metros, or to the highest
income classes. Patna has a higher
percentage of people who have had
multiple same-sex experiences than
Mumbai. Jaipur has a higher percentage
than Delhi and Lucknow has a
higher percentage than Bangalore.
Homosexual activity is believed to
be limited to either elite-men-whohave-
been-abroad, or poor-men-whodon’t-
know-better. In each of the
questions that ask respondents about
homosexual activity, numbers don’t
vary widely by socio-economic status,
or by income, showing that same-sex
sexual activity doesn’t require wealth,
or a certain outlook that wealth is
presumed to bring.
In Delhi, I work with a group called
cover story SEX SURVEY HOMOSEXUALITY
¦ By Gautam Bhan
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
YES NO
37 57
Have you ever had
a homosexual
experience?
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
YES NO
22 35
Have you told
anyone about your
homosexual
experience?
In the 2004 INDIA TODAY survey of men
between the ages of 18 and 55, 71 per
cent said they had never had a
homosexual experience.
SEX SURVEY: 16-25-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MEN
SAME-SEX DESIRE IS NOT A MONOPOLY OF THE METROPOLITAN
ELITE. SEXUALITY IN INDIAN SOCIETY, ACROSS SOCIO-ECONOMIC
CATEGORIES, IS AS FLUID AS IT IS CHANGEABLE.
Marginal, No More
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
Nigah, the Hindi/Urdu word for perspective.
We have long used films, theatre
and writing to get people to talk
about issues of gender and sexuality,
and have seen tremendous changes in
attitude, especially among younger
Indians, towards homosexuality.
Acceptance is much higher among the
young, and this is true of big and small
cities. The numbers again support this.
Though we don’t have comparative
figures from previous years, we can
see that Ahmedabad, Lucknow, and
Jaipur have rates of disclosure—people
being able to tell others about their
same-sex sexual activity is a sign that
they believe others will be accepting—
that are as high as, if not higher than,
those in the big cities.
One of the mediums through which
this change might be occurring is the
increase in information about homosexuality
that is breaking many of the
myths and stigma that surround the
issue. Popular films like My Brother
Nikhil and even the widely seen
Brokeback Mountain, have made a
huge impact on popular perception
and knowledge of homosexuality. A recent
spate of books, anthologies and
novels, has found a wide market. The
Internet has become a valuable source
of information as well as a space to
meet other people, and has played a
part in creating spaces for the expression
of same-sex desire. The work of
gay activists to counter discriminatory
laws like Sec 377 IPC that criminalise
same-sex behaviour, and campaigns
like the open letter by Vikram Seth and
Amartya Sen have also helped
immensely, given the media attention
they have received. Younger gay people
and gay people in smaller cities are
no longer isolated from other people or
from information, and this has taken
away some of the silence and fear that
was associated with homosexuality.
Many people who took this survey
may not be identified as
being gay or bisexual—there
is a big difference between sexual activity
and sexual identity. What this
survey testifies to is the fluidity of sexuality
inherent in our society, and the
diversity of sexual experience, irrespective
of whether we think of ourselves
as homosexual or heterosexual.
If we recognise how natural this diversity
is, it will be the first step that allows
Indian men to be true to their sexual
orientation without fear of stigma or
discrimination, for we would not draw
rigid labels between homosexuality
and heterosexuality, and realise that in
the world we live in today, the boundaries
are less defined.
The elephant in the room, of
course, is that this survey is also an
admission to breaking the law, an
admission that shows the absurdity of
criminalising same-sex sexual relations
when they are such a fundamental
part of the reality of this country.
How does a law like Sec 377 answer
the fact that, across the country, an
average of 37 per cent (with a high of
58 per cent in Ahmedabad) of the
respondents have had at least one
homosexual experience? Are we to
think of these people as criminals?
Clearly not. The numbers in this survey
tell us that sexual experience is
more diverse than we imagine, and it
is time that we take cognisance of the
fact that it is this diversity that is the
norm in our society, rather than our
assumption of a uniform heterosexuality.
Embracing this fact will save
hundreds and millions of Indian
citizens from having to live lives of fear
and silence, in violation of their most
basic fundamental rights.
The writer is a gay activist.
76 INDIA TODAY . NOVEMBER 13, 2006
If you have a female partner, have you told
her about your homosexual experience?
YES NO
In the 2004 survey on male
sexuality, 19 per cent said they
had told their girlfriends about
their homosexual experience.
All figures in per cent.
Rest: Don’t know/Can’t say
16 39
70% in Bangalore have never
had a homosexual experience
cover story SEX SURVEY HOMOSEXUALITY
NEW
All figures in per cent
Have you ever
had a sexual
relationship?
cover storySEX SURVEY ESSAY
No
76 Experts say that one in four
admitting to having a sexual
relationship is significant given
the intimate nature of the
question. The number is highest
in Mumbai, followed by Delhi,
and surprisingly, Patna.
Yes
24

person even if they are not in love with him. What’s more,
60 per cent of them say sex is important in their life, in
contrast to just about half of the single women surveyed in
a similar exercise in 2003 which, unlike the present study,
included married women.
Clearly, two years is a lifetime in the era of fast forward
globalisation. Women have started experimenting with
their bodies. Almost 50 per cent of the sexually experienced
women have tried oral sex, compared with 33 per cent in
the last survey. Sadly, it is a revolution without balladeers.
As women learn to treat their bodies as less sacred, they do
notseemable to develop a poetry which articulates thisnew
romance. The areas of darkness are enormous—55 per
cent don’t know what an orgasm is and 82 per cent say they
don’t masturbate. Perhaps it is because women are just
learning to love themselves, a difficult task for a gender that
is trained in the fine art of putting others first.
If for women, sexual liberation is the first step towards
selfhood, they are right on the path—as the survey shows,
womenwhohavehadsexseemtobecomemoreliberal than
those who have not. In an awfully mad adventure, they are
learning to take the ride without the seat belt on.
Pornographyappears tohavebecomemoreacceptablenow
(only 29 per cent believe it is wrong whereas 73 per cent
condemned it in 2003). In 2003, 57 per cent said premarital
sex is wrong and 78 per cent said they were against extramarital
sex. Both figures have declined, to 46 per cent
and 66 per cent respectively. Surprisingly, more women
34 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
33%of single young women across urban India are open to having a sexual
relationship with a person even if they are not in love with him.
What do you think about oral sex?
17
15
24
Clearly the Delhi school MMS clip was not an aberration. Over 50
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say per cent give the thumbs up to oral sex in Delhi.
Have you ever read
erotic literature?
Yes
33
No
67
Are you afraid
of AIDS?
No
38
Yes
53
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Do you think women should remain
virgins till they are married? No
26
Yes
66
Do you think men
should remain virgins
till they are married?
No
26
Yes
65
It is not all right
It is okay as the woman won’t get pregnant
It is okay as it is not considered intercourse
RUG COURTESY: CARPETWALLAS
seemed open to the idea of exchanging sexual favours for a
job—in 2003, 81 per cent said they wouldn’t do it. That
figure is now 69 per cent.
Women are becoming assertive in other ways. In 2003,
61 per cent said they would talk and sort it out if their partner
was unfaithful to them, compared with just 37 per cent
now. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the emotional
responses of their partners: about half feel they are not sensitive
to their sexual needs and more than 60 per cent still
have sex without wanting to. Explaining the trends, sociologist
Shiv Visvanathan says, “Women want more fun from
men, and if not that, at least more men.”
Will the emerging sexual desire teach the urban singleton
to cherish her body and soul or will it only end up in
abuse? That is a secret that only the women know. As they
chart their own maps, new roadblocks will come up. There
will be attempts to chase them back into their domestic goddess
prison, with stories of singlewomenrunning out ofmen
to mate with, as feminist Susan Faludi pointed out happened
in 1980s America. There will be attempts to paint
them as the New Men, focused on money and power in an
increasingly retail culture. Indeed, in Candace Bushnell’s
new pulp novel, Lipstick Jungle, success has become the
new sex. If not that, the culture of women cutting or starving
themselves, already evident in the profusion of
makeover parlours, will spread.Will it force women to conform
to a body stereotype, especially with the media projecting
women in an increasingly glamorous fashion, while
also reducing their body weight by half?
The challenge for these young women, with their inherent
caution and their apparent modernism, will be to balance
the two. There are pointers in this survey at least. If
36 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
79% of single women in Patna and Chennai, two very different cities,
think equality of pleasure is important, followed by Mumbai.
Maybe
10
Yes
7
No
69
Would you ever grant a sexual favour
in return for a big career break?
More women in the 26-30 age bracket
seem open to the idea than their
counterparts in the 18-25 age bracket.
In Mumbai and Chennai, however, a higher percentage of women has
been propositioned at work most often, which is more than three times.
Has a man ever asked you for sexual
favours in return for a job, an
assignment, or a promotion?
6
2
2
70
Do you believe in equal pleasure for
men and women in bed?
All figures in per cent;
Yes Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
63
No
15
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
What are your views
on extramarital sex?
It is okay
16
It is not okay
66
Hyderabad had the highest percentage
of women—34 per cent—who approved
of sex outside marriage. But then the city
also leads in the percentage of women
saying yes to live-in relationships and to
the importance of sex.
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Never
Only once in life
Twice or thrice
More often
looking good is important for women, they are demanding
it of their men too. It is writer NaomiWolf’s version of having-
it-all feminism. Or as sociologist Nishi Mitra explains, as
earning members of society, women feel they have the right
to demand satisfaction.Asexual relationship is the first way
of demonstrating this.
Yet even now singledom is the equivalent of a circus
freak show. As Kolkata psychologist Salony Priya puts it,
everything conspires to ensure that a woman weds. And
weds well. Perhaps it is time for parents, who have so far
merely wrung their hands and allowed conventional pressures
to decide the social agenda,andeducators,whosefirst
response on sex is to find the nearest beach to bury their
heads, towakeup. As for the men, if they’re not careful, they
may have to settle for a long, cold shower. 
38 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
M E T H O D O L O G Y
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG Sex Survey was
done to understand the sexuality of the urban Indian unmarried
woman—what she thinks about her sexuality,
what is her idea of sex, what are her fantasies, how
many of them has she actually tried out, what is the
level of intimacy and sharing with her partner and what
are her sexual desires.
The survey spoke to 2,035 unmarried women in
the age group of 18-30 across 11 cities—Delhi,
Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad,
Patna, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Jaipur and Bangalore—in
upper income categories. About 62 per cent of the
respondents were graduates (general/professional)
or more qualified. One third were working and 54 per
cent were students.
A smaller survey of 517 unmarried men from the
same cities was also carried to see how different they
were from the women of their age, whether they knew
what women wanted and how different their behaviour
and preferences were.
Street corner sampling was used to find eligible respondents.
The eligible women were invited to a central
location while street corner interviews were done for
men. These respondents were asked to complete a selfadministered
questionnaire, which were put in a ballot
box by the respondents to ensure anonymity. This was
the technique used in our 2004 survey of men.
Do you have or have
had a boyfriend?
What will you do if your boyfriend
is unfaithful?
24
11
8
37
In the 2003 survey, 61 per cent of the single women said they would
discuss the issue. Today, one in every four women says she will end the
relationship in case of infidelity, which shows the rise in confidence.
82% of women say they have never masturbated, but among the
sexually experienced women, the figure declines to 59 per cent.
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
Yes
54
No
46
Talk and sort it out
End the relationship
Forgive, forget and carry on as usual
Tell him that she had the right to do the same
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Do you have or have
had a boyfriend?
Aforeign couple in a bid to be “Indian” recently got married
on the banks of the Pushkar Lake in Rajasthan. At
the end of the ceremony, the bride and groom, following
theirowntradition, kissed to seal their bond. There
was an outcry among the gathered audience. It was clear
to them that this hybrid couple was not Indian and their
ways were all wrong. The kiss sealed their cultural fate.
Condemning kissing as
“foreign” is arcane. For
most young single urban
Indianwomenand men, sex
is really important in their
lives. Venerable swadeshi
ways do not rule their intimate
lives. Blokes in the
stockmarket who are in a
constant uproar about foreign
direct investment also
seem to think that being
Indian no longer implies
being swadeshi. Non-Indian
moneyandnon-Indian business
practices are ceaselessly
chased as the engines
of a dream future that will
drive India into super serious
status, giving CEOs, BPOs,
Bapajis, Hellojis and God
knows who else a place at
the round tables of global
power. But within the four
walls of their homes, are all
these raging bulls as committed
to “foreign ways”,
particularly for their children?
Or would they rather
that their offspring swore to
remain socially swadeshi
and junked any thoughts of
going global?
Everyone seems to have
anopinion aboutwhatgoing
global means for that all important
lot—“The Youth of India”. They’re wooed as consumers,
admonished as spoilt brats, marked out as the numerically
dominant face of a dramatic new demographic
profile. Advertisers who claim to have a finger on the social
pulse of modern Indian society have planted Shah Rukh
Khan in a bath tub with rose petals because they are certain
there are young women who’d like to see him naked,
and in their tubs. They are
right. Young single women
dofantasise about film stars
and The Khan in foam is
likely to go down well.
But parents whose
daughters and sons are single,
working and between
the ages of 18 and 30, and
who fear the fantasies of
their children, should hold
the gripe and tears. True,
there is a seismic shift in
kissing norms and sexual
experiences that has
emerged from broadening
horizons—more travel,
movies, TV channels—a cultural
foreign direct investmentifyouwill.
But equally,
young women in small
towns or large metros who
have already had their first
“serious” relationship by
the time they are 18 don’t
think highly of premarital
sex and are only willing to
consider it if they feel a
commitment to the relationship
or to their partners.
According to the INDIA
TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG
survey, girls in their late
adolescence will have
kissed and held hands well
before they were married
WithEyes
WOMEN ARE BLENDING WHAT THEIR PARENTS TOLD THEM WITH THEIR DESIRES
Sociologist
GUEST COLUMN
Radhika Chopra Wide Open
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
44% of the women surveyed say they have no problems with premarital
sex but almost an equal number, 46 per cent, say it is wrong.
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
No
49
Have you ever gone
out on a date?
Yes
51
No
36
Did you tell your
parents about it?
Yes
59
Illustrations by NILANJAN DAS
but they are unlikely tojumpinto bed with the nearest available
man. The really interesting thing about these young
womenthough is their view on what sexmeansto them. For
most sex is really important in their lives. But well over half
also said that being in love was necessary to having sex. The
great thing is that they felt as entitled to sexual pleasure as
men, and aren’t willing to grant a man the sole privilege of
pleasure. Pyar main yeh naya twist.
Most of them preferred prolonged sexual encounters to
quickies but also thought that marriage and long term relationships
were desirable. So even though 49 per cent of
the women in Hyderabad, 42 per cent in Mumbai and 35
per cent in Delhi said they found nothing objectionable in a
live-in relationship, they didn’t think of it as an end in itself.
They clearly felt it should lead to marriage.Andwhile a high
proportion still felt that a woman should remain a virgin till
she married they weren’t willing to grant “extra licence” to
their potential husbands—as far as they were concerned a
man should also not have had sex before marrying them.
It’s quite evident that youngwomenthink about sex with
their eyes wide open and their minds uncluttered by preconception.
The naïve and gullible virgin on her first marital
night is passé. Big city and small town girls are clear that
their partners should use condoms, and they couldn’t care
less about the argument that condoms decrease pleasure.
There’s a healthy fear of AIDS and only a minuscule percentage
(8) said they didn’t know about it. They have
thought about the boundaries they would like to draw and
what’s acceptable.Theyhavenocompunction in saying that
oral sex is all right because it means that women won’t get
pregnant or that it’s not the same as having intercourse.
They will also be able to tell you right away what part of
a man’s anatomy they find sexy—face and eyes—exploding
the usual Hollywood myth of broad chests and butts in
denim satisfying a woman’s fantasy. Modern Indian women
have clear sexual preferences and aren’t afraid of expressing
them. Single women in Hyderabad love to look at themselves
in the mirror while having sex, though young girls in
Bangalore, Kolkata and Lucknow are more conservative
and rush off to bathe after a bout of sex, no doubt imitating
their suchchi bai aunties in purification rituals.
The biggest problem that young women face in their bid
to be sexual revolutionaries is that urban public spaces are
still extremely violent and a kissing couple in a park is likely
to be stared at, catcalled and harassed for money or even
sexually threatened. Since many of the girls don’t share
their thoughts or experiences about sex with theirparents—
in fact, many don’t even tell their parents that they date—
their own homes are not spaces in which they can safely
meet their boyfriends. So between a world going global and
a family seeking to remain static traditionalists, at least with
regard to its daughters’ desires, a young urban woman in
2005 has to scuttle between utmost secrecy and daring experimentation
to figure out her sexual identity.
Fortunately,youngsinglemenalsoseemtobemoreprogressive.
Premarital sex is coupled with commitment and
extramarital sex is not okay. Half of these men think love is
anessential ingredient inasexual relationshipandlike their
female peers expect a live-in relation to lead to marriage.
They’re less convinced about the necessity of their own virginity
before marriage and a tad traditional in expecting a
girl to be a virgin when she marries. But that a woman is
entitled to sexual pleasure in bed is endorsed by a majority
of young men, sowomencan heave a thankful sigh that they
won’t be faced with a slam-bam-thank you ma’am lover
whopullsonhis Jockeysandstrollsawayafterabout in bed.
A society whose women are sexually confident is a
civilised place. Middle class India hasn’t quite got there yet.
Ingesting a foreign world wholescale is not the view of young
single urban women; if anything their pyar ki kahani is a
creative post-modern process that blendswhattheir parents
told them and what they’d really like to know—and do. 
71% of the women say they would not get married to a man who admits
to having had an intimate relationship with another woman.
Yes
36
No
64
Do you talk about sex with
your women friends?
What do you think about
condom use?
Never use
9
Must use
51
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
12
Spoils pleasure
cover story SEX SURVEY ESSAY
..................
............
...................................................... ................................................
................................
........................
In one of his classes, the high priest of sex surveys, Alfred
Kinsey, was teaching a course in marriagewhenhe asked
a female student to name the body part that can enlarge
a hundred times. “You have no right to ask me such a
question in a mixed class,” she replied. Kinsey responded: “I
was referring to the pupil of the eye, and you, young lady, are
in for a terrible disappointment.”
If he were asking the question now to a group of young
Indian women, he may well have got the pupil answer. For
all their newfound sexual confidence, young, urban Indian
women are remarkably ignorant about their own bodies.
Clearly sex is still a new experience for them, which is why
mechanical knowledge of it has not kept pace with its
intellectual or emotional understanding. Or perhaps when it
comes to such a secret part of themselves, single women are
still bashful, a bit like Satyajit Ray’s enigmatic Charulata
looking at the world outside through her beloved pair of
opera glasses—she can see and be seen but no one can see
what she is thinking.
Unlike Charulata, though, there aremanypointers in the
survey that urban single women have sex lives that are as
happy as they are healthy. If women want any improvement
it is to increase the frequency of sex rather than its
variety—the latter is the answer most men have given in an
accompanying survey of 18- to 30-year-old unmarried
males. There seems a high degree of consensus over
consensual sex: both women and men want a long foreplay
before the act and women still prefer the classic man on top
position, as do men. There is remarkable harmony even in
responses to what happens after the sex is over. Over 30 per
cent of both men and women say they hug.
Yes, even now, women may seem silent partners rather
42 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
ThisFar,
25%
 By Kaveree Bamzai Further DESPITE THE NEW-FOUND
SEXUAL FREEDOM, WHEN IT
COMES TO LOVEMAKING, INDIAN
WOMEN CONTINUE TO BE
SURPRISINGLY BASHFUL, ONLY
OCCASIONALLY REVEALING
THEIR WILD SIDE
No
of the single women in Ahmedabad say they like the woman to be on
top, unusually high for a nation that likes the missionary position.
With whom did you have your first
sexual relationship?
Would you marry a man who admits to
having had sex with another woman?
Yes
18
No
71 With an equal number of women saying both men
and women should remain virgins till marriage,
hypocritical notions are fast dying out.
63
12
9
6
5
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
cover story SEX SURVEY INTIMACY
Boyfriend
Classmate
Colleague
Married man
Potential match suggested by parents
Figures are percentages of those who have admitted to having sex 
Have you ever tried
any of these?
25
15
9
7
4
3
No
55
Do you know what
an orgasm is?
Yes
27
All figures in percent;
Rest: Don’t
know/Won’t say
All figures in per cent
Where have you most often had sex?
29
25
7
Have you had an
orgasm?
No
35
Yes
47
28
19
7
How often do you have sex?
Once a month or two
Once a week
More than once a week
Daily
64
Are you happy with
your sex life?
47
Two years ago, the percentage of women saying they hated their sex life was double the present
figure and only 29 per cent had said they were happy with the way things were. Still it doesn’t
stop women from asking for more. In Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Delhi, women stand out for
demanding greater variety in the sex act to improve their love life.
There doesn’t seem a great deal of
adventurism in the sex act itself.
20
14
2
38
What would you rather do to
improve your sex life?
39
29
12
3
2
Young Indian women seem to have progressed so far and no further
on the road less travelled. Call it a fear of flying but in a world where
they have inherited exaggerated notions of honour, they know
losing individual control can have social repurcussions.
SUMEET INDER SINGH
Very happy
Reasonably happy
Just about
Not at all
Have more and frequent sex with my boyfriend
Have more variety in the sexual act
Nothing
Have sex with different men
Buy sex toys
Sex before a mirror
Sex in a car
Sex in the open
Sex on the dining table
Sex on train
All of the above
At home
At a friend’s home
In a hotel
In a car
than active initiators. They may also seem less willing to go
beyond the boundaries: while two-thirds of thewomenconfided
that they have or had a boyfriend, only 10 per cent
confessed to relationships with married men, and another
14 per cent said they tried swapping boyfriends. But as reports
from the sexual frontiers of the world have suggested,
for men, attracting women has become less a sexual game
and more a survival instinct. So while almost half the men
polled in our accompanying male survey have suggested
that a man’s sex appeal lies in his physique—which may explain
the emphasis on working out—the women have their
own view. Given the highly visual tradition of the movies
they have grown up with, most women find a man’s eyes
sexiest—whereas 75 per cent of the men conform to tired
stereotypes and go for the breasts.
For young Indian singletons, the confidence in bed mirrors
the greater control over their physicality. According to
a Pathfinders study of married Indian women in 38
cities/towns between 1993 and 2003, there has been a 10
per cent rise in the female presence in the workforce which
has translated into a two-year jump in the age at which the
first child is born. It is also reflected in a rise in spending on
personal care products. There is little doubt that single
women have absorbed much of this change. It is evident in
their almost business-like air even about sexual intimacy.
Like 30-year-old Rohini Kanthan, a practising lawyer in
Bangalore,whois single because she has no time at the moment
to invest in a relationship. She considers herself quite
straight and old-fashioned when it comes to sex but was
quite willing to participate in her former boyfriend’s play-
44 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
72%
What do you prefer?
Long foreplay Quick sex
57 24
In a marked difference from our latest survey, two
years ago, a majority—32 per cent—had said they
spent less than 15 minutes on foreplay.
of sexually experienced men prefer long foreplay compared with 57 per
cent of women, turning preconceived notions of intimacy on their head.
In 2003, 58 per
cent of the young
women had opted
for kissing. Surprisingly,
that does
not mean that
women today are
experimenting
more. Fewer of
them opt for massages
and X-rated
videos as sexual
aids. A majority
though display a
need to show affection
and hug after
having sex with
their boyfriends.
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
What is your preference in foreplay?
What do you do after sex?
24
16
16
16
7
7
7
3
Have you read books on how to
have sex?
All figures in per cent; Yes
35
No
65
cover story SEX SURVEY INTIMACY
Kissing 38
Massage
Looking at body parts
Undressing your partner
Watching a blue film
None of the above
Hug
Wash or take a bath
Watch TV, read or have coffee
Go to sleep
33
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BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. BEAUTIFUL PLACES.
acting. “No S&M, just maybe blindfolding me and tying me
up,” she says.
What comes through in the survey and in the
conversations with single women is their hardheaded
pragmatism even in this most intimate of acts. Listen to 26-
year-old Mumbai fashion designer Shruti Shrivastava, who
had an intimate relationship when she was 18. She has had
erotic conversations with her boyfriend on the phone, read
pornographic literature and even watched a blue film, but
shedrawsthe line at allowing her boyfriend to film her while
having sex. No, not because she isembarrassedbut because
as she puts it, “You don’t know about the future. The
relationship might not work out and the personmaymisuse
the material or the pictures he has.”
Even many women seem to welcome pornography as a
source of education inaworldwheresex is stillahush-hush,
psst-psst word. There is great trepidation about using the
technical terms for sex and like the notion of purity and pollution
it is carried by Indian women in their DNA, even when
they have lived abroad. As the narrator in a series of monologues,
The Secret Life of My Vagina, performed by a clutch
of South Asian students at Brown University in the US says,
while discussing how she discovered masturbation through
phone sex with a white boy: “I felt cheap. I felt trashy. I felt
ashamed. But I also felt confident and bold. I wanted to feel
that way again. I thought about the first orgasm and how
weightless and wonderful it made me feel. These things
46 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
Figures are percentages of those who have
admitted to having sex. They add up to over
100 because of multiple choices.
Which is your favourite
position?
15
12
8
8
38
What is your source of
information on sex?
Do you think looks
dictate your sex appeal?
Friends
Movies
TV shows
Internet
Music video
Novels like Mills and Boon
Pornographic CDs
Parents
43
25
14
13
12
11
5
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t
Know/Won’t say
No
26
Yes
56
Which of these have you
tried?
Oral Sex
Anal sex
Bisexual sex
Group sex
None of the above
48
63
28
8
4
33
70% of urban single women say they do not have a sexual fetish. Or perhaps
they do not want to reveal that innermost part of their self.
cover story SEX SURVEY INTIMACY
What puts you off sex
with a man?
16
12
11
10
His inability to understand 31
my expectations
His disinterest in sex
Repeated sex with the
same man
His body odour
His emotional expectations
Man on top
Woman on top
Sideways
Rear entry
Sitting
Figures add up to over 100 because
of multiple choices
couldn’t be bad.” It is a sentiment that Mahabanoo Mody
Kotwal found echoed among audiences when they saw the
original inspiration, Vagina Monologues, in India: the initial
shock at hearing the v-word gave way to a joyous embrace.
As the French-born erotic writer Anais Nin put it, perhaps
the woman no longer wants to remain a tourist in a
world of images she cannot share. Perhaps, she wants to
step out of the dream world. Already, there are signs.
Women are learning to free themselves of the fear of being
seen with the other. Like 24-year-old Bangalore software
engineer Asha Ravi, who steals time for her boyfriend over
the weekend and has no qualms being openly demonstrative
with him at pubs and restaurants, as long as her parents
don’tknow. Explains counsellor Jairam Krishnan,“Ten
years ago if I asked an 18-year-old if she was sexually active,
she would cringe and behave like I had wounded her.
Today when I ask the same question, no one bats an eyelid.
And, about 60 per cent answer in the affirmative.” As
women discover a new arrogance about their remade bodies
(the result of rigorous dieting and regimented exercise),
the old inhibitions are giving way. Much of what goes on
when the lights go out finds itself in the new voice of the underground
woman: the confessional blogger who, proud of
her new-found contrasexual frankness, likes a bit of anonymous
fun, even if only to shock the uptight Internet male.
Clearly, the days when women wouldn’t kiss and tell are
gone—or at least are on their way out.
There is a flip side to all this. One that Mumbai clinical
psychologist Srilatha Srikanth sounds an alert to: “It is
common to see girls as young as 14 and 15 getting into
relationships, when there is a rather large amount of physical
intimacy. These girls do not evenknowwhat their rights
are in a relationship and the thrill of having a boyfriend
often makes them compromise on their self respect.”
The more they know, the better it will be for the women.
Inanagewherehaving sexcanseemas routine asamedical
check-up, is there much point in letting the libido remain in
the forbidden zone? When it awakens, the men better get
ready to remake their beds.
with Nirmala Ravindran and Aditi Pai
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
INDIA TODAY 47
All figures in per cent
Figures are percentages
of those who have
admitted to having sex
Have you ever masturbated?
Have you ever used your
cell-phone camera to take
pictures of other people in
intimate situations?
Yes
6
No
94
59% of single women across urban India who have had sexual intercourse
at least once claim that they have never masturbated.
Have you ever had a
lesbian experience?
5
5
3
Men are more comfortable
with admitting to
it. The accompanying
male survey indicates
that 69 per cent do it.
How possessive are
you about your
sexual partner ?
38
10
52
87
Have you ever taken
pictures of yourself with
someone in the nude?
Do you have sex
just to please
your partner?
No
88
Yes
12
20
18
45
Yes
18
No
82
cover story SEX SURVEY INTIMACY
Extremely possessive
Possessive
Not at all possessive
Sometimes
Never
Very often
Never
Once
Sometimes
Many times
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
The other day a friend and I were having coffee at
Starbucks, chatting about nothing important. Between
sips of coffee, we debated, with misplaced passion, the
Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie love
triangle. Weeks after the separation, America’s sexiest
man not only had a new woman, but a couple of children as
well. And then we started talking about the teen-andtwenty-
somethings.
They all seemed obsessed with marriage and children,
I said, naming Britney Spears, Kate Hudson, Michelle
Branch and Paris Hilton, as examples. Even MTV had
recently aired three series about family life: Newlyweds:
Nick and Jessica, Till Death Do Us Part: Carmen and Dave,
and Meet The Barkers, which shows tattooed blink-182
drummer Travis Barker at home as husband and daddy.
“It is a conservative conspiracy,” my friend concluded.
Being in our 30s, we had spent the last years of our 20s
believing everything we saw on Sex and the City, a television
series that ran from 1997 to 2004 featuring four single
gal pals living large in the Big Apple. A woman without a
ring was never so glamorous and sexy. Carrie Bradshaw
and her posse had fulfilling jobs, big apartments, and
clothes to die for. They spent their nights at jazz clubs,
trendy restaurants and art gallery openings, and rarely did
they go home alone. They were never-never lonely.
Maybewehad been duped, I thought but didn’t dare say
to my friend. After all, the real Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah
Jessica Parker, tied the knot with fellow thespian Mathew
Broderick a year before the series premiered and, in the
next to last season, she was pregnant. When I read in a
tabloid that she said, “I tell my friends that married life is
boring, but that is just a fun thing to say to make single
people feel better,” I felt personally deceived.
Then, my friend, a strong and smart woman who is an
attorney, desperately admitted tomethat she couldn’t stand
being single much longer. A stream of boyfriends and relationships
that ended badly had wounded her self-confidence.
When I showed her photos of our mutual
acquaintance’s wedding and baby, I remarked that the new
mother had gained weight.
My friend, though, just stared. “I feel like she is doing
everything right, the way it is supposed to be done.” I knew
what she meant. Only a year after the last episode, Sex and
the City already seems like a relic. Like the hippie chicks of
Managing Editor of
American Sexuality
GUEST COLUMN
Joyce Nishioka
cover story SEX SURVEY INTIMACY
ASilent
A CONSERVATIVE MORALITY IS BACK IN THE UNITED STATES, SO IS CHASTITY Backlash
73% of sexually experienced women say their boyfriends understand their
needs and 69 per cent shared their sexual fantasies with them.
What do you think about
pornography?
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
The percentage of men who approve of
pornography is over 70 per cent, clearly indicating
it is still a male preserve. But a majority of
women appear to be offended by it. Delhi
though seems to have a special fondness for it,
with over 50 per cent giving it the nod.
29
Illustrations by NILANJAN DAS
It is morally wrong
It’s good once in a while
It’s an important sexual stimulant
It’s great fun
It doesn’t matter
12
11
10
10
the ’60s who replaced the housewives of the ’50s; like the
supermoms of the ’80s who replaced the feminists of the
’70s—today’s young mamas are replacing the Carrie
Bradshaw wannabes of the ’90s.
With President GeorgeW. Bush in office, it is no wonder
the pendulum is swinging. Under his “traditional” values
platform, sex is once again receding from the public space.
Conservative Christians are taking the lead in spreading the
message. For instance, they invented “virginity pledges”,
some with ceremonies where young men and women
stand before friends and family promising to wait until
marriage. These declarations
are no longer just for the far
Right fringe. When Jessica
Simpson revealed that her father
had given her a ring
when she was 12 and that he
vowed to be the only man in
her life until she married—the
practice went mainstream.
This, despite research showing
88 per cent of those who
make virginity pledges have
sex before marriage.
At the same time,
teenagers are learning less
about sexuality in schools.
Since Bush has been in office,
the Government has spent
nearly $1 billion on abstinence-
only sex education.
While most sex education curricula
promote abstinence as
the healthiest choice, abstinence-
until-marriage programmes
present it as the
only choice. Discussing safesex
or contraception is off limits,
even though such
information is crucial for the
health and well-being of
youth, 60 per cent of whom
have sex before the age of 18.
The president’s efforts,
right or wrong, aim to reverse
marriage trends. Not only are women marrying later (from
20.8 years in 1970 to 25.3 years in 2003), couples are splitting
up at record rates. Currently, nearly 50 per cent of all
marriages end in divorce.With the belief that single-parent
homes—and the dissolution of traditional nuclear families
in general—hinder the development of childrenandthe stability
of society, the President launched the Healthy
Marriage Initiative in 2002.Theinitiative allocates funds for
pro-marriage programmes, including public advertising
campaigns and courses for high school students.
Whether influenced by Bush’s policies or not, a generation
of twenty somethings—many of whom grew up in
single-parent or step families—seem eager, if not desperate,
to take the plunge. Months after her two-day marriage
to childhood sweetheart Jason Allan Alexander, Spears
walkeddownthe aisle with Kevin Federline,anunemployed
backupdancerwhose“ex-girlfriend”waspregnant with his
child. At 21, Nicky Hilton got hitched in Las Vegas to the
balding, pudgy, albeit very rich Todd Meister; three months
later the wedding was annulled.
But are Hollywood headlines indicative of a larger social
trend? Of the women I know born in the ’70s and ’80s,
nearly all are interested in settling
down.
Not long ago a desi colleague
of mine, a 27-year-old
feminist and community activist,
griped about the succession
of weddings she had
recently played bridesmaid for.
She described the elaborate
preparations, the huge guest
lists, and the reprimands she
got for not straightening her
hair and applying makeup.
Still, I detectedmorediscontent
than irritation in her voice.
“No.Youdon'twantto getmarried,
do you?” I asked
incredulously. I always thought
of her as the creative, sexually
liberated type. She didn’t answer
directly. “Marriage is
such a big deal in South Asian
families. All my parent’s
friend’s kids are getting married.
I am already considered
old.”
Right then, I felt old. But I
knew I wasn’t alone. Plenty of
women are single a la Carrie
Bradshaw. In fact, the
proportion of 30-34-year old
womenwhonever married has
surged from 6 per cent in 1970
to 23 per cent in 2003. Along
with this trend, women have made numerous gains. They
enter professional schools at record rates, hold high positions
in what were once male-dominated fields, and they
manage their own finances.
Why is it, then, that so many women in their 30s are
reassessing their lives?We matured during the Clinton era.
The economy was good and opportunities abundant. We
were happy and we could indulge without guilt. Then came
9/11, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina. The party—in reality,
never as exciting as the tamest Sex and the City
episode—is over. At least for now.

