The Politics of Porn

There are many thorny questions to be asked about our consumption of pornography, but a ban is never the answer, says Sayan Bhattacharya.

 

“Nothing can more efficiently destroy a person, fizzle their mind, evaporate their future, eliminate their potential or destroy society like pornography…It is worse than Hitler, worse than AIDS, cancer or any other epidemic. It is more catastrophic than nuclear holocaust, and it must be stopped.”

“Bhabhi, I have been horny from the time we started, can I put it inside?”
“Not yet. I want you to use your mouth in my pussy first. Your sir never does that for me.”

“One of the youths befriended her and allegedly raped her, while his friend clicked snaps; this friend then raped her under the pretext of deleting the photos later, while a third youth shot her video and later issued the same threat.”

 

It is said that nothing unites India more than cricket and Bollywood. One could qualify these statements, of course. In fact, one should qualify the term ‘India’ and distinguish between its geographical and sociocultural connotations. The Northeast has neither been a market for Hindi cinema nor televised cricket. Bollywood has barely begun to penetrate (pun intended! You are reading a piece about pornography!) South India. In mainstream media and mainland politics, these facts do not hold because the meta narrative of the nation cannot afford such thorny differences. The abstract idea of India is basically the Hindi heartland.



The Internet, however, has been a potent tool to fracture the idea of the nation by allowing difference to breathe, speak and proliferate. It has produced platforms that have often brought out stories that the mainstream media has blacked out, be it the ceaseless protests of Dalits from Bhagana in Jantar Mantar or the anti-nuclear movements. This is not to say that it has not been used by dominant forces. Our Prime Minister is a stinking example of that, but at least the Internet offers a more level playing field than traditional media.

In short, the Internet generates public opinion. From the beef ban to Section 377, film censorship to the pulping of books, Facebook and Twitter have consistently poured scorn and outrage against retrograde State policies. Yet no number of beef recipes or photos of “straight” men and women kissing “same-sex” friends floating on Facebook could reverse the beef ban or dicriminalise homosexuality.

Facebook and Twitter have consistently poured scorn and outrage against retrograde State policies. Yet no number of beef recipes or photos of “straight” men and women kissing “same-sex” friends floating on Facebook could reverse the beef ban or dicriminalise homosexuality.

But, within days of the central government ordering Internet service providers to block access to 857 websites hosting pornographic content, it ate its own words and scaled down the directive, limiting itself to blocking sites with child pornography.

When the government first announced the ban, Facebook timelines and Twitter handles were awash with images from Khajuraho, extracts from the Kama Sutra, memes predicting what the government would ban next, articles denouncing the ban and so on. In other words, public outrage just like the previous occasions. But if it was just like the previous instances, what made the government buckle now and not previously?

The answer brings us back to where we began. What really unites the nation, the abstract one as well as its many dissident offshoots, the sub-nations? The perverse answer to that is perhaps pornography. How else does one explain how Left radicals, liberals, Rightists, homophobes, misogynists, homosexuals, feminists, humanists, theists, atheists, vegetarians, carnivores and almost everyone else came on a single platform to protest the porn ban?

What really unites the nation, the abstract one as well as its many dissident offshoots, the sub-nations? The perverse answer to that is perhaps pornography.

The implication here is not that these diverse political positions protested the ban for the same set of reasons. What I am trying to argue here is that such was the volume and tenor of this unified protest against the ban that the government was forced to step back. Unlike, say, when some of us protested against the death sentence given to Yakub Memon or the suspension of Sanjiv Bhatt.

The next question is what explains its unanimous charge. The answer could range from defense of free speech to pleasure to sex education to recreation to voyeurism or a combination of these. It is quite facile to draw a catalogue of reasons justifying the existence of porn in India. So, for the purpose of this essay I have chosen a few interconnected strands to explore the politics of porn.

Let us begin with the first quote at the start of this piece. It is an extract from the petition before the Supreme Court in 2013 by Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani, asking for the blanket ban on pornography. While I see no point in commenting on the lurid language—bordering on the slapstick—of the petition, what I would like to talk about here is how this petition and its language is not really exceptional.

