BDSM: An Increasing Visibility in India
Is it only something that I am sensing, or is it that a subvert wave is there, trying to bring out in the open and legitimize the trappings and roles and vices associated with sex life in India? I'm talking about the increasing BDSM hints in the visual medium in India - most of them are too subtle to shock many, and yet they are the most likely ones to be fertile, to get ingrained into the minds of a sex-starved, sex-obsessed nation. Right from the Mallika Sherawat dance (at a New Year's party), which was in fact talked about, to hints of heavy chains suddenly coming in supposed-to-be romantic songs in Hindi films - what's the meaning? While the role of a woman has not been much to speak of in almost all Hindi or Hollywood films, yet there used to be a naivety in Hindi films always when it used to come to romance. Now, with the supposed liberalisation and awareness of the West and, what's more important, a social acceptance (though, maybe, sometimes, in a rebelling style) of "un-Indian" ethos, that naivety has given way to, no, not maturity, but vulgarity, the usual, or knowledge, the best (that "we also know").
And so, an Abhishek Bachhan becomes hot property, though to my mind the only thing that he has ever done is to lie sprawling mid-frame, with a dozen girls in different strange tastes of dresses and undresses, ready to be his slave (see, the shot is not even drooling over him, but it is purely slavic). Or probably, that is the thing to do. The chorus of the songs, that used to seem in the films not so long ago some half-mind cronies and fawners of the hero and heroine dancing for simply the hero and heroine (since the film itself made everything project that the whole earth and all the creatures are only for their pleasure - interestingly, the hero and heroine never looked for each other, which could have been a better choice), now seems to be a lot of same or opposite sex hell-bent on pleasing the hero or heroine - sexually.
There was a time when a furore was raised over a Milind Soman-Madhu Sapre ad of Tuffs shoes, with a snake wrapping their nude bodies in a tight grip. While all the furore was over a snake only covering them, I used to be amused that what was something likely to be a disturbing question was and is never asked. The only disturbing thing there for me was the snake itself - and not if it was wrapping covered or uncovered bodies. It was a rope, it was a chain, it was the bondage - the concepts of power and subjugation were in the play in that print ad. While, of course, it could be argued that since both the bodies were bound by the snake, it was not that much of a BDSM situation - someone could even argue that take it in a symbolic manner, and take it that both are bound in their lust and love together (by the way, why does everyone get keen on either mixing up the two or differentiating the two?). But, I think that the whole concept of helplessness, the sadistic enjoyment of the helplessness of one, is BDSM. And that's why the python was there - for people love seeing helplessness. Not for nothing are so many children abused, not for nothing so many rape scenes are included in the films, and not for nothing stilettos are worn - all symbols of power, and exercise of it.
There's always an element of power in sex. No, I am not ruing the fact. It's a sublime game - as many things to variegate it the better - but only when it does not become the continual pick-up scene. Only when you love whom you sex. You love the person, you automatically are respecting, venerating, adoring that person - how can you think of subjugating that person? How can you enjoy seeing that person being made cruelly helpless? All such roleplays are simply the fucking magazine ways of "how to bring zest in your sex life" - a person who needs such a tip, is already a sexless person for me, the tips don't matter.
Finally, let me only clear a bit of air. It is something, which is again like any other thing in this world - there are no rules ever. Countless possibilities of having sex and enjoying it - so there's nothing censured. The only thing that I am against is the sort-of propagation, the inculcation, systematically, of a sort of values. Also, where a thing lodges in the subconscious and modifies your tastes, you never know (especially the adolescents).
I don't know where it's related, but somehow it is. I had been just seeing half an hour of the film Hotel Rwanda. The acting was great, and the film was OK. But always, I start thinking, why can't the hotel manager be a woman - I mean in just one film, at least. Though, for a change, I did get to see The Constant Gardener, some days back. Why not more of Rachel Weisz's? (And actually, there are a few other Hollywood films where I did get to see a woman who is living her life - Helen Hunt's Twister and As Good As It Gets; Patricia Neal's The Subject Was Roses; many Bette Davis movies (probably, because MGM had almost all the star male actors!); Young Bess; Children Of A Lesser God - but yes, I have to think hard, real hard.)
And so, an Abhishek Bachhan becomes hot property, though to my mind the only thing that he has ever done is to lie sprawling mid-frame, with a dozen girls in different strange tastes of dresses and undresses, ready to be his slave (see, the shot is not even drooling over him, but it is purely slavic). Or probably, that is the thing to do. The chorus of the songs, that used to seem in the films not so long ago some half-mind cronies and fawners of the hero and heroine dancing for simply the hero and heroine (since the film itself made everything project that the whole earth and all the creatures are only for their pleasure - interestingly, the hero and heroine never looked for each other, which could have been a better choice), now seems to be a lot of same or opposite sex hell-bent on pleasing the hero or heroine - sexually.
There was a time when a furore was raised over a Milind Soman-Madhu Sapre ad of Tuffs shoes, with a snake wrapping their nude bodies in a tight grip. While all the furore was over a snake only covering them, I used to be amused that what was something likely to be a disturbing question was and is never asked. The only disturbing thing there for me was the snake itself - and not if it was wrapping covered or uncovered bodies. It was a rope, it was a chain, it was the bondage - the concepts of power and subjugation were in the play in that print ad. While, of course, it could be argued that since both the bodies were bound by the snake, it was not that much of a BDSM situation - someone could even argue that take it in a symbolic manner, and take it that both are bound in their lust and love together (by the way, why does everyone get keen on either mixing up the two or differentiating the two?). But, I think that the whole concept of helplessness, the sadistic enjoyment of the helplessness of one, is BDSM. And that's why the python was there - for people love seeing helplessness. Not for nothing are so many children abused, not for nothing so many rape scenes are included in the films, and not for nothing stilettos are worn - all symbols of power, and exercise of it.
There's always an element of power in sex. No, I am not ruing the fact. It's a sublime game - as many things to variegate it the better - but only when it does not become the continual pick-up scene. Only when you love whom you sex. You love the person, you automatically are respecting, venerating, adoring that person - how can you think of subjugating that person? How can you enjoy seeing that person being made cruelly helpless? All such roleplays are simply the fucking magazine ways of "how to bring zest in your sex life" - a person who needs such a tip, is already a sexless person for me, the tips don't matter.
Finally, let me only clear a bit of air. It is something, which is again like any other thing in this world - there are no rules ever. Countless possibilities of having sex and enjoying it - so there's nothing censured. The only thing that I am against is the sort-of propagation, the inculcation, systematically, of a sort of values. Also, where a thing lodges in the subconscious and modifies your tastes, you never know (especially the adolescents).
I don't know where it's related, but somehow it is. I had been just seeing half an hour of the film Hotel Rwanda. The acting was great, and the film was OK. But always, I start thinking, why can't the hotel manager be a woman - I mean in just one film, at least. Though, for a change, I did get to see The Constant Gardener, some days back. Why not more of Rachel Weisz's? (And actually, there are a few other Hollywood films where I did get to see a woman who is living her life - Helen Hunt's Twister and As Good As It Gets; Patricia Neal's The Subject Was Roses; many Bette Davis movies (probably, because MGM had almost all the star male actors!); Young Bess; Children Of A Lesser God - but yes, I have to think hard, real hard.)
Labels: contemporary world, sex
posted by ankyuk at
10:58 pm
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