cover story SEX SURVEY INTIMACY
13% of urban women say they have had a lesbian relationship at least once
and 21 per cent of men say they have had a homosexual relationship.
As much as men
Less than men
Much less than men
19
12
Do you think women want as much
sex as men do?
46
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
So often do they write about and make films on the
lonely woman, and so often does she wonder, Bridget
Jones-like, whether she’ll be dead three days before
someone finds her. And then, shaking such devastating
thoughts from her system, like the hapless but adorable
chain-smoking, Chardonnay-swilling Jones, look around,
flirt a little, and maybe raise the skirt an inch or two.
And ever so often you find the very same women taking
on the world. “So what? Being single and having sex are not
necessarily a dirty combination.” She is the ubersexual
woman,as comfortable being single as she is open about her
sexual encounters. She fixes her own computer when it
crashes, puts on overalls to paint the kitchen and is not shy
of sittingonabarstool alone, or, for that matter, askingaman
out. She is not afraid of sex.
Which might explain some of the results of the INDIA
TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG survey. While anonymous admissions
came easy, those surveyed were not as forthcoming
about details. The don’t know/won’t say bracket is,
therefore, the highest whenever there are uncomfortable
questions asked. For example, 28 per cent of the women reserved
their comments about pornography, while 59 per
cent of those who had gone out on a date said they did not
tell their parents about it. Consultant psychiatrist Aniruddha
Deb says that this dichotomy exists in today’s woman because
while she has been brought up to believe in traditional
values, she now has to contend with a quickly changing
world. “There is a definite improvement, but a woman still
can’t flauntarelationship thewayshecanflauntahusband.”
So then, the big question presents itself: do singlewomen
love being single, or is marriage inevitable for them?
Kolkata’s Sakshi Verma, a 28-year-old CA, doesn’t think the
marriage versus relationships debate has to acquire the proportions
of a battle of independence. She shared a flat with
her now-husband before they married and sees no change
in her status now. “It’s just like you have a convenient
arrangement with someone with whom you have emotional
ties as well,” she says.
The with-it, late-teens-early-20s girls, by virtue of being
born 10 years late into the single woman brigade, are a little
more liberated than their older sisters. Anandita Kar, a
third-year student in Delhi, says that her current boyfriend
is the best lover among all the ones that she has had. “And
we always practise safe sex,” she says. Anandita’s sister
Srimati, 18, who was in school till last year, is already blasé
about sex. “During our college socials, there are corners
reserved for couples who make out, while the rest of us
dance in the same room. Nobody even looks at them,” she
52 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005 YOUNG URBAN WOMEN MAY HAVE BECOME
MORE COMFORTABLE ABOUT THEIR SINGLE
STATUS, BUT EVEN NOW, FOR MOST, MARRIAGE
IS AN INEVITABILITY
More
20% of the women confess to being voyeurs. The figure for stealthily watching
other people have sex is highest in Patna and lowest in Ahmedabad.
ThanJust
 By Swagata Sen
The Act cover story SEX SURVEY RELATIONSHIPS
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
INDIA TODAY 53
All figures in per cent
Yes
10
No
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
No
23
Yes
70% of the women say they would not go beyond kissing even after
engagement. Only 9 per cent say they would have sexual intercourse.
How many intimate
relationships or
affairs have you
had till date?
10
3
5
30
44
At what age did you
first fall in love or
have a serious
relationship?
90 48 48
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
An overwhelming majority has enjoyed
only one close relationship
with someone from the opposite
sex. And while teenage years seems
to be the age in which a majority of
women fall in love, most do not rush
into sexual relationships.
In 2003 only 17 per cent had
said that their partners did not
understand them. Clearly
Indian women are waking up
to their sexual needs.
Do you think that your
boyfriend understands your
sexual needs?
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Yes
40
No
Do you share your
sexual fantasies with
your boyfriend?
40
33
13
4
6
4
Have you ever had a
relationship with a
married man?
HEMANT CHAWLA
One
Two
Three-four
More than four
None
15-18 years
19-21 years
22-24 years
25-27 years
27+
Less than 15 years

says. For these girls, it is sex first, relationships later, and
marriage a distant possibility.
Parents, though, have a one-point agenda. “We have
been very free with our daughter. She can marry whoever
she wants. But marry she must,” is how Bangalore’s
Rameshwar Naidu, 54, a CA and father of 20-year-old fashion
designing student Chetna, sums it up. There are young
women who echo this as well. “I couldn’t have a child out of
wedlock. I don’t have the guts,” says Verma, who has a oneyear-
old daughternow. Butsomesinglewomendo not think
so. “The idea of a relationship is to have someone in your
life who you can be happy with,” says Namrata Sudhindra,
a 26-year-old dentist from Bangalore, who would rather be
single if she does not find the right man. Deb deduces that
the reason why women do not look at marriage as the beall
and end-all of life is because of their financial independence.
Some singletons also feel that society can provide
other means of emotional support that they can cash in on.
Kolkata graphic designer Sharmistha Ghosh, 33, who
turned single again last year, after being separated from her
husband, leans on her girl friendswhenshe feels low. “After
all, all we need a man for is sex,” she argues.
Then, her voice softens. “But we all yearn for someone
to share things with,” she says. There is hope yet. Even the
fat, bumbling Bridget Jones had two men fighting for her in
the end. (Some names have been changed on request.)
54 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
of the women who are sexually experienced say they are extremely
possessive about their boyfriends. About 10 per cent couldn’t care less.
Yes
14
No
Have you ever
masturbated in front
of your partner?
All figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
All figures in per cent
Yes
9
No
Would you allow your
boyfriend to take
pictures of you while
kissing or having sex?
Have you ever tried
swapping boyfriends?
86
Yes
14
No
86
79
BANDEEP SINGH
BANDEEP SINGH
52%
cover story SEX SURVEY RELATIONSHIPS
It is difficult to talk about an Indian pattern in the relationship
between young men and women. The eyes and
ears of academic social scientists and city-based journalists
know at best the urban youth, usually the affluent
or the upwardly mobile middle class. With increasing
eroticisation of the print and electronic media, as if society
is waking up from a repressive slumber, whenever we talk
about relationships between the genders we invariably reduce
them to sexuality, more about sex as a contrived experience
than a spontaneous fulfilment, more about
compromising existing mores than about the challenges the
vaguely emergent sexual fashion poses.
All surveys produce samkhya, the numbers, but not
vyanjana, the nuances. But in a relationship, vyanjana is
the most important dimension. I think gender relations of
all hues remain conservative: dating is yet to become the
rule, virginity is still a virtue and sex for career is still a
taboo, so is boyfriend swapping. Despite the show. But what
is seen (and heard) dictates our observations, though much
of gender relationships remain hidden in closeted frames of
interaction and in the subconscious.
Going by the show, “the great Indian middle class” is
shedding its taboo on expressions
of intimacy. Given their
expansion, mobility, aspirations,
access to wherewithal
and steady de-radicalisation,
they are emitting evident
sights and sounds signifying a
strong desire for a lifestyle
change. Gender relations are
evidently becoming more
open. Varna and jati no longer
constrict the social space in
which genders relate.
Relationships across linguistic
communities are not negligible
but religious identity is still
to be overcome in a significant
way. Class identity is increasingly
becoming blurred. As to
the age of the persons, the famous
Aristotelian dictum of a
considerable age difference
between the genders in physical
relationships is passé.
Gender relationships are becoming more candid.
Intimacy is no longer being seated in a somewhat dark
auditorium or walking side by side. It is something more:
holding hands, clasping waists, seated under an umbrella
in the drizzle or dancing in a crowd. Technology is a boon:
e-mails, chatting, missed calls and mobile photographs
replace stealth letters inside a textbook, scratch writing on
high benches and still younger couriers. The passerby,
unless he or she is a voyeur, displays a lack of interest, or
keeps the comment to himself/herself. The need for lies and
misinformation to cover up a missed class or returning late
has diminished. Intimacy is now a right. It is, in fact, a
movement as in the case of a demand for a lovers’ zone or
for social approval for gay relationships. Gender
relationships are becomingmorenumerous. They spill over
from private spaces to public spaces. In Kolkata, the
Nandan-Rabindra Sadan aesthetic space, in Delhi parks, on
Mumbai beachfronts and on low boundary walls
everywhere, city centres have become pleasure points. For
passersby, embarrassment is unaffordable. Since the
available space is insufficient or because birds of a feather
Sociologist
GUEST COLUMN
Prasanta Ray
cover story SEX SURVEY RELATIONSHIPS
ABoldNew
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN ARE BECOMING MORE CANDID
Paradigm
Do you believe that you must be in love with a
person to have a sexual relationship with him? No
33
Yes
55
70%of women in Delhi and Mumbai have gone on dates. But when it comes to
telling their parents they are as clandestine as the rest of the country.
Illustrations by NILANJAN DAS
must flock together, couples sit side by side, each
respecting the other.
New rules of “civility” seem to be emerging to
cope with invasive intimacy. The metropolitan
upper crust is less visible in its gender relations.
Socially insulated apartments, resorts, clubs,
restaurants and tinted glass personal cars conceal
their intimacy. So does the underdevelopment of a
paparazzi culture and of the tabloid press. Except
when they choose to disclose it to the Page 3 photographer
and the reporter. I have a feeling that
they set and redefine from time to time the standard
of pursuit of intimacy for the middle class.
There is a trickle down as well as a looking up for:
bold desires, consumption for sheer pleasure and
status seeking, shameless individuation—every
attribute that contributes to the widespread
emancipation of intimacy.
What about the slum-dwellers and the youth in
lower middle class homes? As the frontiers among
social classes and their fractions become
increasingly transparent, a sense of relative
deprivation of opportunities for freedom in gender
relations agitates youth in the lower strata.Without
income security yet excited by ribald popular
cinema, cable TV and “adult” CDs, they find a
yawning gap between resources and desires. Lack
of residential space and close surveillance on moral
behaviour typical of closeted living prevents the free
mingling of sexes. The sober and the scared among them
remain content with the vicarious. The risk takers look
for opportunities.
Across all strata, the idea of a consented relationship is
gaining ground, though the context in some cases
compromises the quality of consent. Sometimes consent is
assumed, sometimes extracted. The same is true about
personal choice. One thing is certain: the social outlook on
gender relationships is changing, which is natural.
Romantic love always undermines social authority. Sex
without love and sex without reproduction do the same, but
much more severely. In the spirit “lest one good custom
should corrupt the world”,weadaptandallay our anxieties.
Even love and sex within the same gender are quietly
conceded in the face of the noise the gay community and the
post-modernists make.
Apart from and along with this core relationship -
revolving around sexuality, genders are also into
relationships at the workplace or as friends. Here too, there
is increasing openness. Personal freedom is increasingly
becoming the guiding norm in the search for relationships
in everyday life. As far as women are concerned, it is also
theirneedfor equality.Oneoutcomeof thisfreedomis either
intimate relations of different intensities at the same time
or serial intimacies for those who are attractive or
enterprising enough.
While freedom becomes the basis of bonds of all kinds,
it ironically leads to breakdowns as well. Intimacy sours,
and because it is bare intimacy of great intensity with no
additional reckonable reason for continuity, it collapses
eventually. The sudden proliferation of helplines would
suggest that. Popular magazines, newspaper columns,
phonecounsellingandprimetime TV devotesomespaceand
time to educate individuals about coping with the problems
of stress, alienation and violence. Much of the
interpersonal crises, which impair intimacy, are due to the
sometimes overt, sometimes subtle hangover of patriarchy.
In a small part they are because of the insistently assertive
young woman.
Thus gender relations have contradictory settings. A
temptation for freedomandvariety is createdandsustained
by a wide variety of forces. Even bookstores have separate
shelves labelled “Gender Studies” and “Pornography” for
the educated and the rich. On Kolkata footpaths you have
the undying breed of vernacular bottola prints for the literate
poor. In between there are magazines in which articles
examine the problems of adolescents seeking companions.
Adolescence is important because it is then that the need for
intimacy becomes powerful. For young adults there are enhancing
drugs, sex manuals and cosmetic aids. We have
virtually an intimacy industry. On the other hand, cynicism,
inflated egos, violence, anti-depressants and stress relieving
yoga point to the problems of personal freedom in
gender relations that modernity bestows.