The continuance of the project of nationhood is premised on the continuous production of healthy citizens. In other words, the heterosexual family is the single most important unit of the nation.

Time and again, the bogey of “social health and morality” and “social security” have been raised to curb obscenity. In fact, the Indian Penal Code has a host of laws to that effect. The question here is what is so explosive about pornography that makes it a ticking time bomb? How does it disturb the security of the nation?

For that, it is important to interrogate the foundation of the nation. The continuance of the project of nationhood is premised on the continuous production of healthy citizens. In other words, the heterosexual family is the single most important unit of the nation. To put it more explicitly, the nation depends on procreative sex within the bounds of marriage to perpetuate itself.

Now, in order for that to happen, it needs to ceaselessly maintain the institution of the family from external contamination. Its sanctity is to be secured by heavily fencing its borders with deterrent laws, rules and injunctions; dissidence is to be violently clamped down upon. If procreative sex is the bedrock of the nation, then it is but obvious that the female body is the instrument for perpetuating the state. This fact can be clearly understood by taking a cursory glance at how the law has literally worshipped at the altar of marriage through how it interprets marital rape, adultery—as a crime that could deprive the wife of the husband’s “duty” to “maintain” her—and the honour of women.

From matrimonial columns in daily newspapers to Khap Panchayats, from fringe groups to communities and of course families, everyone works towards maintaining the hegemonic order of the Hindu Brahmin State.

But the notion of female honour is not simple. In order for the nation to hold itself together, it is essential that an overarching narrative of unity is continuously produced that suppresses the entrenched communalism, racism and casteism that threatens to implode and break up the nation. The ethnic minorities, Dalits and Muslims whose daily lives are searing stories of violence, deprivation and injustice need to be whitewashed to present the ‘Unity in Diversity’ rhetoric. Ambedkar had said that the way to annihilate caste would be through inter-caste marriages. No wonder that from matrimonial columns in daily newspapers to Khap Panchayats, from fringe groups to communities and of course families, everyone works towards maintaining the hegemonic order of the Hindu Brahmin State.

Amidst all of this, enter Savita Bhabhi! Let us follow this little track from the story—called ‘Manoj Ki Maalish: The new help does lot more than clean the house!’—from which the second quote at the beginning of this piece was taken. The character, of course, needs no introduction. Savita Bhabhi is a graphic porn character, part of a series by the same name that was banned sometime back, but kept alive by the use of proxy servers. She is a middle-class, upper-caste homemaker. The external markers of her marriage, like the bindi, mangal sutra, bangles and sindoor, are always in place. She is also a lonely housewife because her husband spends most of his time at work, and therefore the couple have very little sex and even that sex is quite matter-of-fact and brisk.

However, Savita is not one to mope on her state of life. She actively creates bubbles of ecstacy within the sanctum sanatorium of her marriage with whoever she likes. From the kulfiwala to the domestic help, the cable guy to the grocer’s delivery boy, salesman to gym instructor, Savita “does” them all! She does not discriminate on the basis of gender, class and caste. She just enjoys good sex.

Savita is not one to mope on her state of life. She actively creates bubbles of ecstacy within the sanctum sanatorium of her marriage with whoever she likes. From the kulfiwala to the domestic help, the cable guy to the grocer’s delivery boy, salesman to gym instructor, Savita “does” them all!

In strip after strip, we find Savita precariously straddling her marriage and her sexual needs. Often the sex happens in her bedroom where the noisy fucking and sucking is overseen by the photo of her husband. And no, there is no guilt. There is the constant fear of being caught at the act, but Savita creates situations which engender possibilities of being found out and it is this fear that turns her on. This is sex as an end in itself. It is unmitigated pleasure.

