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When sex gets out of the cupboard
By Siddharth Srivastava
December 8, 2004
New Delhi - It is an episode that has stirred the roots of Indian society: two
senior students of a prestigious private school in Delhi indulged in an
intimate sexual act in the chemistry laboratory. In the age of adolescent sex
and uninterrupted Internet access, this should not be unnatural or untoward,
even in a predominantly conservative society such as India, except for one
detail. Earlier, such sexual encounters - whether it be school sex or children
exposed to pornography on the Internet, in magazines or videos - formed part of
informed discussions and intellectual debate on how best to tackle the issue.
This time there is a difference. The boy happened to possess a camera cell
phone, and without the knowledge of the girl, recorded the proceedings, passed
them on to a few friends to show off his exploits, who in turn forwarded them
to a few more, forming an endless chain, with the said two-and-a-half-minute
clip now being sold on the Internet and becoming the hottest-selling compact
disc (CD) at Delhi's Palika Bazaar, where all such stuff is sold.
It is certainly not the first time that teenagers have indulged in sex, but the
fact that everybody can see it happening has, as would be expected, created a
different impact. The reactions that have engulfed almost everybody who can be
heard have been to blame somebody. The boy and girl in question have been
suspended from school, so have been the boy's friends who received the clip.
Others have blamed the school administration for allowing students to carry
cellular phones, and those too with a camera. Parents who indulge their wards
by buying cell phones for them too are the culprits. The government, which has
been lax in coaxing schools to keep students in check, has been blamed. Most
important, it is the use and abuse of technology that progresses at a rapid
pace, opening young minds to detrimental effects, that have come under the
glare.
More have talked about the decadence of Indian culture and values in the face
of the aggressive import and copying of the liberal sections of people, such as
in the West, who do not set the best example to youngsters around the world.
Then there is the all-encompassing satellite television and the film industry
to be pointed at. In short, everybody is lashing out at somebody for an episode
that may not be as unnatural as it has been made out to be.
In the seamier world at Palika Bazaar, on the other hand, business is brisk as
more and more clips come into circulation. There are reports of employees
having caught their colleagues in the act, a manager and his secretary
purportedly from a major multinational, bathroom and bedroom scenes,
honeymooning couples ... the school episode has opened a virtual Pandora's box
of sexually explicit clips now making the rounds, recorded on the sly by
youngsters and amateur cameramen out to make a fast buck, with or without the
knowledge of the partner.
A question that has been asked in a prominent newspaper is whether it is "all
just pandering to our basic instincts, and our fascination for pornography?
Have we become a nation of voyeurs? And every time a sexual escapade comes out
in the open why should it - or our interest in it - be so scandalously
shocking? Are we a nation of repressed sexuality? After all, sex always sells
and it is one of our most basic urges."
Indeed, the bigger query has to go beyond just the existential. The fact of the
matter is that sex and sexual peccadillos exist in every society, and it gets
younger with each generation. But can it be stopped, eliminated, checked?
Should it be stopped? The United States was obsessed with the Bill
Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair, and it was only the porn websites that survived
the dotcom bubble burst.
It is not just about sex. In a survey of television viewers in the US, 81% of
adults thought reality TV shows pander to our worst instincts: deriving
pleasure in watching others frightened or humiliated. Yet reality TV is the
most widely viewed in the US - and catching on quite fast in India - and
accounts for four out of the five most costly shows on which to advertise for
the 2005-06 season. According to US magazine Advertising Age, the results
episode of American Idol is the most expensive show to advertise on, replacing
Friends - at US$658,333 for 30 seconds. Survivor gets $412,833 per ad, fourth
in the rankings.
Indian laws related to new-age technologies are in place and quite a few have
been hauled up, yet it has been difficult to implement them in many instances.
According to Section 67 of the Information Technology Act: "Whoever publishes
or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material
which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interests or if its effect is
such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely to read, see or
hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first
conviction with imprisonment which may extend to five years and with [a] fine
which may extend to $2,500." While the statute is quite clear, it is often
impossible to exercise, as most of the porn websites and prurient matter are
not hosted on servers based in India. In the said case of the school boy and
girl, the police have not acted as there has been no complaint so far.
In India there are more than 50 million cell-phone users - can giving one to
your kid be an indulgence? They are handy to communicate and coordinate. Can
the school be to blame? Surely kids should not be allowed to carry cellular
phones inside the premises in the interest of uninterrupted teaching, but can
kids be prevented from using mobiles, or for that matter recording a sexual
episode somewhere else? Can the progress of technology be stopped and can kids
who take to new gadgets the most easily be prevented from experimenting with
them? Look at online music theft, virus writers, computer wizards - it's the
younger lot that always leads the way, for good or bad. Can the government do
anything?
The Indian constitution considers people who are 18 years of age fit enough to
vote, with many arguing for the age barrier to be reduced to 16. Can they,
rather, will they not also exercise the choice to engage in sex, even if we do
not want them to? Can they not also be taught the follies of unprotected sex:
sexual diseases, AIDS, unwanted pregnancies? They should also be told not to
get caught in the chemistry lab. A person who can use a camera cell phone would
be an idiot not to know that one forwarded message can spawn thousands more.
Here also lies the vulnerability that needs to be handled in a sensitive way,
instead of a blanket yes or no, right or wrong.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
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