cover story SEX SURVEY RELATIONSHIPS
40%women say they first fell in love when they turned 18 compared to men
who seem to mature later. Over half the men found love between 19 and 24.
Yes
14
No
86
Did you ever
have an
erotic
conversation
with a man
on SMS?
All figures in per cent
It looks as if women in India have come a long way but
then there are also rapes happening every day, rapists
are being allowed to go scot-free, minors are being
sexually assaulted and because of lack of information a
mother can pass an HIV infection to her child while breastfeeding.
The modern Indian woman is empowered but like
the country where she lives, not completely so. Modern
women do have it easier than their predecessors who had
to constantly kill their own aspirations and focus on their
husbands, children and home. But there is a greater degree
of sexualisation which is also happening because of the explosion
of media. Gossip seems to be seamlessly blending
with factsnow.Themediaknowsthat the film industry gives
it the highest TRPs, so
everything is fair game,
from an actor’s purported
MMS tape to a star
wife’s accident. All this
while the judicial system
is just sitting on the
sidelines.
And at the end of the
day who suffers? It is the
woman. They have to
constantly justify themselves
even today. No
matter who they are.
Look at my case: I’ve
spent10years in the profession,
but there’s no
end to attempts to tarnish
my image. It could
be some fake image of
someone in a shower or
some supposed tape conversation.
Even among
animals, the female is the
better looking of the
species. She is an object
of desire. And while as a
womanit feels good to be
appreciated, like every
good thing, it has a dark
side. Not only do people
regard you as an airhead,
but they also tend to be demeaning in their attitude.
Ironically even in this era of objectification of women,
there is a lot more freedom for women as far as sexual experimentation
is concerned. People are living in to check
each other out. The urban divorce rate is higher than ever.
For women, this is good and bad. They are still trapped in
traditional expectations from them: of taking care of their
husband, their children and their work. But they also now
have to conform to new, sometimes western, cultural
stereotypes of beauty, no matter what.
I think the most important thing for young women of
today is education. That’s what gives them a career. To me
it means self-esteem and economic independence. Yet it’s
not as if a career is the
be-all and end-all of my
life. Everything is important
and has its own
separate compartment:
family, relationships,
career. It is tough for
women because we are
intrinsically nurturing
creatures, so the responsibility
of a career is like
a double jeopardy. We
are blessed, of course,
that we have a huge support
system unlike in the
West where I feelwomen
are losing the essence of
femininity and are
becoming hard, tough.
When I think of my
life, I suppose I am
happy. I have managed
to live life on my own
terms and compartmentalise
well. Still I suppose
all of us who have grown
up with the conditioning
of marriage as an eventuality
will always feel
something is missing.
(As told to Kaveree
Bamzai.)
ALong WaytoGo
MODERN WOMEN ARE LUCKIER THAN THEIR PREDECESSORS, BUT THE FIGHT GOES ON
71% of women in Chennai frowned upon premarital sex, the highest in
number followed by Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Patna.
Actor
GUEST COLUMN
Preity Zinta
Do you think two
people who are not
married should
live together?
No
62
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Do you think people
who live together
should get married
eventually?
Not necessarily
31
Yes
60
Illustration by NILANJAN DAS
Yes
28
cover story SEX SURVEY RELATIONSHIPS
No, they do not surf porn sites, 29 per cent hold that
pornography is morally wrong,82per cent have never
masturbated and only 24 per cent admit to having sex.
Thirty-five years after feminists burnt their bras in the
western world, the single Indian woman could well be the
prototype forGermaineGreer’sFemaleEunuchlookingback
in anger. Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden is still something
that adolescent boys and perverse men furtively peruse in
the secrecy of bathrooms andWomen On Top is understood
to be the nice lady neighbours living on the floor above.
Bipasha Basu and Mallika Sherawat notwithstanding,
60 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
 By S. Kalidas
Chasing
a Chimera
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
Where do you think
a man’s sex appeal
lies?
THE MALE ESTABLISHMENT, HAVING EFFECTIVELY CONTROLLED THE WOMAN’S IMAGINATION FOR
CENTURIES, HAS SHAPED HER FANTASIES TO CONFORM TO ITS OWN RIGID PARAMETERS
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
33
cover story SEX SURVEY FANTASIES
In his physique
In his looks
In his intelligence
In his wallet
27
17
4

our seductive Menakas and Urvashis are definitely not
wannabe Madonnas. The latest readings of sexual iconographies
show that even in theWest, the “new woman” by
proclaiming sexual autonomy has only fuelled male fears
by becoming an emasculating temptress or, as veteran art
historian Bram Dijkstra puts it in his Idols of Perversity:
Fantasies of Feminine Evil, “the femme fatale in search of
the perpetually tumescent male”. So trying to map the
single Indian woman’s realm of sexual fantasy is probably
like chasing a chimera created mainly by a masochistic
male mindset out to beguile or punish his own penis. After
all, we keep hearing that it has a mind of its own.
Oh yeah, the consort-killing Alpha Female is a concept
deeply denied in any patriarchal paradise. In India, too,
history saw Razia Sultan murdered for wanting to be sultan
and Rani Jhansi is eulogised only because she fought
for the rights of her male heir, not herself. There are more
16
14
5
5
4
3
8
8
8
6
24
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
28
11
5
3
What is your favourite fetish?
Which of the following have you
ever fantasised about?
Different love-making positions
with your partner
Watching others have sex
Having sex with a partner other
than your own
Orgies or group sex
None of the above
Have no fetish
Boots and black leather
Bondage gear
Sucking of toes
Being videographed while having sex
Man in water with you
In bed in an exotic foreign location
Two women together
Man talking dirty
Man getting rough
Two men together
None of the above
What is your favourite fantasy?
25
32
luscious mythologies, like those of the Devi creating a male
son/bodyguard (Ganesha) by rubbing into shape the soil
from the skin of her sakhis (female companions) mainly to
keep her husband (Shiva) out of her pleasure pool while she
bathed and frolicked with her female friends and
attendants.Orof Kali as Chhinnamasta,whosits astride her
passive male consort in an unending act of sexual conquest,
while lopping off herownhead and drinking herownblood.
Middle-class urban India does not easily recall such
macabre in-your-face images even in its most private
mindspace. They remain buried, deep under layers of comforting,
colonial legacies.
Fantasies are fuelled by aspirational needs. Sigmund
Freud believed that sexually satisfied people do not have
fantasies. While that has been shown to be incorrect, it is
also true that you can only fantasise about something that
you might have seen or heard, but have not yet attained.
Otherwise, it would fall in the league of divine revelations.
And that wouldn’t do at all, would it? Who ever heard of a
woman declaiming sexual prophesies? The male establishment,
having effectively controlled all thatwomenget to see
or hear for centuries, has shaped women’s dreams to con-
62 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
Which part of the woman’s body do
you think a man is attracted to?
Breasts
Face
Waist
Hair
Butt
Bellybutton
Legs
Shoulders
Feet
44
22
18
12 All figures in per cent; Figures add up to
more than 100 because of multiple choices
You like men ...
Have you ever peeped
through keyholes or
stealthily watched other
people having sex?
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
33
34
9
6
36
15
5
57
44
67
What is your favourite
attire for men?
Jeans and T-shirt
Trousers and shirt
Kurta pyjama
Shorts/T-shirt
Sweatshirt-Sweatpants
Veshti kurta
19
12
12
5
2
46
cover story SEX SURVEY FANTASIES
Holding hands
Kissing
Having sexual intercourse
Having oral sex
After engagement, during
the courtship period, to
what extent do you think
one should go?
With chest hair
Without chest hair
Never
Sometimes
Very often
11
6
5
3
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form to its parameters of an ersatz utopia.
For a people who not only invented the world’s first dildo
but also worshiped it as the Lingam, or made Vishnu crossdress
as Mohini, the temptress, our traditional sexual imageries
have been gloriously androgynous. Indian theatre
has always had specialised male actors play feminine roles.
Many of them, like the legendary Bal Gandharva, were so
successful that their sartorial style on the stage dictated the
fashion for women in the streets of Mumbai. By that token,
Shah Rukh Khan’s latest baptism in a bathtub adorned with
rose-petals for the Lux ad not only affirms his comfort level
vis-à-vis his own masculinity but also makes him a role
model for his many female fans, the end users of Lux soap.
The single Uma, after all, is but only half a nari till Shiva
claims his rightful place in her persona. 
64 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
Have you
ever visited an
Internet porn site?
Have you ever watched/downloaded an
MMS porn clip?
Which MMS have you watched?
Yes
16
No
84
All figures in per cent
Yes
20
No
80
A majority of women deny they have
ever surfed the Internet for porn or
watched an MMS porn clip, in sharp
contrast to the unmarried segment of
the 2003 survey where 40 per cent of
the women interviewed had said they
would watch a blue film.
28
25
24
12
55
Merge
IN HINDI FILMS TOO THE IDEAL
WOMAN IS MARRIED. SO WHAT
IF SHE HAS HAD A SEXUAL
RELATIONSHIP EARLIER.
The trailer for Salaam Namaste caught my attention.
Not just because it features one of my favourite stars
(Saif Ali Khan) and is produced by Yash Raj Films but
because the couple in it live together and aren’t
married. The trailer says this is the film’s USP. Indeed it is.
Singletons (as they became known after Bridget Jones),
especially women, aren’t popular in Hindi films. The
adarsh bharatiya nari is, by definition, married in keeping
with tradition: in the dharmashastras, while men have
their various initiations (the thread ceremony, most
famously), in stridharma, marriage is the only major ritual
required for women. A married woman dresses differently
and these differences are cherished. In Hindi films some of
the most emotive scenes are the adornment with sindoor
(even in Mangal Pandey: The Rising one was slipped in just
before the hanging) or its removal.
The Hindi film poses the question the other way from
Jane Austen’s statement that a single man in possession of
a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Every woman is
in search of a husband, even if she doesn’t know it at the
beginning of the film and a heroine who is not married has
marriage as her major goal. In Hindi films the woman has
to be in love by the interval and be accepted by the
husband’s family as a true wife by the end of the film.
Dancing girls dream of marriage (Pakeezah by Kamal
Amrohi in 1971, Umrao Jaan by Muzaffar Ali in 1981—in
stark contrast to the novel) and commit suicide at the
thought of spoiling another woman’s life (Main Tulsi Tere
Aangan Ki by Raj Khosla in 1978).
Womenwhodon’twantmarriage—orseemnot to—are
the vamps, the Mona Darlings. Helen, when she played the
vamp, often had to die to prove that her love for the hero
was pure, and to clear the field for the heroine. Older single
women are frustrated freaks, such as Lalita Pawar’s
portrayal of Sita Devi, Anita’s (Madhubala) feminist and
man-hating aunt in Guru Dutt’s Mr and Mrs 55.
That is the story. But it is a bit too straightforward. Is
there such a thing as “the” Hindi film? And do they really
Urgeto
HEMANT CHAWLA
Film scholar
GUEST COLUMN
Rachel Dwyer
cover story SEX SURVEY FANTASIES
Shahid-Kareena allegedly kissing
Mallika Sherawat allegedly having sex
Priety Zinta allegedly bathing
Riya Sen-Ashmit Patel allegedly having sex
Don’t know/Won’t say
As a percentage of those who have ever watched an MMS porn clip
All figures in per cent; Figures add up to over 100 because of multiple choices
follow tradition or do they just seem to? I began to wonder
if there were exceptions that might prove more interesting
than the rule. For example, asceticism has always been
valued in India alongside the householder tradition. Fertility
is a blessing and polluting, so often sexually inactive women
are valued. Hence the presence of doting widowed
mothers—where the lack of sexuality overrides even the
impurity of widowhood—and virginal sisters, whose honour
is of such anxiety to the hero. Yet in modern India, a few
prominent people still chose not to marry, including, in the
film world, Lata Mangeshkar, Sahir Ludhianvi and Asha
Parekh, and several politicians, including former prime
minister A.B. Vajpayee and President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
There are films with heroic women, who reject marriage
for various reasons. In V. Shantaram’s Duniya Na Mane
(1937), Nirmala (Shanta Apte) is forcibly married to an
elderly widower but refuses to consummate the marriage
and eventually her husband leaves her, signing his note
“from your father”. In Mehboob Khan’s Elaan (1947), good
and bad half-brothers are rivals for a woman who has to
marry the richer bad brother. After his death, the good
brother wants to marry her but she commits her life to
education and sings a stirring song from within purdah.
Pushpa (Sharmila Tagore) in Amar Prem (Shakti Samanta,
1971) is thrown out by her husband for being childless but
even after becoming a prostitute and widowed, rejects
marriage with her lover (Rajesh Khanna) to live with her
adopted son. In the many versions of Devdas, Paro and
Devdas remain virgins to keep their love for each other pure
despite her marriage and his relationship with a dancing
girl. Interestingly, in Gulzar’s film Meera,oneof the problems
with the text is her refusal to be King Bhoj’s wife, as she
claims she is already married—to Krishna.
Marriage is not only about the conjugal couple, or the
extended family (most celebrated in Sooraj Barjatya’s films)
but also about motherhood. An interesting take on this is
Yash Chopra’s Veer-Zaara, where after 22 years the couple
is reunited, but presumably too old to be parents, Zaara’s
maternal instincts are confined to running a school.
Indeed,somecouples enjoy sexual relations withoutmarriage,
notably in several of
Yash Chopra’s films, often
with an intention of marrying
but the man dies in
service of the nation
(Kabhi Kabhie, Silsila) or
where the woman hopes
to marry but is abandoned
when pregnant as
the man seeks his fortune
(Dhool Ka Phool, Trishul)
or the woman dies before
her hoped-for marriage
(Deewaar). Hum Tum
(Kunal Kohli, 2004) had a
surprise for the audience
asRhea(Rani Mukherji) is
a widow but sleeps with
her lover, Karan (Saif).
EveninSalaamNamaste,
where Saif and Preity
Zinta do some pretty
heavy-duty love-making
by A-list star standards,
the hero pops the wedding
question just as the
heroine is producing his
twins. In one fell swoop,
not only is live-in justified
but so is having a baby out
of wedlock. So what if the
order is reversed. Even
in Bollywood fantasies,
all roads lead to the
mandap. 
Illustration by NILANJAN DAS
37% of those in the 18-25 age group have lusted after public faces. The
corresponding figure for men in the same bracket is higher, 82 per cent.
19
13
9
7
6
4
2
1
53
The glamour world dictates the
images women dream of, but
more significantly, over half the
women did not fantasise at all.
Whom among the
following, if any,
have you
fantasised about
going to bed with?
All figures in per cent; Figures
add up to more than 100 because
of multiple choices
None
A film star
A model
A colleague/boss
Stranger
A sports star
Neighbour
A politician
Teacher

Afunny thing happened on thewayto the beauty parlour.
Metrosexual man suddenly decided enough was
enough and became retrosexual man, facial bristle and
biceps intact, a throwback to the Alpha Male of the
1980s. Actors Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham take
a bow. Now, we have another avatar: the ubersexual male.
He sports old-fashioned male qualities of strength, honour
and character. According to America’s best-known trend
spotter,MarianSalzman, originator of the metrosexualman,
the ubersexual is struggling to cope with living in a world increasingly
dominated by feminine assertiveness.
Gender classification is, however, a dangerous thing. It
creates stereotypes and brackets men and women into
boring similitude, more reminiscent of herds of sheep rather
than free-thinking, free-spirited individuals. Yet, the truth is
that despite thousands of years of evolution, the herd instinct
still rules. And, if the latest INDIA TODAY survey is any indication,
there are more neocons in India than there are in
Indiana, the American state that voted solidly for George
W. Bush’s return to the White House.
66 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005 The
Conservatives Neo
THE INDIAN MALE SEEMS QUITE CONFUSED ABOUT
HIS SEXUAL IDENTITY, TOTTERING BETWEEN HIDEBOUND
TRADITION AND NEW AGE SENSITIVITY.
WHAT’S MORE, HE EXHIBITS A MARKED LACK OF
SEXUAL KNOWLEDGE AND EVEN SEXUAL DESIRE.
59% of the men surveyed say they are sexually experienced,
which is more than double the figure for single women.
 By Dilip Bobb
cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW

SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
INDIA TODAY 67
All figures in per cent
Do you think men should remain virgins
till they are married?
Have you ever swapped girlfriends?
Yes
44
No
51
Yes
17
No
83
Yes
59
Have you ever had a
sexual relationship?
14
7
69
Do you think women want as much sex
as men do?
Yet, men are seemingly more
open-minded in this regard and
are actually unabashed champions
of equality in the bedroom—
more so than women themselves.
Confusion prevails.
Virginity remains a virtue, more so for a woman.
Men may not have qualms about premarital sex
(only 25 per cent said it is wrong) but 54 per
cent want a virgin bride.
What do you think about oral sex?
26
21
33
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
All figures in per cent
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
THE MALE SURVEY
Yes
Less than men
Much less than men
It is not all right to have oral sex
It is all right to have oral sex as it is not
considered intercourse
It is all right to have oral sex as the
No women won’t get pregnant
41
Contrary to popular belief, the Indian male is more retro
than uber, showing a level of conservatism and prudishness
that is totally at odds with the know-all-show-all types we
see on the big screen or at Page 3 soirees. Saif Ali Khan and
Preity Zinta in Salaam Namaste may be turning on cinema
audiences but real life is a world removed from reel life. The
majority of men (54 per cent) believe that women should
remain virgins till they are married, while, rather
hypocritically, a larger percentage of respondents (51 per
cent against 44 per cent) felt that men do not have to preserve
their chastity till they reach the marriage bed. As further
proof of the neoconservative male, an overwhelming
66 per cent of those surveyed said they would not marry a
woman who admitted to having had a sexual relationship
with another man.
So Sati-Savitri is back on a pedestal, purity prevails over
passion and all is well with the world. Or is it? Whether
metrosexual, retrosexual or ubersexual, today’s Indian
male seems pretty confused about his sexual identity, veering
between ultra-conservatism, a marked degree of sensitivity
and shared values with women, and a dangerous lack
of sexual knowledge and even desire. For instance, no less
68 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
No All figures in per cent
31
Yes
69
Have you ever read erotic
literature?
Have you ever watched or
downloaded an MMS clip?
Yes
47
No
53
38
More young men watch
MMS than older ones.
More women get their basic sex
information from friends than men.
Yet the latter are more comfortable
discussing sex with their buddies.
Friends
Pornographic CDs
& novels
Movies
Internet
TV shows
Music videos
Parents
52
47
30
17
10
3
At what age did you
first have a sexual
relationship?
Less than 15 yrs
15-18 yrs
19-21 yrs
22-24 yrs
25-27 yrs
Above 27 yrs
All figures in per cent; Figures add
up to over 100 because of multiple
choices. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
8
32
18
2
1
What is your source
of information on
sex?
Where do you think a 57
man’s sex appeal lies?
Men can leave the dumbbells aside for a while and pick
up a book. Contrary to what they think, only 33 per cent
of the women think a man’s sex appeal lies in the
physique, compared to almost half the men.
46
29
14
4
cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW
In his physique
In his looks
In his intelligence
In his wallet
All figures in per cent
THE MALE SURVEY
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than 62 per cent of the males polled confessed that they had
sex only once or twice a month. While that doesn’t explain
why our population keeps soaring, it does display a growing
acceptance that sex has become a pretty low priority
amongsingles as well as married couples. That could be explained
by the competitive workplace, double income earners,
long hours at the office, barely enough time to snatch
some couch potato time or tuck the kids into bed, before exhaustion
and stress kill any latent sexual desires.
Yet, at the same time, most men are fairly enthusiastic
about watching/reading pornography with a comparatively
large number who consider it an important sex tool. The
dichotomy is in evidence right through the survey. A
majority said that sex was a very important factor in their
lives but a majority frowned on oral sex. However, the same
number of men admitted that they mostly fantasised about
different sexual positions, suggesting that men are not very
comfortable with their masculinity when it comes to
relationships with the opposite sex or even with their own
sexual sovereignty.
In this, the 21st century, when alternative aphrodisiacs
like power, success, affluence and individuality are clearly
on the rise, thesamecannot be said for their libido or testosterone
levels. Judging by the responses, one-night stands
and casual sex are prettymucha no-no: the majority ofmen
believe that they need to be in love with a person before they
can have a sexual relationship with her. On the question of
premarital sex, a majority felt that it was all right only if
therewasacommitmentinvolvedandanequal majority (51
per cent) believe that couples who live together should get
married eventually.
What the survey suggests is that sexual roles and
relationships aredemandingonboth partnersandthatmen
are finding it difficult to locate their own psychological
G-spots even as they fumble around in an attempt to find
women’s. Technology doesn’t seem to have helped either.
Despite all those MMS clips bouncing around in cyberspace
or on mobile networks, a majority of men and women sur-
70 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
34% of the unmarried men surveyed say they do not know what an
orgasm is, yet nearly 70 per cent claim to have masturbated.
In contrast to a majority of men ready to deal with unfaithful girlfriends in
a mature manner—talk and sort it out—women seem to be in no mood
to entertain infidelity. Only 35 per cent women will opt for this route.
What will you do if your girlfriend is
unfaithful to you?
24
9
8
Talk and sort it out
End the relationship
Forgive, forget and carry on as usual
Tell her that she had the right
to do the same
Have you ever
visited a porn
website?
No
42
Yes
58
All figures in per cent; Figures add up to over 100
because of multiple choices
cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW
50
38
38
28
22
1
Kissing
Massage
Undressing your partner
Looking at body parts
Watching a blue film
None of the above
THE MALE SURVEY
What is your preference in foreplay?
49
veyed said that they had not watched or downloaded MMS
erotic/porn material. Ironically, in the land that gave the
world the Kama Sutra, the most elevated form of sexual
literature, the Indian male has regressed into something of
a prude. Almost 50 per cent of males said they were happy
with their sex lives, the missionary position is the most
favoured among men, and, most revealing of all (or not, as
in this case), a majority (52 per cent) believed that women
are sexually drawn to a man’s face as opposed to any other
part of the male anatomy.
There is a disturbing trend here, signs of a growing
fatigue with sex and boredom in the bedroom. The
responses clearly show a lack of originality, a reluctance to
experiment and a sexual incompatibility that goes beyond
traditional excuses like stress, work pressures, demanding
social lives and lack of quality time. All those are certainly
extant, but sexless marriages are an unhealthy trend in a
progressive, modern society. In her earlier book, The
Futureless Gender, a study of the neutered modern male,
Salzman blamed it on the metrosexual man. Marginalised
by increasingly assertive, independent women, portrayed
as being a wimp in movies and TV sitcoms and told by
scientists that his Y-chromosome is in decline, she argued
that this resulted in low self-esteem and, by extension, low
72 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
What do you think about condom use?
Must use
It spoils pleasure
Never use
17
6
By and large, Indian unmarried women and single
men have one thing in common—a sanitised
approach invades their fantasy realm. Kinky sex
and raunchy partners are not a big turn-on.
All figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
23%of men say they would marry a woman who confesses to sexual
intimacy before marriage while only 18 per cent women said so.
What is your favourite
fantasy?
Woman in water with you
In bed in an exotic
foreign location
Two women together
Woman talking dirty
Woman getting rough
Two men together
None of the above
33
17
13
5
4
2
12
Whom have you ever
fantasised going to
bed with?
24
19
13
12
11
5
3
36
cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW
68
Film star
Model
Neighbour
Colleague/boss
Stranger
Sport star
Teacher
Politician
THE MALE SURVEY
sexual desire and needs. In India, where “homely” and
“conservative” are the two virtues most frequently mentioned
in matrimonial advertisements, the rapid change in
the work environment and the demands of the new woman
have played havoc with the Indian male’s sexuality.
The Neo Conservative, as revealed in the survey, seems
to be struggling to adapt to a world in which gender traits
are converging. The definition of what it means to be male
and 30 used to convey raging hormones and sexual selfdetermination.
That has now been seemingly replaced by
old-world sensitivity and a near Victorian sense of morals.
Asked what was their favourite sexual fantasy, a majority of
men said a man and woman in water was the ultimate,
something that shows a distinct lack of imagination or
sexual evolution.
Salzman’s own survey, across four countries, in her new
book, The Future of Men, suggests that technology is becoming
a substitute for other interests, most notably sex.
She defined the new men as “Personal Control Freaks,” abdicating
the pleasures of the bedroom in favour of an array
of gadgets likeMP3players, BlackBerrys, cell phones, iPods
and laptops. The result: time spent in nurturing and enjoying
a sexual relationship is now spent on the latest gadget.
The G-spot is now located on his BlackBerry while sexual
motion is a mechanical function, much like winding up his
Rolex before going to sleep.
If the survey reveals anything about the Indian male it
is that he is confused, insecure and unsure of his sexual
identity. A majority of the men surveyed might agree that
women want sex as much as men do, they also might also
believe in equal pleasure for men and women in bed, but
when it comes to the defining issues concerning sex and
sexual liberation, it’s clear that the Indian male is as
conservative and prudish as his grandparents were. If the
modern Indian male has a favourite energy drink, the label
can only say Libido-Lite. 
74 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
With whom did you
have your first sexual
relationship?
Girlfriend
Classmate
Married woman
Colleague
Potential match
suggested by
parents
All figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
18
15
13
3
Men are more aware of smut’s potential in spicing up their sex lives while
women, when they do admit indulging in it, limit it to sometime fun.
Ironically, the number
of men unable to fake
a headache outnumbers
women. This, if
nothing else, proves
that female sexuality
in India is here to stay.
65% of the men surveyed confess that they are afraid of AIDS. The fear
is highest among those who fall between the ages of 26 and 30.
48
What puts you off sex with a woman?
Her disinterest in sex
Repeated sex with the same woman
Her body odour
Her emotional expectations
All figures in per cent
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
25
15
13
Do you have sex just to please
your girlfriend?
Sometimes
Very often
Never
25
24
42
38
What do you think about pornography?
21
16
6
25
cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW
It is an important sexual stimulant
It is good once in a while
It is great fun
It is morally wrong
It does not matter
THE MALE SURVEY
From AC Nielsen to National Council of Applied
Economic Research (NCAER), surveys now blow down
with the frequency of fatwas. They proclaim new
trends in fashion, consumerism and the body. An academic
can either lie low till the impact blows over or read
these surveys for what they are: mere wish lists, preferences,
choices and behaviouristic words for fantasy.
To do so, I will borrow a term from linguistics, the idea
of the shifter. The concept realises that the dictionary definitions
of most words often wear uniforms, but language,
like life, shifts with contexts. The survey shows that this is
true for sexuality. The Masters-Johnson idea of reading sex
as if it was a form of church attendance, emphasising frequency,
is inadequate. For women, sex is important, frequency
relevant, but sexuality is redefined as a multiple
domain. The wish list includes sex and separates love,
friendship, meaning and relationships. Each of the 11 cities
surveyed becomes one expression of that fantasy. Chennai
remains conservative, oscillating between incest and crosscousin
marriage. Hyderabad reflects an explosion of
sexuality, the one information revolution N. Chandrababu
Naidu didn’t think of.
Within this world of experimentation, it is the men who
appear like still-life pieces. The male mind does not extend
beyond professionalism and patriarchy. Initially, one sees
positive signs but they promise to deceive. First, there is an
ease about pornography in both sexes. Erotic literature is
read more as if it is an adult literacy programme. That men
and women feel mutual pleasure in sex is crucial. A significant
percentage would like to discuss their sexual feelings
with one another. But this promise of equality, opennessand
conviviality deceives when socially contoured.
A large percentage of the males surveyed claim that
womenneed not be virgins till they are married.Yet a larger
group admits that they will not marrywomenwhohave had
sexual intercourse before marriage. Social change appears
to amplify the domain of hypocrisy with men wanting to be
in win-win situations. When asked whether women had
asked them for sexual favours in lieu of promotions or jobs,
there was a general denial. But when asked, “Would you
ever demand a sexual favour in return for a big career
breakthrough”, about 20 per cent replied, “Maybe”. Here
sex seems closer to a commodity exchange.
The male imagination has found a new dildo for
Cultural anthropologist
GUEST COLUMN
Shiv Visvanathan
cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW
Gender
WOMEN ARE EXPERIMENTING BUT MEN SEEM CAUGHT IN A DATED FRAMEWORK
Divide
The
Which part of your
anatomy do you think
women find the sexiest?
41% of men surveyed say that people who live together need not
necessarily get married, compared with 31 per cent of the women.
All figures in per cent and add up to over
100 because of multiple choices
Illustrations by NILANJAN DAS
Face
Chest
Eyes
Butt
Arms
Waist
Abdomen
Hands
Legs
None of the above
46
38
16
15
13
9
5
5
5
52
sexuality—the Internet and the mobile phone. Somehow
technology seems to enable, legitimise and allow access to
pornography. Men generally obtain information on sex
through movies, pornographic CDs, Internet and TV shows.
Roughly 30 per cent in most cities have had an erotic conversation
with a woman on SMS. The question one must ask
is not the standard one about the affinity between men and
technology but whether technology allows for distancing,
hypocrisy and a private sexual self to the Indian male.
Yet for all his access to the digital world, ask our modern
male what his favourite fetish is and roughly 35 per cent
in each city answer, “The woman in a wet sari”. Despite
technology or maybe because of it, the favourite male fetish
still ranges from the calendar girl, usually wet, to the vamp.
The favourite fantasy still remains “The woman in water
with you”. But male-female differences in the survey become
more intriguing. For women, beyond condom use, the
role of the latest technology like
the Internet and pornographic
videos is low. The Internet is almost
a male preserve. What
marks women out is the high
importance of the peer group—or
the kitty party of sexual information,
that is. friends. Friends
sustain the information revolution
on sexuality, followed by movies.
And oddly parents are high
authority but low information
sources either on advice
or permission. Men seem to be explicit
about information, whether
it is on demography, sport or sex.
The answer on fetishes reads as
transparently as a cricket test
score. However, women seem to
be less explicit about such information.
It does not appear like
knowledge but like a secret self.
Sex seems to be the domain of experimentationandmystery.
Theanswer to fetishes as “a denial”
or a “don’t know” adds up to a considerable figure.
There are winds of change, yet they are oddly qualified.
Formen,the favourite dress is still the sari. Jeans-shirtsand
short skirts follow in preference like an old Hindi movie.
Oddly despite living in a McLuhanesque environment and
despite the Internet, the male is still a 1960s figure in
preferences. The women’s idea of a sartorial ideal for men
has a clearer message. Highest on the list is the jeans and
shirt or trousers and shirt. The veshti-kurta rates a
general no-no. So, thankfully, do the shorts and the T-shirt
and the sweat pants.
In terms of fantasisingwhomto go to bed with, bothmen
andwomencling to film stars and models. Fantasy grabs on
to the world of cinema and advertisements. Yet there are
differences. About 10 per cent of women fantasise about
going tobedwithacolleague orastrangerandevenasports
star.Yetwhatis interesting asavariable is not merelymedia
or technology, but the notion of the city itself. The city provides
opportunities and choices. Look at the
use of hotels as meeting grounds. The fantasies rather than
emphasising the distant and the erotic are grounded in
urban possibilities. Going to bed with a colleague or boss or
stranger seems very real as fantasies rather than an exotic
other on the Internet or in a musical video.
The survey moves across different gradients. The picture
that emerges is of men wanting change but still caught
in old frameworks. It is the women who appear as experimental.
Reading undercurrents, one senses the men more
in the grip of media and technology and the women locating
the body in the city and seeing the city as a matrix of possibilities:
peer group vs parents, experiment against
hypocrisy, realism against utopia.
The real action seems to be in the
18-24 age group. This age set is
the site for action. Beyond it, society
grabs you, codes you, letting
you settle for surf rather than a
break in sexuality.
The survey, for all its sensitivity,
is like a collection of dots, asking
the reader to connect the
picture from a variety of patterns.
What strikes one is two things.
First, technology, from the
Internet to the video, marks the
fact that Indian male has changed
so little. The accessories around
him help him remain the same—
boring, a trifle hypocritical but
with a greater access to pornography.
It is the women who are
changing. They are more more
tolerant, more ready to talk and
sort relationships out. Thewomen
are the problem solvers, the realists but always stretching
out for more. She mediates the four great revolutions of
modern India: the consumer revolution, the information
revolution, the sexual revolution and the urban revolution.
The woman’s body is the creative body.
To speculate further, women seem to regard change as
environmental. They see it as a set of relationships and not
a discrete number of items. Men see change as a tool or
accessory, as an extension. Thus, authority appears more
linear and patriarchal. Caught in cross currents, they see a
double standard as a viable option. Women see change as
a wave. You redefine the body and thus you change what
you buy, what you eat,whomyou go to bed with. It is a wave
of connections. Clearly, the survey has found the tip of the
iceberg. Now researchers must capture the eddies below.