So isn’t Savita a security threat for the nation? If each family starts getting a Savita, wouldn’t the very façade of marriage implode? And what happens to the carefully propped up narrative of the Brahmin state when Savita decides to blow a Dalit or a terrorist? In a country where there is no sex education, where most women do not even know that sex can be pleasurable and that pleasure is not always given by an external party, what does it mean to view Savita Bhabhi who masturbates and teaches other girls to do the same? When most workshops on gender and sexuality here begin with the exercise of drawing one’s genitalia, which often ends up being the most difficult exercise in the whole workshop, what does it mean to view a woman who knows her body and what that body wants?

Let us remember here that Section 377 of the Indian penal code criminalises any “carnal intercourse” against the “order of nature”. In other words, any sex other than peno-vaginal penetration is a crime. Thus, here is a law that actively works towards maintaining the sanctity of heteronormativity. Now juxtapose this fact with the wildly popular character of Savita Bhabhi. First, the very usage of the word ‘Bhabhi’ (sister-in-law), that much sexualised relation in the family system—from Tagore to Ray to Barjatya, many an artist has dabbled in the dynamics that the wife shares with the husband’s brother—bespeaks its trangressive potential in the haloed space of the family. To add to that, here we have a woman who enjoys fellatio, anal sex, cunnilingus—in short, all sexual acts criminalised by the law. So if Savita Bhabhi is not a threat, who is? She doesn’t even talk about producing babies!

The charge against Savita Bhabhi or any pornography in general has often been that it is produced solely for the consumption of a male audience. That the character of Savita Bhabhi has been created to cater to the male gaze, which objectifies the female body. However, this argument is actually a tired cliché that ends up robbing women of their agency to actively seek pleasure through consensual sexual activity. Statistics suggest that India is the fourth largest consumer of Internet pornography in the world and that a quarter of India’s porn consumers are women, against a global average of 23 percent female viewers of porn. To say that they do not know what they are watching is actually a patriarchal rhetoric (perhaps this merits another piece on the pornography debates in the West between radical feminists and the sex-positive ones) that always constructs the woman as the passive receiver and men as the active giver.

In fact, this construction of the passive female victim is made amply clear from the fine print of some recent bans of visual materials on charges of obscenity and gender violence. One example is of course Savita Bhabhi. Another example could be the list of sexual acts that were recently banned from porn produced in the UK, because they are supposedly “life-endangering”.

How are face-sitting and female ejaculation life-endangering? In fact, they both pertain to female orgasms, a topic that is hardly discussed, so much so that sex surveys routinely reveal how many women do not even know that they could experience it! Even for the other acts like “fisting”, “verbal abuse” and “role playing”, what is the problem so long as there are legal agreements ensuring that the actors are consenting adults who have been paid a fair remuneration for their labour? However, instead of addressing complex issues of labour, compensation and consent, isn’t it easier to go for the jugular through a ban? Moreover, who needs the woman to have pleasure?

Who can definitively gauge the impact of these daily transgressions on the viewing communities within the citadel of the nation? Revolution is not always about overthrowing structures. It could also mean chipping at them block by block, from within the structure.

This is not to romanticise the idea of porn. There are serious problems with it that need to be addressed. To come back to Savita Bhabhi, it’s not as if this graphic work is a casteless utopia. Manoj is still the domestic help who cannot rock the caste, class privilege of Savita Bhabhi’s setting beyond the bed. The demarcations are clearly drawn here. After the moment of transgression, the balance of the marriage is restored each time.

But who can definitively gauge the impact of these daily transgressions on the viewing communities within the citadel of the nation? Revolution is not always about overthrowing structures. It could also mean chipping at them block by block, from within the structure. Moreover, if everything from our mainstream cinema to our television content to literature works towards promoting patriarchy, how can pornography be any different? The question then is, do we make and consume enough porn that is not sexist or casteist? Do we have to look out for porn that rocks the boat like any good art?

 

Like any other system, be it the State, the media, the education system, law or the medical establishment, pornography is also implicated within patriarchy. It is a male-dominated system where, like in any other labour setting, the men are paid far more than women. Men have greater job security than women. The films themselves often promote sexist stereotypes through their storylines and a preference for certain female body types.

