Obscenity From The Indian Context

Every generation must redefine notions of obscenity in the context of their times. Ancient India, under the dominance of Hindu rulers, had no issues with nudity. Or sex. Konarak, Khajuraho, the Kamasutra are clear examples of how open minded we once were as a nation, as a culture.
The gorgeous Sunita Menon may not have been around but, even in those days, long before Ekta Kapoor, the most popular things began with K. And no, no one complained. No one saw them as obscene.
Then came the Muslim invasion. The early guys were fine but, as they settled in, the Mughal rulers got more and more uptight till Aurangzeb, clearly anticipating three centuries ago our home minister R R Patil's ideas, banned music, dance, alcohol and, despite his many wives, made sex into a dirty word, to be proscribed in public and suffered only in the bedroom.
The British, who came in next, were going through their prudish Victorian phase and promptly dittoed this. So obscenity became associated with sex and nudity, in a total reversal of our own traditions which celebrated both.
It may be time in India to re-examine this Semitic view of sex and tried to rediscover its timeless beauty, joy and magic. Instead of harassing artists, writers, film makers who try to take sex out of the closet, India should support them. It would likely reduce violence and hatred throughout society.
It will also hopefully diminish India's obsession with divisive forces like religion, caste, community, sect and revive the romance of the male-female relationship. Crimes against women will come down. For very few things have the seductive power to overcome the vulgarity of violence and the fetish of faith. Sex is luckily one of them.
So what happens to vulgarity? If sex is out, what will the obscenity hunters chase? I can suggest several alternatives. Let's start with what the Prime Minister referred to the other day the vulgarity of ostentation. Creating wealth is fine up to a point but, beyond that, wealth must serve the interests of the community. You cannot have 40 per cent of the people barely able to afford one square meal a day while the families of the ruling elite spend 60 per cent of their waking hours shopping around in swanky malls. For me, that's vulgarity. And, as you can see, this vulgarity of hyper consumerism is hurting India more than anything else. It's dividing us into two. Those who can flaunt the new lifestyle versus those who are barely surviving.
Vulgarity is the way we run our democracy where the corrupt buy and occupy every nodal office. Rajiv Gandhi once said that only 10 per cent of what the State spends on the common man ever reaches him. That was in his time. Today, we would be lucky if 2 per cent reaches the common man. Isn't that vulgarity? The fact that those who are hired or voted into office to reduce poverty actually spend all their time looting the state and collaborating with the rich. Maharashtrians complain that Mumbai has been taken over by outsiders. Not true. Mumbai has been taken over by builders, who (irrespective of where they come from) are a law unto themselves. It is these builders who have stripped ordinary people of their dignity and lured them to sell off their homes and forget their culture by tempting them with easy money. It is they who have created these artificial property prices that none of us can afford.
Vulgarity is forcing second hand booksellers off the streets. Vulgarity is fake encounters. Vulgarity is the all encompassing corruption we live with and often succumb to. Vulgarity is destroying the environment, vandalising our heritage, and outraging senior citizens. Vulgarity is rich, ostentatious weddings and dowries. Vulgarity is the fact that India produces 70 per cent of the world's fake drugs that kill millions. Vulgarity is intolerance, brutality, bloodshed. Vulgarity is raping the soul of Mumbai and trying to make it into a silly, fourth rate version of Shenzhen.
Sex is clean, noble, honest when practising safely. Irrespective of where you get it. In your bedroom. On the internet. In a dance bar. On a painter's canvas. Off the movie screen. Or in some lonely park after sundown. At least it brings two people together and does not tear them apart or destroy their homes, culture, dignity. So why give sex a bad name and allow much worse to flourish?

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Japan, Gradually Becoming Home To Underground Sex Parties

A popular buzzword on the Internet these days is the Japanese phrase for "orgy party" -- Google the term ranko party and you'll come up with hundreds of thousands of hits.

Some of the Web sites are for swingers, people who enjoy making out with groups of consenting friends or strangers. But the vast majority are merely ads for the latest trend in prostitution. At these so-called "orgies," the guys pay money to take part, and the women are professionals.

"More than 100 groups seemed to have sprung up since last year in central Tokyo, but there are only three authentic, not-for-profit ones," says an anonymous man, who counts himself among the very few authentic swingers.

Why the proliferation of these professional "orgy parties" in Tokyo? The main reason is the crackdown against local naughty nightlife, which city hall has been waging during the last few years, according to Spa! As the authorities drive prostitution deeper and deeper underground, sex-establishment operators have discovered that the sex parties are a relatively safe and highly profitable field of business.

Advertising is done furtively, on the Internet or through word of mouth. The venues are usually hotel rooms.

"Mr. D," an organizer of such soirees, says there are four basic categories of commercial orgies: the high-class member system, common member system, high-class 'guerrilla' (one-off) system and common guerrilla system.

"The difference between the high-class and common categories are the fees and thus the quality of the girls," says Mr. D.

As for the fees, male participants in the classy members-only orgies pay anywhere from 100,000 yen to 500,000 yen per session. Yearly memberships can run as high as 5 million yen. For these prices, participants can expect to cavort with aspiring fashion models and actresses. On the other end of the fee scale are the common one-off parties, costing from 10,000 yen to 50,000 yen per session. The women usually hail from massage parlors and other sex establishments.

The most expensive -- and secretive -- of all are the high-class guerrilla events, according to Mr. D.

"These are completely underground. Like, once a Diet member came to me to say he wanted to entertain some people from his local constituency," he says.

Why do some customers opt for the priciest options? "The more expensive the session, the greater the secrecy," Mr. D answers. "Customers who can afford to fork out huge fees are usually people with social status, and these people tend to be discreet."

But regardless of the fees, all the events have one thing in common: they earn their organizers huge profits.

Spa! draws up a balance sheet for a typical, midrange orgy that took place recently. It cost the organizer 630,000 yen to stage, including paying 90,000 yen for each of five women who worked at three different sessions throughout the day.

Revenue, meanwhile, came to 900,000 yen: a total of 15 customers taking part in the three sessions, each paying 60,000 yen.

So the guy who planned all the fun pocketed 270,000 yen. Not bad for a day's work.

With money like that to be made, we can expect the orgy parties to become a more common part of the sex scene -- at least until the Tokyo government's next round of crackdowns.

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