cover story SEX SURVEY THE MALE VIEW
33% of the men in the survey disapproved of oral sex, which was
surprisingly higher than the figure for women, 24 per cent.
Last year, MTV was planning to launch a new reality
showin theUScalledSexandthe Itty Bitty City. Incase
the producer of the series, which intended to interview
real women from small towns about their love lives, is
still looking for a venue, perhaps he/she could consider
setting up base in one of India’s smaller towns. Given the
trends suggested by the latest survey, they would have an
Emmy ready and waiting for them.
Consider the following statistics: In Patna, a town that
summons an image of a regressive society, a majority of singleyoungwomenclaim
tohavehadanorgasm.Ahmedabad
wins the top slot in terms of frequency of sex with 33 per
cent claiming they had sex more than once a week, while
the countrywide average was only 14
per cent. Then, 55 per cent of women
interviewed in Hyderabad said sex
was “very important” and 49 per cent
approved of live-in relationships—
again the highest in the country.
Hyderabad also has the highest number
of girls claiming to have had over
four intimate relationships (11 per
cent, against a national average of 5
per cent), even though 66 per cent
womensaid theyhadneverhadaboyfriend.
All this, in places where privacy
is at a premium and the entire
neighbourhood knows the details of
your sleeping partner before you can
even light the post-coital cigarette.
“Oh my god. There is a sea change in the city,” is how
Hyderabad sociologist Umeshwar Pandey reacts to this. He
attributes the changes to the “comfortable” salaries offered
by IT and ITES companies. “The economic freedom encourages
them to spend more liberally, go out at night and perhaps
even experiment with sex,” he says. This is also the
first generation which has seen economic independence,
coupled perhaps with living alone. Formanyyoungwomen,
like Rakhi Rai, a 31-year-old computer programmer from
Ludhiana who now lives in Chandigarh, the struggle to
escape the small-town claustrophobia is as much a professional
call as it is personal. “The life of a single woman is
more difficult in small towns, where there is no escape from
marriage. It is one reason why they are shifting to bigger
cities,” says Chandigarh social activist Pam Rajput.
Patna sociologist Sachindra Narayan thinks the increasing
incidence of singletons having sex has everything to do
with large-scale availability of pornographic CDs and the
spread of Internet cafes where porn can easily be downloaded.
Unlike in big cities where there is greater sanction
for intermingling of sexes, in small towns, the experimentation
is happening away from the public gaze, in sleazy hotels
or dimly lit beauty parlours. Which may explain why 24
per cent of the women in Patna said their fetish was being
videographed while havingsex—thehighest in thesurvey—
and 25 per cent of the women in Hyderabad said they were
into bondage gear, beating all other cities by at least 10 per
cent. It may also explain why women in Lucknow, Patna,
Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Ludhiana have had sex at an age
(15-18 years) lower than in big cities (19-21).
The survey throws light on some pressing issues related
to sexual health. For instance, the percentage of women
saying condoms are a must is among the lowest in towns
like Jaipur, Ludhiana and Hyderabad. The percentage of
women claiming they are either not afraid of AIDS or unaware
of it is also the highest there. These are the fears
Jaipur psychiatrist Sanjay Jain understands—he saysmany
single women who come to him for counselling “often feel
there is something wrong with them and are reluctant to
discuss their sexual desires for fear of being labelled loose’’.
In India’s multiple realities, that sterile fact is as much a
truth as the assertive metropolitan single woman.
with Ramesh Vinayak, Rohit Parihar and Sanjay Kumar Jha
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
INDIA TODAY 79
IntotheInterior
FOR SMALL-TOWN WOMEN THE QUEST FOR SEXUAL FREEDOM MEANS ESCAPING SOCIAL CONVENTIONS
35% of women in Hyderabad have surfed for porn on the Internet, the highest
in the country. Only 6 per cent say they think pornography is wrong.
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
 By Sushmita Choudhury
cover story SEX SURVEY SMALL TOWNS
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.Andforawell-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 preeminence.
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
theexampleofasuhaagraat,whichis givena“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.Thewoman
has started to expect more than just the basics from her
man.Today she demands toknowwhat 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 everpresent
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.
Greater
THERE IS A GROWING CONSCIOUSNESS TO ACKNOWLEDGE INDIVIDUAL SEXUALITY
Advertising professional
GUEST COLUMN
Prasoon Joshi
54% women in Kolkata believe that love is not necessary for sex, while 33 per
cent, the highest in the country, say they have tried swapping boyfriends.
Expectations
Do you feel looks
dictate sex appeal? No
26
Yes
56
Illustration by NILANJAN DAS
All figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
cover story SEX SURVEY SMALL TOWNS
WHAT
INDIA TODAY-AC
NIELSEN-ORG-MARG
SEX SURVEY
THE EXCLUSIVE NATIONWIDE
SURVEY REVEALS SOME
STARTLING FINDINGS. AS INDIAN
MEN CONTINUE TO PLACE PURITY
ABOVE PASSION, A MAJORITY OF
THEM ARE SENSITIVE TO THEIR
PARTNERS’ FULFILMENT AND DO
NOT TREAT SEX AS POWER PLAY.
It is clear that the leftover myths of
male adolescence—size, frequency,
duration and number of partners—do
not contribute to the ultimate sexual
experience. Even so, both sexes seem
to live in some kind of illusion about
each other. Women believe that men
want only sex and men think women
want only love. But it is what lies in
between these two that best explains
love and longing in India.

By Shefalee Vasudev
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Men want sex. Even when they are in love and sometimes to
the exclusion of romance. Supposedly, this truism explains
everything about male sexuality. So why a survey? Because
only a study could reveal that what men want may not
necessarilybewhatthey need. If there isonevisualmetaphor
that explains this survey, it is that of a vast battlefield where a lost war
is being fought. The unlikely warriors are the everyday babus, clerks,
professors, doctors, salesmen and executives who like gladiators are
valiantly fighting to defend conservatism. If you thought that barebodied
women with fire in their bodies and erotic fantasies on their
minds unleashed male libido, think again. Sure, the average Indian
man wants sex. After all, 89 per cent men rate it as important to very
important. But they say they want sex with coy, virginal, beautiful, sariclad
women who should then become their wives. And once wedded,
these women should neither fantasise in bed, nor ask for oral sex or
deny sex to their husbands, whether they like sex or not.
Last year, in INDIA TODAY’s similar study of women, conflict defined
their sexual freedom. Women hid the real face of their desire behind
don’t know/can’t say choices. Men haven’t chosen don’t know/can’t say
options but they too have placed chastity on a pedestal. Most agree that
pleasure should be equal for men and women but only 9 per cent will
always give oral sex to their mates. A majority of them say they find
intelligent women attractive and that they don’t judge women by their
clothes or sexual consent, but even a greater number think that sex is
a marital right. Aishwarya Rai may be a global goddess, but for the
Indianmanhis wife or lover is his fantasy woman. Quite unpredictably,
WANT
MEN
28 INDIA TODAY  SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Do you share 64
your sexual
fantasies with
your wife/
girlfriend?
Yes
Does your wife/
girlfriend
understand your
sexual needs?
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
In school
In college
After engagement
After marriage
27
9
When did you first have sex?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
65
46
18-26 years
27-40 years 20
How old were you when you first had sex?
Kissing
Massage
Looking at body parts
Undressing your partner
Watching a blue film
What do you prefer in foreplay? 35
28
11
10
What do you fantasise about?
34
21
15
13
Where do you feel does the
sex appeal of a woman lie?
40% mensaid condoms 72% men expect their
wives to be virgins.
With 73 per cent saying their partners understand
their needs, Indian men aren’t exactly threatened
by the war of the sexes as pop psychology claims.
They could be a bit more risqué though. Only 1 per
cent have voted for women’s legs as sexy, just 15
per cent find sexual skills a turn-on, a mere 11
per cent are excited by women talking dirty and
only 13 per cent say they like undressing the
partner. Fact or fiction? A bit of both perhaps.
men appear more guarded than women. So much so that 44
per cent say they have never ever masturbated.
It is time perhaps to put aside the limiting assumption
that men blindly want sex. And wonder about their needs
whenthey are not in lust. Is thereacrisis in Indianmanhood?
Some admit there is. That they are unnerved by women
settling personal scores by misusing laws. But many say sex
is not just sex—their sexual preferences symbolise what they
want from life. So why should the details of the act of sexual
intercourse define what they need in their lovers?
In 2004, when freedom is a buzzword, Indian men seem
shackled by myths of manhood. They are defined by appearance
and aggression, money and achievement, silence
and brooding, swagger, flexed biceps and surefootedness.
11
In her beauty
Positive attitude
Sexual skills
Intelligence
Submissiveness
73
Yes
14
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Women in revealing clothes
Women in water with you
Women talking dirty
Two women together
45
20
13
13
4
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
29
No
14
No
But not by their emotions. Their confusion is seen either as
a testosterone surge or as the scars of poor mothering. What
passes off as the essence of masculinity is so basic that it can
be extracted, bottled and sold back to them. Literally, like
Viagra. In India, male sexuality is understood through four
stereotypes. Boyfriends whose first fumbles betray the stirrings
of machismo. Husbands who insist on sex as a right.
Browsing voyeurs who buy sexual release in sleaze bars.
And rapists who silence women’s emotions forever. But
where is the discourse for the thinking, sensitive lover?
Sometimes the only value a father passes on to his son is
power. And the mother tells him to wear manhood like an
armour, not feel it as a searing emotion. So when the son has
to father his own liberation, he realises that the breastplate
is fused with his soul. Ripping it off may cause unimaginable
hurt. Conservatism is less painful. But the consequence of
safe choices is a huge sense of loss. Formenandwomen.The
rest of the survey proves this as marital sex comes out as a
dispassionate chore not a simmering, evolving flame.
So does this study tell us what men want? It actually
does. It suggests that men are not just a sum total of their
instinctual drives. Let’s not forget that they have written the
most romantic poetry, the most erotic texts, painted the most
sensual pictures even as they can take their lovers on wild
rollercoasters of ecstasy. Ironic, that in the land of the virile
Shiva, the flirtatious Krishna and the incorrigibleVatsayana,
today’s Indian man willingly suffers the label of the prude.
In India, sexuality remains a cause in search of a rebel.
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004  INDIA TODAY 29
Which part of a woman’s body
are you sexually attracted to?
Eyes 16
Face 10
Hair 5
Waist 7
Vagina 7
Legs 1
Breasts43
affect pleasure and should not be used.
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
BANDEEP SINGH

30 INDIA TODAY  SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
One way to understand the dimensions of human sexuality is to
ask people what they do or how it is for them. This common
method of scientific enquiry into sexuality may generate information
but not knowledge. What is frequent may not necessarily
be “normal”. However, in the absence of mainstream debate (the
Internet notwithstanding) such information does normalise for many
people what they think of as good or bad, right or wrong.
Popular sex surveys are often biased in favour of heterosexuality as
normal. This can hinder understanding. For instance, 20 per cent men
have admitted to a homosexual experience. But it is difficult to assume
whether they are men having sex with men, homosexuals or bisexuals.
Also, whether their responses are based on personal experience or
stereotypical heterosexual images. Reduction of sexuality to an “act”
or equating it with reproductive biology too is debatable. Look at the
vocabulary for sexuality. Cross gender—but it may not address lesbian,
gay, bisexual or transgender issues. Marital—but what about the stuff
before and after marriage? Procreative—which suggests that childlessness
and sex for pleasure is an aberration. Genital—which leaves out
non-genital sexuality such as love and commitment. Consensual—which denies
marital rape and child sexual abuse. Relational—but clients and sex workers don’t
share a relationship. Incest—another relational problem. Male primacy—positive
female sexuality gets discriminated against.
Every person has a unique initiation into sexuality—accidental, playful,
exploratory, pornographic or through abuse. For some the only context is marriage.
What unfolds thereafter includes fantasies, experiments, joys, fear of rejection,
fear of discovery, wet dreams ... and through these fragments a sense of
sexual identity develops. Satisfaction levels, frequency, location and positions are
intensely personal experiences. Similarly, individual triggers related to fantasy give
rise to arousal followed by a “negotiation” phase, foreplay and finally the “act” culminates
in the climax and a debriefing. This too is unique for each person, relationship
and encounter. No survey can write a sexuality script for anyone. It has limited
utility in addressing people’s misconceptions or generating responsible behaviours.
This is significant in HIV-AIDS-related approaches patterned on a paradigm of abstinence-
monogamy-protected sex. They don’t consider the difficulties young people
have in making sexual choices in the face of arousal, peer pressure and ideologies
on relationships and monogamy. The survey brings it out through the loss of pleasure
related to using condoms. The danger of pleasure supersedes everything else.
This study includes relevant issues like monogamy, safe sex, sexual commitment
in relationships, recognition of affirmative female sexuality and reduction of
sexual aggression. It also addresses some problematic issues like heterosexuality as
the norm, homophobia and patriarchy only from the periphery. Some disturbing
trends do emerge. Sex as a marital right or a male prerogative is a huge problem
because it creates the ground for domestic violence, marital rape, besides commodifying
women. This is represented in fantasies: transposing a fantasy woman onto
one’s real partner and other pornographic images. The relationship of these with
realities such as affairs, sexual aggression and the organised sex industry is a matter
of concern. Ultimately it has to do with masculinity, which ideally must be a natural
state reached as a spontaneous unfolding rather than a precarious one,
anxiously achieved through sexual coercion or conquest. However, often it is not.
Because sexuality is treated as an abnormal extension and relegated to the back alleys
and bylanes instead of mainstream public debate and consciousness. These
processes rob sexuality of the inherent joyousness and celebration that it possesses.
FIGURING IT OUT
WHAT IS FREQUENT IS NOT NECESSARILY NORMAL Addl. Prof., psychiatry,
NIMHANS, Bangalore
G U E S T C O L U M N
Would you like it if
your partner treated
you as a sex object?
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Shekhar
Seshadri
76
Yes
No
NALANJAN DAS
Do you believe in
equal pleasure
for man and
woman in bed?
41
No
48
Yes
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
16

SEPTEMBER 20, 2004  INDIA TODAY 31
M E T H O D O L O GY
R E S P O N D E N T S ’ P R O F I L E
P R E V I O U S S U R V E Y
Street-corner sampling was used to locate eligible respondents. They
were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire. The
completed questionnaires were put in a ballot box by the respondents
to ensure anonymity. Only those questionnaires which were at least 80
per cent complete were taken into consideration.
The sample size was 2,499 men across 11 cities in India. It covered
married and unmarried men between 18 and 55 years. On an
average, 230 men each were studied from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata,
Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Patna
and Chandigarh. Three age groups were studied: 842 unmarried men
in the 18-26 age group; 835 married men in the 27-40 age group; and
822 married/separated men in the 41-55 age group.
The respondents could be divided into 1,246 men from the middle
class (SEC A) and 1,253 men from the upper-middle class (SEC B). About
65 per cent of the respondents were graduates and above. Nearly 32
per cent respondents were salaried, another 47 per cent businessmen/
self-employed. Students constituted 16 per cent. One-third of the
sample size consisted of unmarried respondents. Among those who
were married, 86 per cent had children. Respondents were also
profiled according to their lifestyle. One in every five respondents had
a credit card. Around 56 per cent of the respondents ate out in a
restaurant at least once a month. Nearly two-thirds went for a holiday
at least once a year, while half of them owned a cell phone.
In 2003, INDIA TODAY alongwith AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG conducted a sex survey
among 2,305 women from 10 cities in India. This was the
first-ever, comprehensive, all-woman study in India that looked at a
woman’s secret sexual desire. The obvious message of the survey was
that women believed in conformism, not liberation, when it came to sex.
While 66 per cent said sex was important in their lives, a staggering
number said no to premarital, extramarital and kinky sex. Eighty-five
per cent of them first had sex after marriage, 87 per cent had never had
kinky sex, 75 per cent had never masturbated and 81 per cent had never
had extramarital sex.
Peculiarly, conflict resonated in the survey—across cities and age
groups. Don’t know/Won’t say (DK/WS) seemed to be the women’s
favourite option, leaving the investigators and the analysts wondering
about what women really want. When asked about oral, anal, bisexual
and group sex, 41 per cent of the respondents said DK/WS. Asked what
they would do if their partner refused oral sex, 49 per cent reiterated
DK/WS. So much so that while responding to the question where all had
they had sex, 42 per cent said DK/WS, whereas only 40 per cent of them
ticked “bedroom”. Contradictions were apparent because after ticking
conformist options, 58 per cent said they knew at least one woman who
had had an extramarital affair while 22 per cent of them had had
extramarital sex with their spouse’s friends. A majority knew where
their erogenous zones were, some found oral sex an essential ingredient
in good sex and most listed orgasms as important.
Do/did you
expect your
bride to be
a virgin?
Figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Will you marry
a woman
who admits
she has had premarital
sex?
Are women
as enthusiastic
about sex as
men are?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
It is wrong 35
Depends on the couple’s commitment
It is perfectly all right
34
25
What do you think of premarital sex?
Virginity continues to be confused with chastity. One is a
biological concept, the other, a social one. Thirty-five per
cent find premarital sex wrong and 77 per cent won’t marry
a woman who’s had sex before marriage. Must men be boys?
Do you think
women/girls take
sex too seriously,
confusing it with
commitment?
57
28
Yes
No
64
Yes 26
No
77
No
No
Figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
13
Yes
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
7 16
72
Yes
It doesn’t
matter
32 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
In Guru Dutt’s classic film Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam, when
the hero Rehman is with a courtesan, the sexually intoxicated
look in his eyes is hard to miss. Every time the
beaded hem of the dancer’s dress brushes his face, a
shiver of lust jolts him. When he is back home with wife
Meena Kumari, homely yet sensuous, the epitome of Indian
womanhood, he is distant, even aloof. Later she gets drunk
in an attempt to seduce him. It still doesn’t work. “Tum biwi
ho (You are the wife),” he reminds her and leaves.
Cut to 2004. In Sanjay Ghadvi’sDhoom,packedwith volatile
male energy, the accessories of foreplay have changed.
Police officer Abhishek Bachchan drenches Rimii Sen with a
pink hosepipe thatmatchesher pink tube top, pink toweland
later a sexy little pink dress. But a phone call interrupts. Till
then, the audience doesn’t know that the frothy girl is
Bachchan’s wife. The call tells the audience that they are
man and wife. Also, that sex can wait while work can’t.
Two scenarios from two different eras reiterate similar
themes about sexual strains in marriage. Every excuse invented
in the world has played the role of the “other person”
in what may otherwise pass off as happy marriages. The domesticated
and desexualised wife prioritising work over sex,
extramarital distractions, boredom, fatigue, the baby’s
vaccination calendar and the legendary headache.Someone
rightly said, “If happy families are all alike, then happy
marriages have no history and so ‘they lived happily ever
after’ marks the end of the story, not its beginning.”
The INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG survey on male sexuality
validates popular observations on marriage. More
than 50 per cent of the respondents often find sex boring in
marriage. While 30 per cent feel their wives are sexually unenthusiastic,
64 per cent say their spouses complain of a
headache at the mention of sex. Only one-third married
couples have oral sexandonly11per cent marriedmenplan
weekends and sexual rendezvous with their wife. About 40
per cent admit that they are put off by the disinterest shown
by their partner. These statistics may not reveal the entire
picture but the slice of marital life they depict is bitter
enough. After the post-wedding can’t-keep-our-hands-offeach-
other ardour cools down, couples start behaving more
like co-owners of a small domestic corporation.
Mumbai-based Priyal Shah, 25, is trying to figure out
why. It is just 10 months since she and Rasesh, 26, got
married, but ever since they returned from their honeymoon,
Rasesh is often engrossed in chatting on the phone
with his friend Hasmukh. Priyal is disturbed enough to sus-
 By Shefalee Vasudev
FOR INDIAN MEN SEX IN MARRIAGE
IS INCREASINGLY MARKED BY BOREDOM AND
DISINTEREST RATHER THAN DESIRE AND DRIVE
LIBIDO IN KNOTS

SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
INDIA TODAY 33
No
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Yes
Has the
frequency of sex
in your marriage
decreased after
having children?
37
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Man on top
Woman on top
Rear entry
Sideways
Sitting
21
11
8
6
Which is your favourite position?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
At night, in the bedroom
Anytime, anywhere
On Sundays and holidays
Early mornings
In the afternoon, during work breaks
18
13
12
7
When and where do you prefer having sex?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
29
Partner’s disloyalty
Venereal disease
Premature ejaculation
Impotence
Nothing
17
13
9
24
What do you fear most in your sex life?
BANDEEP SINGH
59
The greatest lovers are
believed to be the greatest
communicators. But in
marriage it is communication
which breaks down before
sex does. Does that explain
the fatigue with the spouse?
Do you think
having sex
with your
wife is your
marital
right?
80 16
Yes
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
47
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Sometimes 40
Mostly
Always
Never
10
5
37
Are you bored with sex in marriage?
No
Have you ever had
sex with a family
member who is a
blood relation?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
8
Yes
No
87
54
34 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Icannot forget the look on the faces of my colleagues
when I said INDIA TODAY wanted me to write
an article on male sexuality. “What could you possibly
write? And why? How can anyone with your
image, your thinking, publicly want to discuss the
word sex?” they asked quite horrified.
It is an age of contradictions. As popular media
explores and comments on various issues connected
to sexuality, a majority of surveys conducted by them
conclude that conservatism is the most widely practised
way of life in our society. While music videos
and films commodify women flood the market, most
of us are still comfortable with and accepting of the
niceness and the feminine beauty of the traditional
Indian woman. Does that mean that we are a prudish
society? Or does it simply indicate that we live in a
society that has double standards?
A culture rich in stories of love and sacrifice,
where Laila-Majnu and Heer-Ranjha epitomise the
very idea of love. A nation whose history boasts a Taj
Mahal, a monument dedicated to love, is striving to strike a balance between the
fast pace of modern living, its needs and desires, and the good old days of sowing
the seeds of love to build a precious family. A society, where men and women
persevered to be heard and be counted, is coming to terms with the fact that for
every opinion fiercely debated and put forward, we lose a piece of our innocence.
Today, as things stand, if a woman is clad in a sari, she is looked upon either as
a slave or as someone dull. If a man is found to be decent and soft spoken, then he
is either a nerd or too conservative. These perceptions either become norms to
conform to or rules to be broken.
For a woman to be an achiever, she has to multi-task, dominate, disagree and
verbalise every concern related to her life in and out of her bedroom. For a man to
be a go-getter, he needs to flash the number of women he has bedded. He considers
a truly liberated woman to be one who gives him all the “space” in the world
and does not nag or tie him down. But for many men, this liberated woman who
could be his party companion is not good enough to take home as the wife.
God help, if any one speaks of love and commitment—a disease that plagues
the weak. It is social aberration to be traditional, to show respect and courtesy
towards each other, be fiercely committed to your partner, oppose adultery (even
a one-night stand) and conform to the big idea of traditionalism, beliefs, rituals
and practices that a man or a family follows.
And should you think that sex is nothing but an expression of love, well then
you run the risk of being labeled sexually narrow-minded. But if truth be told, we
are heading towards a time when each of us needs to be comfortable in one’s own
skin. If my idea of a perfect man is of one who respects women enough not to
boast about his sexual escapades; who believes in tradition, commitment and
marriage; who is not afraid of being himself without bothering about the tag of a
nerd or a traditional hardliner and has the same set of rules for a man and a
woman in a relationship, then so be it. If a man is attracted to a woman who
symbolises traditions, loves to be clad in a sari, wears sindoor and yet is equal to a
man, then so be it. Because at the end of the day sexuality is not a rule to conform
to or a trend which would set you apart.
Sexuality is about being you. Just you.
AN INWARD GAZE
DON’T TOSS TRADITIONALISM OUT OF THE WINDOW
G U E S T C O L U M N
Smriti
Z. Iraani
Did you have sex
before marriage?
Figures in per cent; Rest:
Don’t know/Won’t say
TV actor, anchor
and BJP member
NILANJAN DAS
Would you encourage
your wife/girlfriend
to have sex with
others if you become
impotent?
42
Yes
No
54
Figures in per cent; Rest:
Don’t know/Won’t say
55
No
18
Yes
pect her husband is gay. In Bangalore, Bimal Rathore, a surgeon,
is perplexed too. Married to fellow surgeon and longtime
friend Ranjini, Rathore says he loves his wife but wants
something different. Adds Aarti, 38, from Chennai, married
for 10 years: “My marriage is not in trouble but it is not a
happy one either. Instead of the magic that sex once was, it
is now a monthly routine, pre-programmed and boring.”
Unpredictability and surprise, bedfellows of sexual
ecstasy, are the first to be sacrificed at the wedding
altar. Names of cities change, as do details. But what
stays constant is a growing sense of fatigue with sex in
marriage. As 33-year-old, Delhi-based Ghanshyam Doshi,
father of two, says, “My wife barely tolerates me in bed. At
times she tells me to hurry up which makes me resentful.”
Many men lament the reluctance of their wives to experiment
in bed, that their cold body language drives them
to serious self-doubt and intense frustration, if not complete
hostility. On the other hand, wives complain that for the husband,
sex is a three-minute ejaculatory stopover, not a slow
lingering time.Women resent being called old-fashioned in
bed. “From the banter that women share, I don’t think they
are averse to experimenting,” says Sujatha, a 30-year-old
housewife from Chennai. She narrates the experience of her
friendwhooffered hermanastrawberry-flavouredcondom.
He wondered aloud, “How do I get the taste if I wear it?”
Tragically, what the English call “making love” and every
culture poetically refers to as a timeless union of two souls
often becomes a timebound compulsion. Some shut out the
sexual need, allowing cultural obligations to take over and
determine the colour and texture of their marriage. As psychoanalyst
Sudhir Kakar says in Intimate Relations—
Exploring Indian Sexuality, “Culture increases conflicts
around sexuality, sours it for many, and contributes towards
its impoverishment. This blocks many from experiencing a
deep and full experience of sexual love and the mutual
cherishing of bodies, the only containers of our souls.”
In modern India, marriage is the first casualty as more
men and women pursue everything that is material, leaving
little room for tenderness and affection. Psychiatrist Harish
Shetty compares the present-day working individual to an
overheated fan regulator running at full speed. “Speed takes
its toll and trips all the biochemical circuits and ultimately, a
society that doesn’t meet naturally mates unnaturally.” Also,
sexologists no longer find a correlation between middle age
and boredom. Mumbai-based sexologist Raj Brahmbhatt
says most of his patients are married for as few as two years.
Sexless marriages areabig reality in theWest too.AsPhil
McGraw, OprahWinfrey’s relationship expert, says, “Sexless
marriages are an undeniable epidemic.” Not surprisingly,
books like Okay, So I Don’t Have a Headache by Christina
Ferrare became instant hits in the US. But this unlikely epi-
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
INDIA TODAY 35
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
On the wedding night 45
1-2 days later
1 week later
2 weeks later
One month later
More than a month later
35
9
3
2
2
When did you first have
intercourse after marriage?
36
Very often
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
11
22
26
Do you plan holidays, weekends or take a day
off for a sexual rendezvous with your wife?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Do you have
sex when you
have guests at
your house or
in-laws or
relatives
visiting?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
10
Never
30% men find wives unenthusiastic about sex.
Does your
wife complain
of headache
or tiredness
when you
suggest sex?
Always
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
6
13
Sometimes
Very often
32
42
35
Sometimes
Very often 6
Always
45
Never

demic can’t be blamed on lack of time alone. It is incompatibility
that gets expressed in the bedroom.Lowtolerance
level for the spouse’s habits, anger, competition and contempt
dilute sensuality. Couples take their arguments and
ego clashes to bed, denying sex to each other, in what therapists
call sex strikes. Sujatha agrees, “There are times
when I want to have sex but he is not in the mood. So I take
revenge by refusing him the next time he makes the move.”
Images in the media reflect the snuffing out of sex in
marriage. Husbands are seen either making tea or enjoying
a cup.Wives are either erasing shirt stains or admiring
wallpaint. Everybody is into a utilitarian task. Who is having
sex? Fantasies are about cell phones, fast cars and chic
houses, not about the sins of the flesh. Ditto in real life.
But desire and passion being real needs, they show up
in extramarital relationships,whichpeople justify as friendship,
escape, the easing out of the emotional and social
expectations of marriage or an attempt to beat the monotony.
Extramarital flings, heated sexual rendezvous with
former lovers, paid sex or pornography rescue marriages
from breakdown but disinterest and distancing leave scars
on the skein of even the best of relationships.
WhichiswhyUSwriter MicheleWeiner Davis’newbook
The Sex Starved Marriage has become a sensation. Davis
says waiting for the urge to strike is pointless. “If you push
yourself to get ‘started’, it feels good and you find yourself
getting into it,” she says.
Some sex therapists say that sexless marriages are not
always problematic. If both partners are okay with a
passionless union, the marriage is in fine shape. But are we
so sure? Because good marriages cannot survive on bad
sex. As Kakar says, “For many people, sex in marriage is
not a yearning for exploring the depths of erotic passion. It
is a much quieter affair, with the soul of a Mukesh song, and
when unsatisfied, this longing shrivels up emotional lives.”
While a sad Mukesh song plays on.
(Some names have been changed on request.)
With Sandeep Unnithan, Nirmala Ravindran and Arun Ram
36 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Are you
possessive
about your
partner?
Extremely
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Reasonably
87
39
Figures in per cent; Rest: No
Don’t know/Won’t say
Have you
swapped
wife/girlfriend ?
Have you had a
homosexual
experience?
No
Have you
talked to your
wife/ girlfriend
about your
homosexual
experiences?
Only 33% married couples have oral sex.
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
58
Female sex workers
Massage parlour girls
Male sex workers
With all the above
Have never had paid sex
6
17
3
3
Who did you have paid sex with?
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Many times
Occasionally
Never
19
11
63
How often have you had paid sex?
Yes
Have not had a
homosexual experience
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Controversial questions on
homosexuality and paid sex
often push people to come up
with contradictory responses.
73
No
19
Yes
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Not at all
14
39
36
19 35
7
Yes
38 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
New names are being invented for the
21st-century man. It started with the
overused and still misused term
“metrosexual” and now its antonym,
retrosexual. According to Mark Simpson,
who coined the word, a retrosexual is a
man who insists on paying for the date and
refuses to pluck his eyebrows or wear unisex
perfume or allow his partner run her
fingers or tongue up or down his orifices.
All that stuff is for the pansies, he feels. By
that definition, I would say, the quintessential
Indian man is retrosexual by
default. Just as village men sit on their
haunches under trees, watching the world
go by, you can see the retrosexual male as
an apathetic bystander to the postmodern
redefinitions of male sexuality. A retrosexual
is one who lives in the sexual dark ages.
For the Indian male, fear of losing his
identity could be the prime reason for clinging
on to regressive role-playing. Gender roles evolved in primitive humans out
of necessity. Procreation led to the first division of labour. Men offered to bring
food and firewood during the vulnerable period of pregnancy of their mates. One
of the conditions women set before mating was that they should be looked after
during their indisposition. The first role of the provider was born. Foreplay had
to make that evident if man was to go any further to fulfil his seed-sowing
instinct. Every role has a reversal. After the sexual act, his instincts would guide
him to move on. Stuck in a role that was no longer gainful, he then becomes the
“deceiver” or the “protector” depending on his nature.Women who had to deal
with the deceiver or hang on to the protector figured it must be tough hunting all
day and wouldn’t men want to be protected like they were in their childhood? So
they invented the role of the mother. They tended to his wounds, kept the fire
ready and put him to sleep when he was too tired for sex. But if the man’s
instinct was to choose young, healthy women to sow his seeds in, the woman
could hardly promise to play the mother. It was all in the timing, she discovered.
First she played the “temptress” and after he had planted his seed in her and
just when he was in a dilemma as to which role to choose next, she switched
roles to become the mama, holding his head firmly between her breasts.
Playing the role of the deceiver is different from infidelity. There is more truth
in men being attracted to many women at the same time, but role-playing is not
about that. The retro male derives pleasure from the part, not the act. This is
what being a man is all about, he reassures himself. In the primitive order it was
the man who “kept” his woman if she allowed him to play his favourite roles,
from Big Boy Brute to Little Boy Lost. Now, it is free for all. The roles are
demanding on both partners. They need brilliant performances that bring with
them the dreaded performance anxiety. Men have yet to discover their own
psychic G-spot even as they grope to find women’s. True sexual pleasure is rare
and transitory. But with it comes a rarer state of true love, which is equally
transitory. It acquires permanence in memory. People stay in love because they
once fell in love. Those who love, move on to enriching, fulfilling relationships.
For the rest there is the role.
ROLES MEN PLAY
GENDER ROLES EVOLVED OUT OF NECESSITY NOT SEXUAL FULFILMENT
G U E S T C O L U M N
Mahesh
Dattani
Figures in per cent; Rest:Won’t say; Only
respondents who admitted to extramarital sex.
Casual acquaintances 39
Colleagues
Wife’s friends/cousins
Relatives
None of the above
16
15
8
9
Who have you had
extramarital sex with?
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Younger than you 45
Older than you
The same age group
Age doesn’t matter
4
17
13
How old would you
want your extramarital
partner to be?
Figures in per cent; Rest:
Don’t know/Won’t say
42 A few
One
Many
33
15
How many
sexual
partners
have you had
outside
marriage?
Playwright and
theatre director
67
No
27
Figures in per cent; Rest:Won’t say;
Only respondents who are married.
Have you ever had
extramarital sex?
Yes
NEW
40 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
It is good once in a while
Is great fun
Is bad
17
17
What do you think of pornography?
IN THE VARIETY OF
EXPERIENCES AND THE ABILITY
TO EXTRACT MAXIMUM
PLEASURE OUT OF MINIMUM
OPPORTUNITIES, THE SMALLTOWN
MAN IS AHEAD OF ALL
SQUEEZING DESIRE
The girl lay exhausted on a table in a room at an
engineering college hostel in a town in Punjab.Apaid
sex worker, she had been shared by four students
before three more barged in. At the end of it, she
asked, “Is there anyone left?”
For thousands ofmenin smalltownsacross India the first
sexual encounter is not very different. But their sexual
preferences have become correlative to media images and
availability of a consenting partner. Compared with a similar
age group in the 1980s, men today are off the block earlier
and tend to experiment more. That is even when the
opportunities are fewer and the freedom curbed by
limitations of sexual conversations and interactions. But in
his desires and attitude, the small-town male is no different
from a metrosexual.
The kind of porn described by Salman Rushdie in a
recently released book, XXX: 30 Porn Star Portraits, may be
revisiting America but it never went out of style in smalltown
India. At a video store in a market in Bhopal, customers
can easily select a porn DVD, exchange new imports and get
VCDs copied. Porn or blue films still remain No. 1 on the list
of sexual preferences of able-bodied men in the countryside
as most of them want to get transported to other countries
on a fantasy plane. They dream of doing it with blondes,
brunettes, red heads, Swedes, Americans, whites, blacks
and orientals. There is even a small clientele of faithfuls who
 By Neeraj Mishra
Who is your
fantasy woman?
6
31
Aishwarya Rai

SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
INDIA TODAY 41
Is it okay for you
if your partner
fantasises about
other men in bed?
Madhuri Dixit
Kareena Kapoor
Rani Mukherji
Bipasha Basu
Sushmita Sen
Mallika Sherawat
Preity Zinta
Rekha
Sridevi
Manisha Koirala
Karisma Kapur
Amisha Patel
Jayaprada
Britney Spears
Urmila Matondkar
Hema Malini
Acquaintances/others
Friend/girlfriend
Wife/fiancee
3
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
13
10
21
21
Long nails, long hair and loud makeup
Leopard-print lingerie
Boots and black lingerie
Women’s feet
20
18
What is
your fetish?
Unlike the metrosexual who wants at least a slice of
the real thing, for the small-town guy the pursuit of
sex itself is orgasmic. Pornography-fuelled fantasies.
camaraderie with sex workers and the possibility of
candid erotic communication with other women work
as aphrodisiacs. Never mind if the “act” never
follows. The build-up is the climax. In his unending
quest for “red hot chilly peppers”, often patterned on
a foreign pop star or a glamorous celeb, the smalltown
male knows that more must be got from less.
Sari 54
Salwar kameez
Trousers and top
Skirts
Bikini
20
8
8
8
What is your
favourite
attire for
women?
80% men from
Chandigarh felt that
women confused sex
with commitment.
16
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Go to sleep 39
Hug
Wash or bathe
Watch TV, read a book, have tea/coffee
26
20
10
What do you do most after you have had sex?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Have more variety in sex 39
Already have a good sex life
Have sex with my wife more frequently
Have sex with different women
30
16
6
How would you improve your sex life?
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
17
Yes
71
No
like new, slightly slicker desi porn. The vehicle itself is
the destination of climax. Watch it, get turned on and then
well ... each to his own.
Unlike metros that have specific red-light areas or sex
rings with phirang sex workers, small towns have no
organised colonies of sex workers. In Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan there are some tribes whose
female members visit suburbs as sex workers. But these
places, mainly the hubs of criminals, get low quality sexual
service and lower-middle-class clientele. Sex here is often a
demoralising experience, both physically and socially.
So where does one find it? Back within the community,
in college, office or at workplace. “IwantRedHot Chilly
Peppers,” says Ashish, a college student, referring to
the pop group and perhaps betraying the objects of his
desire. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera reign
supreme. While premarital sex is on top of the charts, Ashish
does not expect to find virgins in his age group. Why?
“Because girls are having as much fun.” The notion of
virginity as a nuptial present, enforced in equal measures by
the films of Nutan, Tanuja and Hema Malini in the ’60s and
’70s, is well and truly passé. “Most guys can’t tell a virgin
from a whore anyway when it comes to basics,’’ says Lata,
23. Virginity is a mystery since the days of Kunti and the
Indian male is no wiser. Every woman is a virgin till her past
is revealed. And even then the smart ones can create a
tangible doubt in the mind of the lovelorn.
Unlike previous generations,womenin small towns have
become expressive about their erogenous zones. Something
that embarrassesmenin their 30sand40s. Indianmengrow
on a staple diet of submissive, ever ready, dutiful,
missionary-position wives and look for real fun only with the
otherwomen.Unlike in the last decade, the otherwomantoo
has metamorphosed into a younger, brash and plentifully
available species. More older men are in relationships with
younger women and vice-versa. “A lot of baggage of the
earlier era has been altered by media images and the
behaviour of role models and screen idols,” says Anita Shah,
a psychoanalyst at a leading hospital in Bhopal.
Older, experiencedmentend tobehavelike metrosexuals
but class and economic brackets determine their
42 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Do you
masturbate?
Daily
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
6
Never
More than
once a week
Talk and sort it out 38
Tell her you had the right to do the same
End the marriage/relationship
Forgive, forget and carry on as usual
9
26
14
What will you do if your partner is unfaithful?
Do you
boast/lie
about your
sexual
encounters?
47
Yes
47% Indian men
prefer the man-ontop
position.
Would you
tell your
partner if
you had a
one-night
stand?
44
No
29
How would
you feel if
your
girlfriend
masturbates
in front of
you? It will put
meoff
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
12
It will I will love it
disgust me
38
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
44
Occasionally
13
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
53
No
35
Yes
10
19
I will look away
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
INDIA TODAY 43
My best friends have been men. Some of the
greatest moments in my life have had men in
them. I have always believed that the world
would be a very boring place without men.
The men I love the most are the ones who bow down
and give a woman her respect. As I grew older and
started having men friends, not necessarily boyfriends,
I began to realise that I could relate to them more than
to the girls. Even for the most intimate discussions, I
would call my male friends up because I could talk
to them easily.
Earlier on, I was a little inhibited, a little uncomfortable
(with my sexuality). But I always had a very
strong sense of it. At the same time, I wanted to realise
it. ‘Hey loosen up, find out who you are,’ I would often
tell myself. It showed up in everything I was doing,
whether it was an interview, a show, a movie or a
dance. But I think the perception of my being a sex
symbol in the film industry began forming with the songs I did—Dilbar dilbar
and Mast mahaul. Both the songs had a strong underlying sensuality. And I
being me, went all out. I never performed to sensationalise or be in your face. It
was about letting myself go. As actors, we have to allow our sexuality to be
explored on screen just as people do in their bedrooms. You automatically
start to lose inhibitions.
Being sexy is a misconstrued definition. A sexy woman is supposed to be
more of a woman than others. But it actually has to do with one’s personality
and attitude. It is not about baring. The sexiest people are those who are covered
from head to toe. Sexiness is an inbuilt trait—everybody has it. Some of us
repress it strongly in our childhood because of shyness or inhibition. It is also
because we are constantly told by our families how to sit, talk, be cultured and
ladylike so that when we grow up, a decent man should want to marry us. But
now people accept that you come of age when you recognise, accept and are
comfortable with your own sexuality. Everyone wants to be with those who are
ready to explore themselves than pretend to know what they don’t.
I associate male sexuality with a deep sense of security. A secure man is like
the Pied Piper. Strength of character, humility, a sense of humour, compassion
and an analytical, not a judgemental mind, make a man, a man. These qualities
also evolve equality. When I went for the Miss Universe contest, my boyfriend
Rajat Tara had just got his first job as a designer. He took leave to help me prepare.
His last words to me before I left were, ‘You know you’d better do well, it
cost me my job. I will get another job, you won’t get another Miss Universe.’ He
hadn’t got leave after all. To me that is being a man. He did get another job and
make something of his life. But at that moment, to stand by the woman he loved,
he left everything. I hold him in the highest esteem.
In India, the centuries-old stereotype that the man works and makes money,
while the woman looks after him has made men repressed. They are unable to
enjoy equality or say, ‘I’m tired. I want to take six months off. You take over.’ He
will still be a man. A man should be like a bamboo shoot, able to bend in a storm
but not so rigid that it breaks him.
I think, we live in the best times because the world is opening up in many
ways. Also, dangerous diseases like AIDS have forced people to stop pretending
and accept facts for what they are.
BEING A SEX SYMBOL
SEXINESS IS ALL ABOUT ONE’S PERSONALITY AND ATTITUDE Actor and former
Miss Universe
G U E S T C O L U M N
67
Should men have sex
only with women they
are committed to?
Yes
No
Figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Sushmita
Sen 42
48
Yes
No
NILANJAN DAS
Do you think
women who wear
revealing clothes
are liberated?
24

aspirations. It is easier for the upper and upper-middle class
men to copy their urban counterpart’s behaviour, but the
middle class remains conservative. Any public discussion on
sex is still met with a shy, embarrassed smile. Married men
find it difficult to discuss their sex lives even with doctors.
The only time they play it out fully is when they pay for it.
This perhaps explains why some of the most conservatively
dressed, stiff men become seductive and confident with paid
sex workers. The difference between the sexual play with
the wife and the other woman is stark.
Bragging about sexual encounters comes easy to upperclass
men. “I have had a homosexual encounter and I quite
liked it even though I am not bisexually inclined,” says Deep
Kumar who runs an automotive showroom in Raipur and is
married and has two kids. He has not gone for more sexual
experiments but the urge is demonstrative. He would not
hesitate to have sex on the table in his office “but such
opportunities are rare”.
More than the sex itself, it is the idea, the promise that is
aphrodisiacal. The girl in tight capris in the colony, the sexy
auntie who smiles knowingly or the occasional brush with a
colleague is equally exciting. “There are sofewopportunities
to interact openly and meet new people that it is almost
mandatoryto find satisfaction within the closedcommunity,”
avers 29-year-old Kishore Malviya, a government official.
Elaborate marriage ceremonies are not to be missed. Each
event from mehndi and ladies’ sangeet to all-night pheras is
an opportunity to flirt in the fast forward mode because time
is short and desires unlimited.
For the herd, the annual, nine-day Garba festival is the
newest manifestation of the touch-me-squeeze-me sex
menu.With Cadillac-sex as the dessert. “It is heavenly
to have oral sex inside a sweaty car with the noise of
the dandiya-garba in the background and the risk of someone
knocking on the window,” says Anoop, 34.
Suchthrills notwithstanding, sex remainsmostsatisfying
in long, sensitive relationships. It is sometimes not even as
44 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
More than once a week 37
Daily
Once a week
Once a month
Never
20
20
15
2
13
How often do you have sex?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Sometimes 37
Never
Very often
Yes, her mood doesn’t matter
34
14
11
Do you insist on sex even if your partner
is not in the mood for it?
Never 30
Sometimes
Often
Always
29
17
16
Does your wife/girlfriend tell you that
you are interested only in sex?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Sometimes 44
Never
Very often
32
18
Do you have sex without wanting to
please your partner?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Very happy 56
Reasonably okay
Just about
Not at all
24
13
4
Are you happy with your sex life?
30
27
20
Do you have multiple orgasms?
Sometimes
Often
Always
Never
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
46% men from Lucknow love to boast of their 
important as the relationship itself. The intimacy arises
from shared interests. But by then middle age has passed.
Life-time warranties wear out, often giving way to
understanding. “Life does begin at 40. I met my girlfriend
when I was 45 and my wife was not surprised by my need to
rejuvenate sexually and though it is not a cosy threesome,
there is a mature ceasefire,” says M.N. Khetrapal, a retired
bureaucrat who is passionate about environment just
like his girlfriend.
In the variety of experiences and the ability to extract
maximum out of minimum, the small-town man remains
unsurpassed. with Rohit Parihar in Jaipur
67% Jaipur men
prefer long foreplay.
sexual encounters.
AKHIL BAKSHI /COSMOPOLITAN
Kantaben isn’t surprised. “Amdavad sexy chhe (Is
Ahmedabad sexy)?” she chuckles on the phone as
only a hearty, 70-year-old woman can. Kantaben,
who got married at 20, says she was very attractive
and had an insatiable appetite for sex. Married into
a joint family of four brothers, their wives, children and her
in-laws, she found neither space nor sanction for long sexual
play. “And yet those were the most heady days of my life,”
she recalls. When her husband Kiritbhai, now 76, would
return from his shop in the evening, he would bring back
small packets of burfi or jalebis, hiding them in his kurta
pocket. Later in their bedroom, they would share
these—much like the forbidden fruit. The restrictions on
conduct, walk, talk and dressing were so many that dating
and mating had to be experienced at the same time, in the
sameroom, at night. “But sexwasabig deal for us,” she says.
Two generations later, Vandana, a student of philosophy
at the Gujarat University and Kantaben’s granddaughter,
agrees that sex is still a big deal. “Sex sustains everything
else in life,” she says. Curiously, the Gujaratis,oneof themost
orthodox communities,knownmorefor their bandhini saris,
dhoklas, dandiya raas and bustling joint families, seem
peculiarly vulnerable to the power of Eros. For them, sex is
not just procreation or domination, it is enjoyable
consumption. Ahmedabadi men, often portrayed as nonacademic
and mercantile, have peculiarly come up as the
only group in the country that revels in sex without being
bothered about power play. Sample this: 69 per cent of the
men in the city say they are very happy with their sex lives,
and 59 per cent say oral sex is very important for them—the
highest figures in the country. The survey also shows that
88 per cent of the Ahmedabadi men make sure their partner
has an orgasm. While 72 per cent find women as enthusiastic
about sex asmenare,88per cent agree that bothman
and woman deserve equal pleasure in bed, and 82 per cent
say their wives understand their sexual needs—again, the
figures are higher than those in any other city.
These are not one-time statistics. Last year, when INDIA
TODAY studied female sexuality, women from Ahmedabad
admitted most to sexual experimentation. On a scale of 5,
they rated the importance of sex at 4 while the national
average was 3.5. This year’s survey also throws up curious
statistics from the city—regarding premarital, oral and anal
sex (nearly twice the number of people from Ahmedabad
have tried anal sex ascomparedwith the rest of the country),
acceptance of the needs of the partner and homosexual
experiments. Never mind the horror that gripped another
Kantaben, Saif Ali Khan’s housekeeper in the movie Kal Ho
46 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
 By Shefalee Vasudev
88% Ahmedabadi men GUJARATIS
ANDTHEIR
BEDTIME
SOIREES
AHMEDABAD, OFTEN DUBBED
CONSERVATIVE, IS THE MOST EROTIC
CITY. THE UNUSUAL TREND EXPLAINS
WHY TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES ARE
MOST OBSESSED WITH SEX.

Naa Ho, who faints every time she sees Saif with friend Shah
Rukh Khan on the same bed.
Paradoxes fuel each other. Analysts say that conservative
societies are the ones most obsessed with sex, that it is not
liberalism but the other extreme of denial. Freud’s famous
metaphor, the lid of self-control which compressesandheats
up the contents in the cauldron of sexual desire, explains to
some extent the grammar of sex in Gujarat. Bhavna
Acharya, a 33-year-old Ahmedabad-based housewife, reiterates
this in her fervent tirade. “One can’t sit close to one’s
husband, call him by name, touch him or show any signs of
physical intimacy in front of others. So at night, the bedroom
becomes the melting pot of intense sexual action.”
In traditional Gujarati households, where extended joint
families breed numerous notions of conservatism and
morality (think Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Kyunki Saas
Bhi KabhiBahuThi),womenareseldomencouraged to leave
their bedrooms in casual wear, let alone sexy night dresses.
Acharya says that while her family was holidaying in Goa,
she had to wear saris even on the beaches as her in-laws
were with them. Predictably, for 39 per cent of men from
Ahmedabad, boots, lingerie and women’s feet are the big
fetishes and 13 per cent find the bikini the sexiest female
attire. While there is no open discussion on sex, double
entendre heavily punctuates men-women banter. Incidentally,
it was only in Gujarat that the Maitri Karaar, a legal
contract sanctioning live-in relationships, was accepted till
the mid-1990s.
“Of all those who come to me seeking information on
sexual toys and experimentation, people from Ahmedabad
form the majority,” says sexologist Dr Prakash Kothari.
Coincidentally, Kothari, talked of as the first Indian sexologist
and who claims to own the biggest collection of erotica
in the country, is a Gujarati himself. He adds that streetside
pornographic literature is common in the state as are instances
of people quoting aloud from them on local trains.
The demand for books on sex is definitely high. Sannidhiya
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
INDIA TODAY 47
Very important
Reasonably important
Not so important
18
28
16
How important is oral sex to you?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
HOT SPOT: Dandiya raas is Gujarat’s
sensual energy in the open
HOT SPOT: Dandiya raas is Gujarat’s
sensual energy in the open
38% men from
Ahmedabad prefer
woman on top.
make sure that their partner has an orgasm.
SHAILESH RAVAL Do you give
oral sex to
your
partner?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Refuse to give her oral sex 28
Refuse to have sex with her
Tell her that it is important for you
16
22
What would you do if your partner
refused to have oral sex with you?
Often
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Won’t say
12
9
Sometimes
Never
44 Always
25
Sampoorna Sex Guide, the first slick book written in
Gujarati on sexual techniques by Ahmedabad-based sex
specialist Paras Shah, has sold 70,000 copies in two years.
“Couples have started experimenting with positions other
than the missionary,” says Shah. This is validated by the
survey in which 38 per cent say that woman on top is
their favourite position—the national average is 21 per
cent. In last year’s study on women, 73 per cent said they
shared their fantasies with their partners—again the
highest national figure.
However, Gujarati women, in their bandhej saris, huge
bindis and glass bangles jingling on their arms, are
rarely perceived as radical. They move in herds with
children and family, not alone as independent
individuals. But they nurture bold views on sex. The sex
appeal of Gujarati women is wholesome, says Mumbaibased
actor Ketaki Dave. “They are culture conscious,
warm, hospitable and aware of their feminine charms and
sexuality which make for an irresistible combination,” says
Dave, whose roles on TV and in films as a fiery Gujju woman
have won her a big fan following. But she also points out
that the consuming chemistry which thesewomengenerate
finds expression only in private.
Except during the Navratri festival. Then Gujarat rocks
with dholak and dandiya beats, the festivity fuels people’s
erotic desires and men and women figure out the physics of
sexual chemistry in domains outside the bedroom. Gujarat
then resembles Lord Krishna’s raas leela where the gopis
and gwalas of Vrindavan become one with the sensual
surroundings. Last year, as if in justification, the sales of oral
contraceptives overtook that of condoms during the garba
festival. Says Snehal Patel, a college student: “Today premarital
sex has virtually got social sanction among a large
section of liberated youngsters in Ahmedabad.”
The new generation is not only challenging norms by
wearing sleeveless blouses with Gujarati saris, but they are
also trying to delink sex from the act of intercourse. Change
always takes place simultaneously at different sites. Take
the case of Poonam and Rita. Two months ago, these postgraduate
students walked into the clinic of an Ahmedabadbased
sex specialist, asking for a sex doll which they wanted
to gift to a male friend on his birthday.
So, are the Gujaratis indiscriminate? Or are they easily
ushering in what might be a difficult revolution for the rest
of India? Probably neither. As a social scientist says, “What
we see in Gujarat is the mixed effect of popular culture and
films. Gujaratis are also big tourists and a hedonistic nexus
of food, travel, time-pass and sex seems to be working
here.” Truly, there is no great aesthetic theory behind it.
What works for sexuality doesn’t necessarily work in other
facets of social life. As dancer Mallika Sarabhai says, “Don’t
forget that hypocrisy is pervasive here. Despite vegetarianism,
there are long queues outside non-veg restaurants.
Despite prohibition, alcohol abuse is very high. Despite the
value placed on non-violence, violence has shaken Gujarat.
There is sex clothed in silence but contradictions peep out.”
An inherent contradiction—a strange but explicable
swing between conservatism and consumption of pleasures
—explains Gujarat. According to some versions (still
debated by historians) Vatsayana wrote the Kamasutra
between 351 and 375 A.D. in Lat Pradesh, near Khambhat
in Gujarat. On the other end of the spectrum, there is
Mahatma Gandhi, born in Porbandar, Gujarat, who, after
his long engagement with the dark God of desire, made
sexual renunciation the sine qua non of his self-realisation.
So when Kantaben insists, “Gujarati loko hot chhe”,
there is more than sex to it.
48 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover story MALE SEXUALITY
69% Ahmedabadi
men are happy
with their sex lives.
Have you ever
asked a woman
for a sexual
favour in
return for a job,
assignment or
a promotion?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Haven’t tried any of these/Won’t say
Oral sex 25
Anal sex
Bisexual sex
Group sex
15
10
4
What have you tried?
SHAILESH RAVAL
Figures in per cent; Rest: Won’t say
No
73
18
Yes
American singer Bette Midler said it all. “If sex is such
a natural phenomenon,” she once observed, “how
comethere are somanybookson‘howto’?” It isavalid
point. The Kamasutra may be unique in the genre of
how-to manuals but the market for serious, non-fiction
books on sex is insatiable. Authors/researchers like Alfred
Kinsey, Shere Hite and Masters and Johnson have spawned
an assembly line of “sexperts” telling us how it is done, the
psychological factors that come into play when it is being
done and why men have sexual appetites and needs different
fromwomen.Apparently, it is thatMarsandVenus thing
if you believe everything that is written for edification. Or
book sale numbers.
Thetruth is that almost four decades after feminismwas
born in a bonfire of bras, sexual standards and social perception
are still skewed in favour of the male. Infidelity remains
the classic example. Even in the supposedly
ultra-liberal 21st century,
awomanwhohas
an extramarital affair
is labelled a harlot, a
woman of loose
morals, a betrayer of
marital vows. A man
who does the same
thing is called a stud,
someone to be envied
rather than reviled.
Going by contemporary
psychobabble,
there is an Alpha Male
but there is no Alpha
Female. The macho
thing is reflected in
sexual accessories.
There is no Viagra for
sexually challenged
women, nor is there a
male pill in the market.
The condom is an option,
akin to deciding
whether to order the
fish or the fowl.
Unprotected women
face abortion or an unwanted
baby.
The male ego, supposedly
less fragile than the female’s, is again at foreplay in
the unequal battle of the sexes. A woman, especially one
who is married, when in male company likes to flirt, to feel
she is sexy and desirable without necessarily ending up in
a tangle of naked limbs. The male ego, fuelled by
testosterone, demands a sexual conquest. In today’s
narrow, fabulous kind of man’s world it is performance that
proves that a man is a man. The woman as sexual athlete
is something of a caricature.
Almost a quarter of a century after feminist icon
Germaine Greer penned The Female Eunuch and unfurled
the banner of sexual equality, the dice is still heavily
loaded in favour of the male. Greer hasn’t changed
her views, though she no longer advocates free love.
Her latest book, The Whole Woman, condemns all men
as brutal, lazy sperm factories incapable of offering
women any emotional or sexual satisfaction.
That may be a
typically feminist attitude
but it does
indicate that gender
sexuality is still an
arena of conflict with
no clear line of control.
The problem lies with
the fact that even
today, men are seen as
sexually different from
women. That, in turn,
leads to the propagation
of myths around
gender sexuality. The
most common misconception
being that sex
for men is simple,
straightforward and
problem-free, while
women’s sexuality is
complex, mysterious
and angst-ridden. The
truth, however, is
somewhat different.
In his book, The
New Male Sexuality,
prominent psychologist
and sex therapist
Bernie Zilbergeld
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
INDIA TODAY 49
cover storyMALE SEXUALITY
EVEN AFTER DECADES OF SHRILL FEMINIST RHETORIC, GENDER SEXUALITY
REMAINS AN ARENA OF CONFLICT WITH NO CLEAR LINE OF CONTROL
SEX ON THE RUN
 By Dilip Bobb
NILANJAN DAS
NEW
lays some sexual ghosts to rest. According to him, most
men are actually extremely anxious about sex. They can’t
get it up or they can’t get it on, they think they come too
fast or they think they come too slowly, they want more sex
than they are getting or else they want less, they want
different kinds of sex than they know how to get, they want
sex in different ways and with different people than they
are having it with, and the women they want to have sex
with don’t want the same things the men want. Zilbergeld’s
book focuses on contemporary culture’s “fantasy model of
sex”, which dictates that men be able to function and
enjoy sex without considering their actual needs for
relating and sharing.
Sexual studies, at best, provide an insight into the
sexual practices of “mostmen”or “most women”. The
temptation to generalise is ever present with the result
that contradictions persist, as do myths and misconceptions.
There is one indisputable fact, however, and that
is that men have polygamous tendencies while women tend
to be monogamous. In surveys conducted around the world
in the past 25 years, men have consistently reported more
sexual partners thanwomendid. That is perhaps explained
by the general perception that women invest more of themselves
in sexual relationships than men do.
The key issue here is that men are conditioned to live up
to a standard of masculinity—and especially of sexual
masculinity—that is unrealistic at best and severely detrimental
to their personal and social well-being at worst.
Many men are still confused about whether what they “do”
or “have” is normal as it relates to sexual issues (frequency
of sex, of masturbation, size of their penis, sexual
preference). Moreover, who determines what is normal?
Unfortunately, for many questions about male sexuality
that are often raised, no set standards exist. Even scientific
studies, such as the one by Kinsey in the 1950s, provide no
answers to what is “normal” or “abnormal”. It is like the
quote by comedian George Burns. “I canremembera time,”
he quipped, “when the air was clean and sex was dirty.”
The growing threat of AIDS may have added a major
complication to sexual relationships but the fact remains
that in today’s age, with its attendant stresses and strains,
we live—and love—in a pressure-cooker environment.
There is a highly competitive arena out there and the
boundaries between the workplaceandthe social arena are
increasingly getting blurred. As a consequence, the time or
inclination to indulge in courtship or mating games has
shrunk as well. In such a situation, sexual problems and
sexual anxieties are changing the rules of sexual behaviour,
whether male or female. It revives Sigmund Freud’s
conviction that sexual frustration lies at the root of most
physical and psychological disorders.
It also means that male priorities are changing, sex has
other substitutes—power, individuality, success and material
acquisition. The result is increasingly fragile relationships
that are entirely consistent with a hedonistic,
throw-away society with a focus on immediate fun rather
than long-term well-being. Sex, for a growing number of
men, is becoming more of a mechanical function than what
nature intended it as: an act of love or a display of mutual
passion. It might eventually fulfil professional golfer and
humorist Jimmy Demaret’s prophecy that there would
come a time when golf and sex would be the only activities
you could enjoy without being good at.
50 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
cover storyMALE SEXUALITY
Do you
make sure
your partner
has an
orgasm?
Always
Figures in per cent;
Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
31
It doesn’t matter
Most of the time
8
Do you talk
about sex
with your
women
friends? Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
38
40
A must use
It spoils pleasure
Have never used it
It doesn’t affect pleasure
24
16
14
What do you think about using condoms?
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Always 39
Mostly
Sometimes
Never
30
16
6
How often do you have orgasm
during sex?
Full details of the survey at:
Yes
45
48
No
Sometimes
13
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
NEW
34 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003 and the
Indian
Woman
EVEN WHEN THEY ARE IN LOVE, WOMEN SLEEP WITH MULTIPLE PARTNERS. ONLY ONE
of these is a man. Silence, anxiety, guilt, denial and distrust are the others. Even as they
curl their lips, drop consonants and throw back their heads, conformism remains emblazoned
in their hearts. The good wife or the good girlfriend must not be uninhibited. At least,
that’s the message thrown up by the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen ORG-MARG sex survey, the first
such study conducted in India exclusively among female respondents.
Something is not right. Weren’t the new generation women supposed to be the leaders and
cheerleaders of sexual liberation? The perception, at least, is of sex-saturated times. Devdas’ Paro
remained virginal despite an obsessed lover, but the midriff flaunting girls next door are so different
from their grandmothers who knew their jewellers better than their G-spots. Even adolescents, fed
 by Shefalee VASUDEV
Sex
COVER STORY

on diets of raunchy music videos and who-slept-with-whom
soaps, seem with it. Cleavage-clever Page 3 babes, bare-legged
models, bored housewives having phone sex, trophy wives
hiring male strippers for kitty parties, the heady kicks of nightlife—
all create an illusion of women driven by the torment of
flesh that carries them beyond their social identities. The illusion
that a sexual revolution is breathing fire in urban India.
There could not have been a better way to validate this idea
than conducting a survey among women, for female behaviour
effectively maps social ebbs and tides. But as it appears, the idea
of a revolution is a false prophecy for India. The herd remains
loyal to lajja (shame)—the most popular word in the Indian
woman’s sexual vocabulary. The word that smothers sexual
awakening and makes kissing in public a sin but not breast-feeding
on a bus. Those headaches may well have been for real.
When a contemporary survey reinvents the traditional
approach to sex it is time to pause and wonder. But such questioning
doesn’t gather critical mass because personal interviews
with urban women show a sharp contrast in attitude.
There seem to be more avenues for women to talk about sex.
Many love being called sexy, others understand that wearing revealing
cholis doesn’t make them sex objects. Quite a few share
the sweet-and-sour bits of their lives—erotic, ecstatic, sometimes
deviant, dotted with privileged and penalised sexual
activities. And explain why they want to make extraordinary
choices for meaningful sex.
The disparity is clear: silence or indifference is countered by
36 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
64% women do not approve of sex prior What would you do if you
were not happy with sex in
your marriage/relationship?
Talking is still the best way to chase away the sex blues. But it
is kissing that lights up the hot zone. Erotic massage, the tireless
gaze at body parts, undressing the partner and watching a
blue film are the other thrill frills. Women chose more than
one option, making foreplay longer than four words. Wonder
what the 27 per cent who “don’t know” do to warm up.
Fantasies being flights of the
mind were supposed to be
closely guarded secrets. Till
women realised that the only
way to give them hues of reality
was to share them with their
partners. It is ironic that 34 per
cent still keep the fantasy factory
to themselves. The G-spot, on
the other hand, seems to have
found a place in the way women
recognise their sexual selves.
Supposed to be the point of no
return, it is good news that
more women now admit that
their jewel is not in the crown.
The G-spot is no longer
disowned. A happy discovery.
60
Do you share your sexual fantasies
with your husband/ boyfriend?
Do you know
where your
G-spot is?
34
Yes No
42
29
29
Yes
DK/WS
No
Figures in per cent Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent; DK/WS: Don’t
know/Won’t say
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
Talk to your partner 61
Do nothing about it
Have an affair on the side
Masturbate
Don’t know/Won’t say
2
2
18
17
Figures in per cent

passionate rhetoric. But it can’t be written off by saying that all
women who talk about sex are the new, few decadent drifters.
That they fake smiles and orgasms. That they are sexual exhibitionists
in male imitation. That the overload of sexual stimuli
bombarding us—sexy ideas, sexy ads, sexy films—is contriving
to create sexually confident women. That they may be using the
F-word or buying vibrators in grey markets, but their sexual
liberation is just good old Indian fiction after all.
The conflict is deep and searing. In the boiler room that
is the Indian woman’s mind, Vatsyayana, Buddha, Freud,
Foucault, Rajneesh, Shere Hite and Germaine Greer seem to
be having a relentless screaming match. And when they fall
silent, Sita and Kali pick up a fight. Sita, in her ever-relenting,
passive form, and Kali, intoxicated with power, blinded
by rage and voraciously sexual. It is too early on the rolls of
India-in-transition to expect the women to resolve this literary-
historical-traditional mess entirely and say, “Yes, we
want sex and how”.
Sure, the modern woman’s yearning for liberation feels hollow
if she confuses virginity with chastity. Worse, if she talks
about her intimate life in practised responses, she will only pave
the path for her submissiveness, in and out of bed. The fact, an
antithesis to the war-cry of the modern woman, is that she
actually doesn’t know what she wants. Even women who are
challenging or negotiating their relationships for better sex,
admit it is not easy to distinguish between
promiscuity and sexual freedom,
decency and obscenity.
As experts say, the truth
doesn’t lie entirely in our survey.
Neither does it lie in the
accounts of women who say
they have been to orgies,
tried threesomes or swapped
spouses. Even the globally
lauded Shere Hite Report on
female sexuality found that a
large number of American
women felt guilty about masturbation.
The 1998 University of Chicago Report,
next in importance to the Kinsey Report, showed that
Americans were overwhelmingly monogamous, with 94 per
cent women finding extramarital sex unacceptable.
In this survey too, it is the inconsistencies that spark off the
questions. A large number of women say they find premarital
and extramarital sex and masturbation unacceptable. That heterosexual
marriage must be guarded against alternative sexuality.
At the same time, some are willing to tick the number of
partners they have had outside marriage and whether they had
sex in their homes or in hotel rooms. They know where there
erogenous zones are and find oral sex and foreplay essential ingredients
of gourmet sex. Some even masturbate before their
lovers and for most, orgasms are a must for fulfilment.
It doesn’t add up. If the modern woman continues to represent
her sexuality as different from what it really is, the fear is
she may become a caricature, more in control of her lingerie
than her life. If she wants good sex, she will have to begin by admitting
to that need in clear, unambiguous terms. Why blame
the men? So two cheers for the survey that has pointed this out.
But the third one must be reserved for the Kamasutra that says,
“Of what use is virtue when its results are so uncertain?” 
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 37
to marriage. S E X S U R V E Y
52%
said equality
in sexual
pleasure was
important.
55
What is your preference in foreplay?
Kissing
Massage
Looking at body parts
Undressing the partner
Watching a blue film
Don’t know/Won’t say
16
14
11
6
27
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add
up to 100 because of multiple responses
38 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003 42% women find chest hair the most attractiv How often do you feel
satisfied after a
sexual encounter?
57
32
21
8
14
Very
important/
Important
Not
important
Indifferent
Sensitivity and orgasmic fulfilment,
crucial to assessing sex lives, get a
high rating. Despite popular rhetoric
that women don’t find men matching up
to their sexual awakening, 64 per cent
of those polled said their partners were
sensitive to their sexual needs. The
tricky figure is the 24 per cent who find
sex only occasionally satisfying.
Figures in per cent
Figures in per cent
Don’t know/Won’t say
Mostly
Always
24
Sometimes
21
Don’t know/
Won’t say
M E T H O D O L O GY
P R E V I O U S S U R V E Y S
Purposive interviews were conducted using a mix of
house-to-house interviews and Central Location Tests
(CLTs). The field researchers encountered severe resistance
from respondents in some cities after they had had
a look at the questionnaire. In some cases, people tore
up the questionnaires, in other areas respondents were
uncomfortable with house-to-house interviews. In yet
others, they felt awkward about the CLTs. So a mix of the
two data collection techniques had to be employed to
carry out the survey.
In 1978, a survey conducted by The Social Research
Unit of the Indian Market Research Bureau for INDIA TODAY,
polled 604 college students in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and
Kolkata. Two-thirds of the students found premarital sex
unacceptable. A staggering 81 per cent said the girls who
lost their virginity before marriage had “bad reputations”.
Contrary to the INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen ORG-MARG survey of
2003, Delhi was the most conservative in 1978 where only
31 per cent students admitted to petting compared to
Kolkata where 76 per cent claimed to have done the same.
In Chennai, only 11 per cent admitted to premarital sex.
In 1982, a Chennai survey on sexuality among 9,000
students in nine colleges found that 52.4 per cent students
had had premarital sex.
In 1994, an INDIA TODAY-MARG survey among 1,365 undergraduates
from eight cities found that 18 per
cent girls accepted premarital sex, 15 per
cent didn’t mind using sex appeal to get
ahead and 34 per cent were amenable to
having a fling even while going steady.
In 1996, an Indian Council of
Medical Research survey studied
sexual behaviour of 5,000 adolescents
in the 10-14 years age group in six
Indian states. It concluded that both
premarital sex and teenage pregnancies
were rapidly growing trends.
Nearly 2,305 women belonging to the middle and uppermiddle
class (SEC A and SEC B) were interviewed across
10 cities. They belonged to three age groups: 19-24 years,
25-34 years and 35-50 years and included unmarried,
married and divorced/separated women. Some questions
were asked only to those women who said they had had
sex (1,814). Questions on extramarital sex were put only
to those who said they had had relationships outside marriage
(119). Two-thirds of the respondents were graduates/
postgraduates; the rest were educated till senior or
higher secondary. Almost all respondents owned a colour
TV, four-fifths owned a house, while 15 per cent owned a
mobile phone and a quarter drove a vehicle.
How important is
having an orgasm
for your sexual
fulfilment?
85% women first
had sex
only after
marriage.
19
4
Never
64 23
13
Yes
Don’t know/Won’t say
No
Figures in per cent
Do you think your partner is
sensitive to your sexual needs?




R E S P O N D E N T S ’ P R O F I L E
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex

SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 39
e feature in a man. S E X S U R V E Y
How many orgasms
satisfy you?
What would you do if your friend
gave you a blue film?
How important is your own
pleasure to you while having sex?
What would you do if your partner
refused to have oral sex with you?
Old hat? Perhaps, but oral sex was for long considered a man’s
prerogative and a woman’s dream. Now that much of fantasy is being
shared by sexual partners, it is surprising that 49 per cent women say
they wouldn’t know what to say if their partner refused to have oral sex
with them. Not knowing must be the toughest choice.
On the other hand, blue films aren’t remote anymore. For the 28 per
cent who watch it with partners, there is the promise of a turn-on. But
the real thrill—for 11 per cent—is watching a blue film alone.
Multiple orgasms need a
deep understanding of
how the body responds to
desire. Since 18 per cent
say they are satisfied by
more than one, it should
be seen as a pointer to
greater sexual fulfilment.
The finding below is a
similar reflection: women
give the same importance
to their pleasure as
their partner’s.
Figures in per cent
Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent
49
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to
100 because of multiple responses
One
Two-Three
Multiple
Don’t know/Won’t say
14
4
33
What have you tried?
41
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to
100 because of multiple responses
Oral sex
Anal sex
Bisexual sex
Group sex
Don’t know/Won’t say
13
16
6
27
52 10
23
Less important than
the partner’s
9
More important than
the partner’s 6
Unimportant
As important as
the partner’s
Refuse to have sex
with him
49 18
6
Tell him that it is
important for you
16
Refuse to give him
oral sex 11
Suppress your urge
Don’t know/Won’t say
GETTY IMAGES
Figures in per cent
37 28
16 Watch it with your partner
11
Watch it alone
in the bedroom
8
Watch it with a group of women friends
Return it without watching it
Don’t know/
Won’t say
Bisexuality, an emerging trend among
urban women, got a resounding echo.
Surprising is the 13 per cent who say
they have tried anal sex, which till
recently was a male preference.
42 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003 41% of women have a contented sex life, 21% IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN HARD TO PUZZLE OUT INDIAN ATTITUDES ON SEXUAlity.
Indians are affectionate and sensual, though their philosophical aspirations
tend to valourise asceticism and renunciation. So it isn’t surprising that the INDIA
TODAY-AC Nielsen ORG-MARG survey paints women as conservative and cautious.
In traditional cultures, much that is socially taboo is implicitly accepted as long as
it is not explicit. Particularly sexuality. As long as social facade and the traditional family
structure—usually a heterosexual marriage with one male child—is maintained,
a blind eye is turned towards other sexual liaisons. The taboo is not on sexual conduct
but on “outing” it, which may involve a loss of face or threaten the stability of accepted
social arrangements. In such cultures, women are the safekeepers of traditions and
values, resulting in the strict regulation and control of women’s sexuality to maintain
family honour and ensure legitimacy of progeny.
So no matter how “emancipated” today’s women are, they will experience some
conflict between their new desires and previously internalised social expectations. To
engage in or talk openly about their sexuality would generate a sense of vulnerability.
This is clearly reflected in the survey. On the one hand, the frankness that some
women show reflects a newfound sense of power and confidence. For some, it could
be a form of exhibitionism to shock and titillate. Or, it could be an attempt to gain attention,
a kind of Page 3 prestige. On the other hand, it should be expected that such
answers would be tempered with some anxiety about a potential backlash (internally),
which may lead to a measure of caution or prudence in responses.
Sexuality is always framed by intense fantasies which often get merged with factual
narratives. This leads to distortions in surveys which reflect some compromise
between the self-image and their own fantasies and desires. For instance, 22 per cent
of women surveyed associate masturbation with an image of being out of control. This
is a common fantasy in India.
Sexuality is a part of a person’s experience from birth. The way a mother handles
a baby determines the capacity for sexual excitement. In India, babies are handled for
much longer than in other cultures. This leads to a stimulation of all kinds of sensuality,
including sexuality. But our joint family system promotes family solidarity over
the conjugal relationship. This inhibits the expression of sexual fulfilment in marriage,
resulting in sexual repression. Sons and mothers especially have a close relationship,
which is overly eroticised because of the frustration many women feel in their conjugal
relationship. This may lead to the “internal mother” threatening the son’s sense
of self and may spill over to other women in his life, making him inhibited. This creates
a vicious cycle of sexually-inhibited husbands and sexually-frustrated wives.
Although there are many exceptions, a stereotype governs men and women when
it comes to erotic desire and emotional commitment. Men like to play the field and have
an easier time expressing their sexual desires, while women find it easier to make longterm,
monogamous commitments. Since girls shift their passionate attachment from
mother to father, they develop a better capacity to develop a deep relationship with an
admired and more distant loved one. This promotes their capability for commitment
in sexual and emotional life. Keeping this in mind, it is interesting to note some of the
newer nuances in this survey. Many women seem to be thinking out of the stereotype.
They say that sexual pleasure, orgasms, frequent and non-traditional sex are all important.
Also, a fairly large proportion say their husbands are sensitive to their sexual
needs and that they are not bored by sex in marriage. It could mean a variety of things.
Possibly, because of changes in the way women perceive themselves and the adaptation
made by their husbands, they ask for and enjoy greater sexual satisfaction. Or
it may mean that they regard sex as a significant but not critical part of marriage—
that they are not terribly excited by sex, but not bored by it either. A selective survey
will not answer all these questions.
A N A L Y S I S
Dr Madhu Sarin
Psychoanalyst Intimate Masks
Have you had
extramarital sex?
How often do you
have sex?
81
7
12
No
Yes
DK/WS
Frequent sex doesn’t translate into
better sex,say women: only 8 per
cent have sex daily. Masturbation
and extramarital sex, associated
with guilt across the world by
women, find few takers in India.
Figures in per cent
DK/WS: Don’t know/Won’t say
Figures in per cent
29
29
Once in two weeksonce
in two months
Once a week
More than
once a week
Daily
Never
23
8
11
75
Do you masturbate?
Yes
16
No
DK/WS
9
Figures in per cent
DK/WS: Don’t know/Won’t say
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex

SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 43
21% find it thrilling. S E X S U R V E Y
54
Does your poor body image reduce
your sexual pleasure?
22
24
Yes
DK/WS
What would you do if you were
sexually attracted to a colleague?
Figures in per cent
40 20
27 13
Don’t know/ Won’t say
Suggest it indirectly Make the first move
Suppress it
Sex with a colleague? Not good,
say most. Indirect hints make for a
sexual statement despite the fact
that 22 per cent have had sex in
front of a mirror! The best finding
is that women don’t let their body
image dampen their pleasure.
Figures in per cent; DK/WS: Don’t know/Won’t say
In which of these places have
you had sex?
42
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to 100 because of multiple responses
Outside the bedroom
In front of a mirror
In car/train/on beach
On the dining table
Don’t know/Won’t say
22
10
2
40
What do you fantasise about?
Different love-making positions
with your partner
Watching other people have sex
Orgies/group sex
Others
Don’t know/Won’t say
10
5
14
9
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to 100 because
of multiple responses
If you want sex, do you ...
Figures in per cent
No
Kiss and pet/Have sexual rendezvous
61 4
3
Keep the affair out of office
4
Drop hints
28
Don’t know/Won’t say
Never confess to such
an attraction
66
44 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
S E X S U R V E Y
Who have you had extramarital
sex with?
Which is your favourite position?
38
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to 100 because of multiple responses
Husband’s friends
Relatives
Office colleagues
Casual acquaintances
Don’t know/Won’t say
19
16
13
22
Before marriage, which of these
did you allow your partner to do?
50
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to 100 because of multiple responses
Holding hands and hugging you
Kissing
Stimulating your body parts
Having sexual intercourse
Don’t know/Won’t say
22
6
5
31
Would you exchange sexual
favours for a raise or promotion?
Figures in per cent
53 10
Woman on top
7
Sideways
2
Rear entry
3
Sitting
25
Don’t know/Won’t say
Man on top
83
3
No
Yes
Don’t know/Won’t say Figures in per cent
How old would you want your
extramarital partner to be?
Figures in per cent
67 Same age group
6
Older than you 5
Age doesn’t matter
4
Younger than you
Don’t know/Won’t say
18
How many
sexual partners
have you had
outside
marriage?
58
Figures in per cent; Only
respondents who admitted
to extramarital sex
One
Few
Many
Don’t know/
Won’t say
11
13
18
Women do it too. Look at the
numbers: 87 cent of those who
admitted to sex outside marriage
even revealed the number of
sexual partners they have had.
Man is still on top. But it isn’t necessarily a boring choice. Off
record, women will admit that it is the missionary position that
revs up intimacy the most. Besides motivation and opportunity,
some women also want the other man. But when 22 per cent say
they had had sex with their husbands’ friends they also explain
why the same age group is the most sexually attractive.
Predictable. Women wouldn’t exchange sexual favours to scale
the success ladder. What isn’t so predictable is that 31 per cent
still say they held hands and hugged in the name of sex. How
come 50 per cent don’t know what they did?
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
14
How many
sexual partners
have you had
outside
marriage?
SIX YEARS AGO MY FIRST BOOK, A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES,
was published. A nice but rather prissy young man and I were at lunch.
That morning the pink sheets of a financial daily, which the young man
devoured for word, stock and sensex, had in its leisure pages praised my
book. He stared at me across his shredded lettuce and said, “I am relieved, you
know. I wasn’t sure how the media would react to the sex parts.” I stopped twisting
pasta around my fork and looked up. “Why, what’s wrong with my sex parts?”
I asked unable to resist the innuendo. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, and then stared
at me aghast. How could I be so risque, his eyes said. He continued, “You know
what I mean, don’t you?” And he shrugged. The gesture described everything he
thought was not appropriate about my writing about sex. I realised then that writing
about what I consider just another appetite would come up for scrutiny again
and again. I had done the literary equivalent of putting my foot in my mouth.
A week later, I was at a dinner. The hostess introduced me to an artist who
wanted to know what kind of a writer I was. I was fazed. I was too new in my literary
life to have a well-formulated and rehearsed reply. My hostess said with a
coy smile, “She’s a very subversive writer.” Read subversion as writing on sex. Read
subversion as writing about any deviation as innocuous as shrimping (which is
sucking on your partner’s toes) or sploshing (which is rubbing sloppy foods over
naked bodies). Read subversion as underneath the
sheets with nothing on.
I wonder why I didn’t have to encounter those
knowing looks about the food I describe in my
writing. (It almost equals my “sex parts”.) I’ve
discovered that writing about sex elicits certain
definite responses. First, there is the flushing
reader who mumbles a ‘“Ahmmm ... do you
write, you know, the sex, you know for effect,
or do you think it’s necessary for the story?”
“What do you think?” I ask back. “Don’t you
think it is fun?” That knocks them sideways. If I
was expected to be discomfited or even defensive, here
I am, happy with my “sex parts” and grinning silly. Then
there are the censorious types who toss me a “How does your mother take it?”
Frankly, my mother is more embarrassed by the grey in my hair than by the sexual
passages in my books.
From the boring blue stocking, I am suddenly the smutty siren. Which is why
I now run into an occasional curious and priapic being who comes on strong with
a “So, have you experienced all that you write about? The sex, you know.” My first
instinct is to giggle, but then I deflect the pass with a “Oh no, I just got it out of the
pornography I like to read at tea time.” But what really worries me is the moral
police which glowers and asks, “Aren’t you corroding our values? Indian women
are supposed to be modest.”
To this day, I haven’t been able to fathom how a piece of art or literature is
judged to be obscene. I see that what is coy and sentimental is allowed to pass. I
can see that furtive suggestions are given rampant freedom. I can see that a hint
of a sexual encounter inserted merely to titillate is perfectly acceptable as long as
it is couched in respectability. However, what is natural and beautiful isn’t. So what
is obscene about candour or deplorable about sensual joy? Or a lyrical exposition
of tenderness between two human beings? Particularly when, if you don’t want
to read it, all you had to do is flip the page. To me, what is obscene is a bunch of
human beings dictating to the world what is obscene.
And finally, my favourite is the one where the phone rings and a female voice
says, “We have a special issue on sex coming up.” If I had written about hunger
would I have been asked to comment on a famine. I wonder ...
46 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
Anita Nair
A writer whose books
include The Better Man
and Ladies Coupe. Pen Pal
G U E S T C O L U M N
Writing about sex isn’t obscene. People who dictate to the world what is obscene are.
44%
of women
have sexual
fantasies.
NILANJAN DAS
75
Do you read erotic,
pornographic
material?
12
13
Figures in per cent; DK/WS: Don’t know/Won’t say
No
DK/WS
Yes
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
Novels with strong female sexuality themes
have been bestsellers, but hardcore
pornography obviously isn’t a good read. 
THE HANDKERCHIEF HE OFFERED TO HELP WIPE
her tears was ironed smooth. Unlike his feelings,
which were a knot of confusion. For on his first intimate
date with Sunita M, Tarun Bhandari was
taken aback by her dominating sexual attitude. The
unattached couple, both in their late 20s, met on a flight and
courted for two months before he invited her to a hotel room.
Pink roses, red wine and white candles awaited her. She got
in, said hi and asked to use the washroom. In the next instant,
she was out—in a bikini. Pushing him to the bed, she began
unbuttoning his shirt. “Hey, hang on,” Sunita remembers
Bhandari telling her. “Don’t get on to me like that. You are a
woman, behave like one.” Sunita felt offended, whereas Bhandari,
well, he just cooled off.
A conservative past knocking heads with an unabashed
female chemistry has jumbled India’s sexual arithmetic. Men
don’t know what to make of the new liberated woman, who
in turn feels men haven’t kept pace with her “awakening”.
Men might be feeling a mite insecure but women aren’t feeling
too much like well-rounded emotional beings either. After
all, they can’t be having mind-blowing sex if men don’t match
up to their expectations. And men can’t be playing their old
hunt-conquer-move-on game if women no longer allow it.
Great sex still seems to be at an arm’s length.
But the permutations and combinations have gone all
topsy-turvy. There is no single statement that can generalise
these imbalanced equations. Single women are mating and
dating like never before, married women are walking down
48 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
Different love-making positions make for the  by Shefalee VASUDEV
Some women may be turning relationships on their heads, but it may not be a vantage position after all
Minority Report
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex

the extramarital sidewalks. Women have men friends, some
have buddy sex too. Then there is sex without love and love
without commitment. Metrosexuals, heterosexuals or homosexuals,
the pervading image seems to be that of a blatant preoccupation
with the body. Sample some results from the
survey. Thirteen per cent have experimented with anal sex. It
was a taboo area till some years back and was understood primarily
as a male desire. Seventeen per cent of unmarried girls
admit that they don’t mind masturbating before their partners,
an activity that needs a high degree of comfort with
oneself and conviction in one’s pleasure. In Lucknow, 94 per
cent women admitted that they had killed boredom in
sex by taking it out of their bedrooms and 100 per
cent claimed they knew about their erogenous
zones. Considering that Lucknow wasn’t the
easiest place to conduct this survey, these revelations
are noteworthy. Although very few
across the age group say they’ve tried kinky
sex like bondage or sado-masochism, the average
foreplay time in all cities was 15-30
minutes in each sexual encounter. That’s a
clear indicator that sex is not a quick and forgettable
activity anymore.
Language and body language confirm many of
these changes. Luccha gidda, the coy, sexual-innuendo-filled
Punjabi folk dance for women performed during weddings, is
now on its way out even in rural Punjab. Replacing it are
dances with a direct sexual outpouring that dominate popular
culture. Unambiguous sexual talk tumbles out of women
in torrents. “Men have always talked to our breasts. It is time
we talked to their crotches, ignoring their faces and brains,”
says Anupama Verma, 41, a much-married working woman
from Delhi. Verma says she has had wonderful sex in her married
life and has done it all … played out fantasies, worn stilletoes
while making love, done racy bedroom numbers.
There’s another bomb. “I can speak eyeball to eyeball with
men, in their language. Why, I can even get into the men’s loo
should there be a need,” says Sudha Sadanand, Delhi-based
television anchor. Sadanand isn’t your regular, fumblingfor-
the right-lexicon, woman. “If a man stares at my body for
longer than he should, I go up to him and say, ‘Hey, what do
you want? I am not interested, okay’,” she says, adding that
a let’s-get-over-with-it manner is the only way to break the
barrier. Sadanand says she also goes to stag parties and is at
ease with sharing men’s sexual jokes. She isn’t surprised that
women never call her for kitty parties or baby showers. But
the irony, as she points out, is that all this has actually desexualised
her. “Sometimes I realise I want to be chased too,”
she adds with a big smile. Harathi Reddy, public relations
manager at The Leela Palace, Bangalore, says she too can
look men in the eye when she talks about sex. “We shouldn’t
undermine the importance of sex talk. It has a rightful place
in bond-building with your partner,” she says.
Fade in. An evening in Bhopal. Over cups of cappuccino,
a group of women tell INDIA TODAY that woman-on-top is a hot
sexual positions. Their prime fantasy is a threesome, though
they are not “bisexual”. Premarital sex still has them giggling,
but there is much smooching, fumbling and kissing going
on. Boys initiate the fun, but girls play on. Back in Delhi,
Pratima S.—38, divorced and a hospitality executive—talks
of her tryst with threesomes. “It is a very dynamic activity,”
says the woman who is currently involved with a younger
man. “While being with a macho man is good, a woman satisfies
me emotionally,” she says. “Yet threesomes being riddled
with insecurity, jealousy and heartbreak, the primary
partners have to be very committed to each other,” she adds.
Bisexuality, which even five years ago may have dampened
sexual energy, now ignites it—for some women. Sixteen
per cent women in the survey said they’d tried it. Men too
don’t seem to be out of sync. Rajesh Jha, vice-president of
EPOS Health Consultants in India, who is involved with gay
and bisexual support groups, says, “It is not about promiscuity,
its about choice, and men are accepting these
zigzag choices of women.” Jha recalls a 30-yearold
friend who works in the private sector. “She
had a lesbian relationship for years but is in a
heterosexual one now, and her male partner
accepts her history,” he says. Or, as Rohit
Malkani, a 32-year-old Mumbai-based executive,
comments, “For God’s sake, men as always
are sex-starved and they actually
welcome the new woman’s need for good
sex.” Film director Deepak Tijori reinvents this
argument anecdotally. “When we were shooting
with a professional male stripper, I got a phone call
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 49
most erotic fantasies. S E X S U R V E Y
22
is average
age for the
first sexual
encounter.
How often do you experiment with
different positions during sex?
What would you do if your partner
was unfaithful to you?
45
Figures in per cent
Once in a while
Always experimenting
Never
Don’t know/Won’t say
22
23
10
Talk and sort it out 67
Tell him you had the right to do the same
End the marriage/relationship
Forgive, forget and carry on as usual
Don’t know/Won’t say
6
6
13
8
Figures in per cent
If men are adulterous, talking it out is the most sensible choice, say
women. Only 6 per cent would go to the extreme: end it.
Positions are about
changing. But only 10
per cent say they are
always experimenting.
Those who say never
must be partial to the
missionary. Take a
guess. 
from a guy asking if I could allow the stripper to leave early
because he had promised him as a birthday gift to his girlfriend
for a hen party,” says Tijori.
Male strippers are not limited to films. The past year has
witnessed a change in the way women party in the cities.
Some now seek private time with strippers and occasionally
even pay for sex, earlier strictly a male prerogative. Richer because
of rising incomes and fancy free in choices, some city
women gladly go for the eye candy. Take Vandana Arora. A
much-married and well-paid interior decorator in Mumbai,
Arora lives it up as much as her businessman husband. She is
juggling two lovers at the moment,and picked up an escort on
a night out in Goa and in Delhi, where she travels occasionally.
She prefers paying cash for a pleasurable night. “It makes
life simple when one is paying for sex. It gives me the power to
ask them to do all I like,” she says.
As the shock of forbidden sexuality springs out of the closets
of the socially mobile, marriage seems to be the biggest casualty
of this uneasy revolution. Not to forget that the original
four-letter word “love”, the core of gender relations, is being
paired off unceremoniously with “idyllic romanticism”
and shrugged off by many.
There will always be some happy marriages,
but never before have so many been challenged
by wives not willing to “make do”.
Urban psychotherapists are noticing it too.
Mumbai sexologist Dr Mahindra C. Watsa,
who does sex counselling for weddingsutra.
com, India’s first ever wedding website,
says that for girls premarital sex still means
non-penetrative touching, fondling and
kissing. But Dr Paras Shah, sex specialist
from Ahmedabad, says that his clients fall
into two main categories: teenage girls having
sex, and married men coming to seek
sexual counselling at the behest of wives
who aren’t satisfied with their lot.
THE familiarity of marriage can
never substitute the thrill of forbidden
sex,” says Vandana
Mukherjee, 37 and a television
professional. “I believe in mental orgasms
out of marriage and being complimented
on my sex appeal by men other than my
husband is very flattering,” she says. Delhi
psychologist Arpita Anand, who works
with married couples, says that in the past
year she has come across many women
feeling the need for fulfilling sex in marriage.
On women tempted to try sex out of
marital relationships, Anand cites the case
of a 35-year-old homemaker, mother of
two, who is contemplating separation because
of the absence of regular sex after
she conceived her second child. Ramya
Kailash, a 40-year old from Chennai, explains
this: “Women need sex. They may
put up with scanty sex in marriage but it is
difficult if it is totally denied.”
A plurality of voices appears to be over-
50 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003 Sexual experimentation is often accompanie and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
Who do you usually
discuss sex with?
52
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to 100 because of multiple responses
Women friends
Don’t discuss sex at all
Men friends
Relations/parents/siblings
Don’t know/Won’t say
5
10
12
29
Female bonding didn’t only happen in the First Wives Club. It is in
the Indian woman’s sex files too. Men friends showed up last on the
confidant list, which is a disappointment. Only 8 per cent knew couples
who had swapped partners. Reasonable, isn’t it?
Figures in per cent
Yes
No
Don’t know/Won’t say 22
8
Do you know
people who have
swapped partners?
70
GETTY IMAGES

SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 51
accompanie d by self-doubt. S E X S U R V E Y
When and where do you
prefer having sex?
75
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up to 100 because of multiple responses
Figures in per cent
At night, in the bedroom
Anytime/anywhere
Early mornings
In the afternoons during work break
Don’t know/Won’t say
9
6
13
10
Buttocks
42
6
12 Chest hair
28
Penis
Muscular thighs
12
Don’t know/Won’t say
What do you do for greater sexual satisfaction?
Sensitise partner to your erogenous zones
Insist on longer sex
Tell him where your G-spot is
All of the above
Don’t know/Won’t say 41
Figures in per cent; Percentage does not add up
to 100 because of multiple responses
18
9
14
27
Many women say they would sensitise their partners if they
weren’t happy with sex. The cooler option is longer sex, known to
warm up women to dizzying heights, and quite a few agree. But
for the 41 per cent who did not know what to say, is sex a chore ?
Which part of a man’s body are you
sexually attracted to?
throwing the notions of conformity. But it is not a happilyever-
after tale. Too much experimentation, leads women to
judge themselves by their sexual histories. It leaves them neither
conservative nor liberated and chained to self-doubt.
It is only maturity that makes these sharp curves negotiable,
says actor Mita Vasisht. “These are risks that women
take to feel needed, held or touched, sometimes out of deep
confusion and anger. I could justify my character in Oops
through personal experience and a close observation of
women in marriages,” she says in a convinced tone.
Conviction in one’s choices may or may not lead to better
sex but it does pull women out of their perennial confusion.
As theatre actor, producer and director Mahabanoo Mody-
Kotwal, now in her 50s, says, “I am afraid of nothing and nobody.
I live my life on my own terms and do exactly what I wish
to. I can’t handle hypocritical relationships,” she says. Mody-
Kotwal travelled a tough road from a conservative background
to being the woman who brought the controversial
play Vagina Monologues—accounts of 200 women written by
American activist Eve Ensler—to India.
The man-woman disagreement on who has changed and
who hasn’t rages inconclusively, but Mae West’s take may
adequately explain what many women are struggling to
express. “It is not the men in my life, but the life in my men
that matters.”
Sorry Ekta Kapoor.
—with Neeraj Mishra, Nidhi Taparia, Uday Mahurkar,
Ramesh Vinayak, Arun Ram, Stephen David and Anjali Doshi
Some names have been changed
Chest hair is the
icing on the
cake, declare
women. And for
75 per cent, the
bedroom is still
the bedrock of
desire.
AT THE CROSSROADS LEADING TO THE 21ST CENTURY, ONE PATH
led to reinventing of sexuality. Homosexuality had already come
trooping out of the closet. Exploration and acceptance of individual
sexuality reached an unprecedented comfort zone. Since awkwardness
and inhibitions about homosexuality were no longer absolutely despised
as deviant, transcending the gender became the new mantra of living. A fullbodied,
red-blooded male was no longer considered the benchmark for
masculinity. The buxom bimbette or the clinging vine variety did not make the
feminine archetype. As the androgynous character appeared so visible in the
dressing and behaviour of both genders, the thread of bisexuality emerged in
the cultural framework too. While androgyny signified “neither sex, yet both”
or the one which contains the two—the male and the female—bisexuality began
to be accepted as the sexual choice of an individual.
Now, as men and women have become comfortable with their respective sexualities,
we can see its direct link to the emergence of bisexuality on the social
and cultural scene. Let me say this: personally, even I am drawn to good-looking
and intelligent women. It’s an attraction that transcends gender and sexuality.
A potent sex appeal emanating from good looks, personality and power can
be equally riveting—both in a man and a woman.
The exploration of this sexuality has become a leitmotif
in contemporary Indian art. It is an exploration of
the relationship of the “self ” with the “other”. The
re-reading of one of the chief protagonists of
modern Indian painting, Amrita Sher-Gil,
reveals subtle references to the exploration of
same-sex relationships. In her paintings, there is
a restrained portrayal of homosexuality within
the oppressive society of the time.
No longer slotted in categories of male and female,
artists, actors, authors, dancers, performers
move beyond gender. Art was once grounded in the issue
of sexual differences and today there is a blurring of
gender-based boundaries in it. A large number of women artists
in India have profoundly modified the picture of artistic creativity. Although art
never had a gender, the artists do have a specific sex and sexuality. From this perspective,
the feminine issues and practices that occupied centrestage in art in the
past few decades have considerably enriched the aesthetic domain.
Contemporary Indian art is practically redefining traditional roles of the
male and the female. Bhupen Khakhar’s emergence as a gay Indian artist
became inspiration for many others on the homosexual art scene. Khakhar
became the icon for alternative sexuality, making it an accepted norm in the
creative world. Women artists were not left behind for long. Anita Dubey, Sheba
Chhachhi, Nalini Malani, Shilpa Gupta, Sonia Khurana, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita
Singh, Navjot Altaf are all artists who have radically transformed modes of
representations. By using sexual metaphors and feminist discourses, they move
into alternative methods of art representations. For them, art has become a
medium of their own iconographies. Khurana has used her own body as a site
of such a representation, “shocking” the viewer with her unselfconscious
display of nudity. Tributes to femininity show the issue of gender in another light
by placing erotic relationships, sensual pleasure, grace and beauty beyond any
sexual difference.
Bisexuality is now more and more trendy. It is obviously in harmony with
the overall acceptance of the fact that “there is a man in every woman and a
woman in every man”. A manifestation of both feminine and masculine traits
in an individual means genuine sketching of colourful artistic expressions.
52 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
62
Alka Pande
Art historian, author and
an independent curator
How many women you
know have had
multiple sex partners?
Dual Tones
Two-six
9
Figures in per cent; DK/WS: Don’t know/Won’t say
G U E S T C O L U M N
None
One
6
DK/WS More than six
21 2
87%
women said
they had
never tried
kinky sex.
Bisexuality, as an expression of life, has made an aggressive entry into art, becoming a leitmotif
Multiple partners, if true of women, is
still their best kept secret. A majority
pleaded ignorance, 21 per cent shrugged
it off, but 17 per cent told a different tale.
DIFFERENT STROKES: Ranbir Kaleka’s
Dreaming Hunter (1991)
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
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WHEN THE FASHION DESIGN COUNCIL OF
India was formed four years ago, it decided
to commission a study on the sizes of Indian
women. The members felt the western and
Indian silhouettes were differently structured
and Indian prêt could not follow western sizing. “The
Indian torso is shorter than the western,” says Raghavendra
Rathore, one of the designers on board. “The waist is
squeezed in and the hips are wider.”
But look at the pop symbols of sexuality and femininity—
the boyishly figured Amrita Arora and Kim on music channels,
the washboard-chested Carol Gracias and the towering
Fleur Xavier on the runway and Bollywood’s Kareena Kapoor
and Preity Zinta—and there is no evidence of this accepted
and, till recently, celebrated difference between the Indian
and the western form.
The casualty of this decade is the curve.
Likened in scriptures to the chariotwheel
of the gods, the hip curve is on
its way from zone erogenous to
zone extinct. The famous Indian
full-bodiedness is in hibernation.
In vogue is the androgynous,
semi-starved look.
Or is it?
Rathore says it is denial.
He has women coming in,
accusing him of making
clothes that make them look
big on the hips and bust. He
avoids telling them they are in
denial of their genetic
structure. “But the truth is,
the Indian woman’s body is
a war zone, with the bust and
the hips constantly rebelling
against the rest of the body,”
Rathore sighs.
On the face of it, things have
never looked so good. Indian
models are blending in on foreign
runways. Indian beauty is the princess of
pageants. Newly anointed sex sirens like Bipasha Basu
are on TV, talking about how they have a right to expose
their bodies and that it is for those who maul them in
nightclubs to grow up and accept the change. Even the socialite,
the last word on hemline limits, is upfront. Only a
decade ago the epitome of style was a woman like Shobhaa
De who wore saris but made it to the Top 10 sexy lists for her
hint of oomph. Todays divas of public appearance are the
Ramona Garwares and Queenie Dhodys who think nothing of
54 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
40% unmarried girls said they would like to and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
She is redefining sexiness through her clothes,
even as she fights her genetically dictated figure
 by Kanika GAHLAUT
Exposing
Desire
NO STRINGS ATTACHED: Young clubbers, VJ Ramona (left)
SUNJU/TODAY

being photographed in minis that, if they
were to ride up any further, would be an
advertisement for bikini-line waxing.
Understated chic is for grandma and for
Maharani Gayatri Devi. The new 3 a.m. girl
would rather bring out the thongs.
Whether it is the Roberto Cavallidominated
celebrity wardrobes, or the
wardrobes of college girls with imitation
items from Janpath and Fashion Street,
spaghetti straps and bumsters are as essential
as denim jeans. And it’s not restricted to
western wear: Mandira Bedi may have
inspired SMS jokes about the “twin cups” at
the cricket World Cup when she teamed the
traditional Ritu Kumar saris with “noodle
straps”, but she herself failed to understand
the fuss. And understandably so: the truth is,
even coy brides in head-covering zardozi
are picking out halters and
including slits in their designer trousseau.
Whether it is street fashion or the club, the
action has shifted from the belly button to
other parts of the female anatomy, including
the butt-cleavage. The bra-top, now making
an emergence, not only shows off a perfectly
toned back, but also elevates the bony rib
cage to acceptable eye-candy. In stores, the
undergarments sections are reporting
growing sales, with Shopper’s Stop selling Tshirt
bras for sheer blouses and local shops
taking out feather and denim bras. The G-string, as
seen on the Kaanta laga girl, is as much part of the national
consciousness as Sachin Tendulkar’s rasping drives.
The Indian woman could be a fashion victim, under pressure
to fit into a standardised idea of perfection. Diet diva
Shikha Sharma observes that Indian women want to banish
their boobs and starve their hips. “We have women in perfectly
good shape coming in, whom we turn away, who say
they want to lose weight only around their hips or their bust
area,” says Sharma. Sexual confidence is linked to the level
of comfort with body image. One doesn’t need to read Freud
to figure out that sexuality is about having a lifetime affair
with one’s own body. Yet, says Sharma, “Bulimia and
anorexia are becoming common. Until she gives up the idea
of becoming the perfect woman as prescribed by western
standards, she can never be comfortable with herself.”
Besides the change in role models, the other factor driving
the trend is changing patterns of dailywear. “Unlike the sari,
which was worn as daywear, the use of tailored garments
such as western clothes or even salwar kameez, which are
more comfortable in office, is on the rise,” says fashion
watcher Harmeet Bajaj. The sari made allowances for any
shape or size, and self-esteem did not have to be defined by
a market’s concept of S, L or M.
On the one hand, she seems to be winning
the battle against external perceptions of sexiness,
challenging Sushma Swaraj’s skewed
notion of Indianness and the police’s
obnoxious perception that being well
dressed is “asking for it”. As Rathore says,
“Over the years, it has become acceptable
that ‘good girls’ can look sexy. Where only
the ‘bolder’ ones flaunted their body earlier,
now even the shyer ones are willing to experiment.”
On the other hand, she may be losing
the battle with her self-esteem. 
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 55
watch a blue film. D R E S S I N G A N D S E X
25-30
years is the
most radical
age group.
BARE WEAR: Students at Malhar, the popular
annual college fest at St Xavier’s, Mumbai
SUNJU/TODAY
FAWZAN HUSAIN
IN A ROOMFUL OF COUPLES, A 20-SOMETHING MARRIED COUSIN TALKS TO
me about marital bliss. Her husband says, “No use, she’s a confirmed single girl.
Why marry when you can have the pleasures and be free, eh?” Nudge, nuddgggge.
Gosh. Everywhere a single woman goes, people seem to talk about sex. And they
don’t even have to say the word. It’s enough to say single girl.
At a café, I check out the guilty pleasures of Cosmo. “10 Positions for Maximum
Pleasure.” Mallika, “steamy star” Sherawat of Khwahish, says, “I feel sad for actresses
who are not sexy. Poor things! I am happy to be a sex symbol.”
I show it to Sanjiv, my banker friend. “Rubbish,” he says.
Ah, another Avantika night. “She vibes me like mad again, we make out, almost
in bed and then, ‘No, no we can’t!’ Indian women! All sexy confidence until the actual
sex. Then suddenly purity strikes and stuff.”
Middle class people aren’t shocked by the notion that you don’t have to be married
to have sex. So it is said. Yet, the idea of single women talking about sex seems
part racy fantasy, part media simplification... Every conversation I have about sex
with women isn’t ever about sex per se but other things—love, loneliness, confusion,
the risks of honesty, as much with yourself as others.
I tell some girlfriends about Sanjiv’s Avantika quest.
Payal: “Serves him right. Guys always want these feminine wiles vaali girls. If
you are straightforward, they get psyched.”
Kajal: “Men don’t assume you are a virgin, but they don’t want you to be too
much not a virgin.”
Payal: “It’s simple. Single until married is okay. But single by choice and people
think the choice is frivolous. Any sign of sexuality confirms your depravity.”
Sanjiv calls at 8:30 a.m. “So, finally it happened.”
“Thing is ... she doesn’t say what she likes. It is the real estate factor—women in
India don’t have their own rooms so they don’t masturbate. They don’t know how
to get themselves off, so how can they tell me how? There’s always a material explanation
for everything.”
“A Marxist banker. Who knew.”
The Real Estate Theory annoys The Girls.
“I work in an NGO for reproductive rights, I’ve organised seminars on this stuff.”
“So women talked about masturbating there?”
“Well, no, but it was very informative.”
Too much information can be a problem. Can the sexually successful poster-girl
of an informed age pout unambiguously from magazine covers and talk about sexual
uncertainty? How much pleasure does she permit herself where go-girl advice
is followed by a warning quiz on how not to be thought a slut?
“I find it easier to tell a man what I don’t like than what I do. Will I seem too easy,
will I seem too ... much. At the back of my mind I’m always gauging how to be the
woman he’ll desire, because I’m not otherwise so regular, maybe ...”
Payal: “I make what I want quite clear.”
Nidhi: “Sure, and how long do your relationships last?”
Payal: “Whatever ... if they can’t handle it I don’t need them.”
Me: “Is it possible you, um, choose the wrong men? You know, somewhat sexist,
attractive rake over less aggressive, more accepting guy ...”
Payal: “Maybe, yaar. But the sweet ones are so seldom exciting.”
No news from Sanjiv, so I assume all’s well ... “No yaar, all is boring. Since we
had sex I have to keep reassuring her it’s not just about sex.”
“I guess she’s had her share of shallow guys.”
“But I’m not them. I’m me. Heck, it’s so much work. How can I be in it for fun?”
“Maybe you should find someone less complicated.”
“Arre yaar, what fun is that? If it’s easy, is it worth having?”
Sometimes a wink is a blind eye. Inside the talk of change, a second-guessing
silence plays safe. Maybe free sex is not as free as the spin makes it out to be.
56 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
Living life as a single woman is not as easy as the decision to remain so
Paromita Vohra
Documentary filmmaker.
Scripted the award-winning
Khamosh Pani. Talking Sex
G U E S T C O L U M N
NILANJAN DAS
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
Marriage usually dictates an Indian
woman’s sexual awakening. Yet, 32 per
cent are early bloomers having had sex
between 18 and 21 years.
85
When did you first
have sex?
In college
5
Figures in per cent
After
marriage
After
engagement
7
In school
3
32
21-23 years
Figures in per cent; Rest: Don’t know/Won’t say
18-21 years
28
Below 18 23-27 years
Above
27
8 19
6 32
How old were
you when you first
had sex?
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IT’S BEEN IN THE AIR FOR A WHILE. LIKE THE SMELL OF A CABINET RE
shuffle. Ads for men’s underwear in which women lynch a lad in the john, leaving
him in nothing but his itsy-bitsy, virile violet-coloured Y-fronts. Ripply-firm,
freshly-marinated-in-baby-oil beefcake strutting its stuff on the nation’s catwalks
as its women manhunt, glassy-eyed and delicately drooling. The vamp vanishes, the
heroine routinely togs up in stuff that would make Mona Darling cringe and the still
lovely but visibly 40-something actors, who should have been playing Mummyji roles
years ago, are shown in very un-Mummyji relationships with boys old enough to be
their sons. Sexologists excitedly prattle about an epidemic of women hauling in husbands
because the fellow’s bedroom manner isn’t quite tickety-boo. All storm signals,
we are told, of a sexual revolution revving up as the Indian woman’s id tumbles out of
the closet. And across the length and breadth of the
land, a new rousing cry may soon shake the rafters:
“Forget 33 per cent reservation in seats, we want 33
per cent more orgasm.”
Drivel, you scoff—our Tulsi behaving so
brazenly? Why not, I say. And if so, three cheers
for this new, improved avatar of the Bharatiya
Nari. But while I hate to be the wet blanket when
things are heating up so nicely between the
sheets, it worries me.
But it takes two to tango. So, shouldn’t the
Indian male be figuring somewhere in this? What if
he wants this edition of the missus as much as
boiled karelapudding? And can you blame the man?
As it is, his women are crawling out of the masala
cabinet in droves, demanding that they want to
have a say in this, that and the other. (To think she
used to be happy just to match my socks to my tie …)
Now she wants to decide what happens in the bedroom?”
It’s more than a chap can take. I mean, you
come home after a hard day’s work, ready for a bit
of telly, a spot of dinner and she’s all togged up in
that peculiar lace thing, smelling like a bordello
with that creepy, glittery look in her eyes she gets
just before the annual sari sale … Thank God,
mummy isn’t here! What happened to the good ol’
days when she was the one with the headache?
So the point is this. It’s all very well for Ms
India to spike his dal makhani with powdered
rhino horn, hoping he will be quite the
Thunderbolt tonight but what if Mr India is still
firmly stuck in the days when nice girls shut their
eyes and thought of tomorrow’s Karva Chauth
kitty party? If so, then extended foreplay will
have to be what he does when it rains on the golf
course and missionary is about the only position
we can take in all this.
Don’t get me wrong. We love our men, the dear things. And between you and me,
we admit there are some things we can’t do without them. So, maybe lurking inside
every Indian woman is this simmering volcano of bold, untrammelled passion, waiting
to be out. But I have a feeling that our inner Vesuvius might have to wait a while.
So if it’s all the same to you, we are going to stick to getting our jollies by experimenting
with that daring new shade of hair rinse (Virile violet?). Other than that,
what women want—for the time being at least—might be summed up in this SMS from
a friend: “A recent survey found that a majority of Indian women do fantasise about
two men at the same time—one for the cooking and the other to do the cleaning.”
58 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
Wish ’n’ Wait Ratna Rajaiah
Television director and
freelance writer
G U E S T C O L U M N Oral sex is still a big deal. A large
number of women say they wouldn’t know
how to respond if their men insist on oral
sex. Considering that this question was
put only to those who had had sex (1,814
women), it is surprising that they said
they were clueless about it. Close on
their heels, 29 per cent say they will
agree but 19 per cent are clear that they
will refuse outright.
Oral sex or not, Indian marriages, at least
on record, seem to be exciting. Women
may be spiritually, emotionally and
culturally bored with their husbands. But
sex? That’s great. I am okay, he’s okay,
say women. Ask no further.
33
What would you do
if your partner wants
to have oral sex
with you?
Refuse
Figures in per cent DK/CS: Don’t know/Won’t say
19
Say would think about it
Say no to
sex with
him at
all
DK/WS
Agree
8
29
74
Are you bored with sex
in marriage?
18
8
Figures in per cent DK/CS: Don’t know/Won’t say
No
DK/WS
Yes
11
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex
IREMEMBER AN ENCOUNTER AT DELHI UNIVERSITY. I WAS WALKING WITH
my cousin one late evening near the Maurice Nagar Chowk. A sardar on a scooter
drove past smiling his approval. He thought my cousin was my date. I was livid till
my cousin said, “Let it be, at least, the guy is passionate.” Behind the laughter and
stereotype, there was a statement about sexuality where issues of passion, fulfilment
and the erotic are treated as societal secrets, more sacrosanct than national security.
Sexuality itself appears to be a middle-class urban phenomenon. One survey makes
claims that Indian women are sexually conservative, that sexual experimentation
seems more a metropolitan possibility but only a mofussil dream. But like gossip, sexuality
can rarely be mapped through a survey. Surveys on sexuality mimic consumer
behaviour. Even Masters and Johnson, who conducted leading surveys, would agree
that sexuality can’t be bought like Surf.
In India, it is projected like a dyadic war between
a man and a woman without any sense of context.
For all its resonance, it is an impoverished term
stripped of its symbols. The middle class has abbreviated
sexuality by making it a fact of the past. We
have frozen the erotic at Khajuraho, delegated
romance to the Rajputs and confined courtesan
skills to the Mughal period. What is sexual about the
Indian male or female? Many of the great exemplars
from Gandhi and Kasturba to Mother Teresa have
been models of sexual renunciation. Sexuality reads
like an annexe to the productivity discourse. Quick,
functional and forgettable. The orgasm does not
figure in the hierarchy of needs in India.
The male sexual self is a split self. The male
splits his women between his girlfriend who is permissive,
erotic and time bound and wife who is
official, banal and reproductive. Accompanying
this is a split between sex and sexuality. Look at the
feminine selves constructed around the Indian
male. A man’s relationship with his mother, sister,
grandmother, even peers reinforces masculine
stereotypes. That with his partner appears residual.
The former relationships are in the domain of
suppressed sexuality and are valorised. Sexuality
within marriage has a few playful myths.
Who is the model Indian male? The IIT wallflower,
the cricketer, the cosmetic oozing executive,
the model as hulk, the politician or the cinema
star whose idea of foreplay is to harass women? In
fact, Indian masculinity seems more associated
with physicality and muscularity. We have lost the
language of eroticism. If soap operas are an index,
even women are more interested in politics and
dominance. The sexual revolution, if any, centres
on the pre-occupation of women with their bodies.
Between VLCC and the cosmetic self, women have constructed the sexual self. It
encourages the sexual gaze but plays down the intimacy of encounter.
Sexuality is a conversation. But Indian men and women hardly talk to each other.
Radical raunchiness understands neither the power of the family nor the violence
within. It fails to highlight the complicity between ideas of masculinity, their sustenance
through feminine roles—the mother, the mother-in-law, the sister. One wishes
sexuality in India was a two-person tango. It is more a complex sedate orchestra of repressed,
arid, oppressed selves that needs to be reworked with new myths, new spaces
and courage. A radicalism that is voyeuristic or pretentious merely adds to hypocrisy.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 59
Shiv
Visvanathan
Senior Fellow, Centre for
the Study of Developing
Societies, Delhi Arid Zone G U E S T C O L U M N
34
What do you do
most after you have
had sex?
Hug
Figures in per cent DK/CS: Don’t know/Won’t say
Go to sleep
22
Wash or
take a bath
Read a book,
watch TV, eat food
DK/WS
5 21
18
51
Do you have sex
without wanting it to
appease your partner?
Sometimes
60%
women shared
sexual fantasies
with their
partners.
Half the women polled say they have sex
even if they don’t want it. No wonder,
after-play largely remains a sleep-over-it
affair. Only 22 per cent hug after sex.
Figures in per cent DK/CS: Don’t know/Won’t say
Very often
Never
DK/WS
14
16
19
NILANJAN DAS

A sultry, 40-something woman picks up a boyishly
handsome male stripper and has sex in a hotel room. The stripper
turns out to be her son’s best friend. Her son unexpectedly finds
them. In a moving finale, she speaks to her son of the solitude
within marriage and why a mother ends up naked with a stranger.
Both her husband and son acknowledge their mistakes and
forgive her. —Oops, 2003
“This body does not know love,” the voluptuous heroine says, “it
only knows hunger. The hunger of the body.” Indeed. So the heroine
seduces nearly every man in sight, plots her husband’s murder and
doesn’t even offer the excuse of a terminally ill mother. She is an
amoral sexual predator. —Jism, 2003
THESE ARE NOT SCENES YOU EXPECT TO FIND INA
Bollywood film. Women in Hindi cinema are usually
mass-produced by the same cookie cutter that functions
on one golden rule: women are not sexual beings.
Whether as mother, sister or lover, they are the
repositories of values and remain unfailingly chaste. Sexuality
is sublimated to thrust-and-grind songs. The heroine may do
the shimmy in a bustier but will walk into the sunset a virgin.
Or at least this used to be the case. Increasing market segmentation
and the evolution of an urbane, multiplex audience
are allowing filmmakers to stretch the mainstream straitjacket.
A plethora of performers is no longer squeamish about onscreen
love. Sex is out of the Bollywood closet and even though
the Hindi film heroine largely remains a stylish Sati Savitri,
making love no longer means having to say sorry.
60 INDIA TODAY
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
Sex has breached Bollywood’s conservatism but on-screen woman’s sexuality is still some years away
Body Language
Chennai is the most conservative, Delhi, the  by Anupama CHOPRA
 
and the indian woman COVER STORY sex

Oops, the directorial debut of actor Deepak Tijori, is an
example of the brave new breed. Though the direction is amateurish,
the idea is formidable. Says actor Mita Vasisht: “This is
possibly the first film from a woman’s point of view. She remains
the archetypal mother and wife, but sex is an emotional
demand.” Post-Oops, Vasisht has become the “new older
woman’s sex symbol”. Meanwhile, the younger women are getting
sexier too. Kaante director Sanjay Gupta is involved in preproduction
work on an Indo noir called Musafir about “one
unhappy marriage and three illicit relationships”. Pankuj
Parashar’s Intequam—The Perfect Murder, based on Basic
Instinct, has Ishaa Koppikar doing a Sharon Stone act, including
the classic crossed-legs-no-panties scene. The film, Parashar
says, “has six murders and dollops of sensuality”.
Of course, skin and sexuality are not the same thing. Filmmakers
aren’t hesitant about exploiting the former. As producer
Mukesh Bhatt says, “The bottom line is that whether in Hollywood
or Bollywood, sex sells.” But understanding and portraying
female sexuality is tougher. In truth, Bollywood is yet to
come to grips with the modern Indian woman. Filmmakers
speak of creating confident women, but this is hardly the case.
Heroines might be glam dolls but few female characters have
the depth of Nutan in Bandini or Nargis in Mother India. Bollywood
remains a male-centric industry. Though the number of
women directors is increasing—recent converts to direction include
Honey Irani and Farah Khan—a sensitive Bollywood film
about female sexuality seems a few years away.
Why? For one, there are hardly any strong roles being
written for women, leave alone those that explore something as
tricky as sexuality. Distributors, burned by incessant flops (Bollywood
lost an estimated Rs 300 crore in 2002) are finding
safety in multi-starrers. As two or three male stars strut their
stuff, heroines are consigned to being clothes-horses in the margins.
And even if such a script were written, filming it would be
a Herculean hurdle. Though the mindset of actors has undergone
a sea change, most filmmakers haven’t still figured out
how to film sex aesthetically. Says director Shaad Ali: “The discomfort
shows. The person who is trying to tell the story must
shed his inhibitions before he asks the stars to do so.”
In an essentially conservative society, popular entertainment
is something that can be consumed by the whole family.
Moreover the censor situation is complicated. Says author
Nasreen Munni Kabir: “People see censorship as repression, not
guidance, and there is no control at the theatre. You can’t have
steamy scenes until this is fixed.” Indeed, a graded censorship
system would allow cinema to push the envelope further.
However, films like Jism hint that Bollywood is taking baby
steps. Kabir points out that Hollywood too went through a
period of noir films before emerging with more complex female
characters. Certainly, the door isn’t wedged shut as it was
before. Vashisht believes “something has begun”. Indeed. 
SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
INDIA TODAY 61
Sex with or without love? No, more than yes. The
15 per cent who answer in affirmative may be the
ones who are addicted to the forbidden fruit.
most experimentative. S E X I N C I N E M A
SEX-CAPADES: Bringing sex out of the Bollywood closet are brave
new films like Tijori’s Oops (left), Khwahish (top) and Jism
64
Would you have sex if
you are not in love with
your partner?
21
15
No
DK/WS
Yes
The complete results and other details of the survey at:
Figures in per cent; DK/WS: Don’t know/Won’t say