If everything from our mainstream cinema to our television content to literature works towards promoting patriarchy, how can pornography be any different? The question then is, do we make and consume enough porn that is not sexist or casteist?

As feminist porn director Erica Lust points out in a blog post for The Indian Express,

Like it or not, Porn is today’s sex education. And it’s impacting on our gender education… And what is our children’s source of inspiration? Bad, wrong, chauvinistic porn.

India, imagine a scene… a porn scene. What do you see? A woman, blonde, skin tight dress, red lips, watermelon breasts. She is pleasuring a man. WHY? Because her car broke down, of course, and this nice guy came to her rescue. After the “thank you”, she smiles in fake pleasure. That is porn! and it’s time for porn to change…

Adult content of course has the power to arouse, but also to educate, to inspire. I believe that it’s our generation’s responsibility to rethink pornography. Don’t get me wrong, the sex can stay dirty, but the values have to be clean.

What Erica is arguing for is indeed something radical. She has been actively creating content where the female character decides how to draw pleasure, where sexual acts are based on mutual consent. Erica and many other filmmakers around the world are working towards creating a sex-positive discourse in their respective settings.

For instance, in racially torn Europe and America, there is a body of work that specifically addresses race where black men are not fetishized for the size of their penises but where sexual exchange communicates mutuality, the consensual giving and receiving of pleasure between interracial bodies or even between black bodies.

What Erica is arguing for is indeed something radical. She has been actively creating content where the female character decides how to draw pleasure, where sexual acts are based on mutual consent.

Then, let us look at another constituency, people who are thought of as either asexual or hypersexual, that is the disabled. There is porn made by disabled filmmakers featuring disabled actors for disabled people that affirm their sexualities. For example, how does one manoeuvre the wheelchair while fucking in different positions, or how does one achieve orgasm when one is paralysed waist downwards? These are very real issues affecting people around us, yet issues that remain completely invisibilised.

There is porn for queer people as well. When your sexuality is illegitimised by the state and the society at large, watching two men or two women pleasure each other (not all lesbian porn is for men or directed by men!) on screen, or watching a gender-variant person like yourself engaged in erotic acts, often affirms your sense of self. So then, pornography is also extremely political.

 

We now come to the third quote, which gives the bare bones of an incident of rape of a minor girl in May. The locational specifics are not really important here because such incidents are frequent. The girl was raped and filmed. Later, she was blackmailed that the footage would be sold in the market and was coerced into having sex with a second person and then a third.

If porn is banned, then so should Bollywood, where our superstars are shown to chase heroines, forcibly kiss them, interpret their cold stares and even slaps as consent for intimacy!

Most of us remember how the year 2004 was a watershed because an MMS of a high school girl performing oral sex on a boy (only her face was visible) went viral from phone to phone. With a digital revolution sweeping the nation, more and more rape survivors are testifying that they were filmed. To make the issue more complicated, trial rooms in shops and hotel rooms are being fitted with spy cameras to film naked women or to film couples having sex. Then such footage is being uploaded on porn websites. We already know that many a rapist has admitted to watching porn before raping someone or that they have forced the girls to emulate postures from porn films. In the face of such dire facts, the question is whether porn should be banned because it incites violence against women.

The answer to that question is perhaps in some more questions. First, what does it say about those consumers who not only voraciously consume these leaked video clips but also circulate them? Is the problem the medium—mobile phones and Internet servers—or the suppliers and consumers of such content? What about ensuring speedy legal action against those who produce and circulate such content instead of banning the platforms where they are presented? In any case, if one platform is banned, surely they will be replaced by several others?

As for the direct correlation between viewing porn and rape, there has not been any decisive study to establish such connections. In fact, if porn is banned, then so should Bollywood, where our superstars are shown to chase heroines, forcibly kiss them, interpret their cold stares and even slaps as consent for intimacy! Moreover, why just the media? What about rape jokes and rape metaphors? How does raping a Pakistani cricketer or his mother help India win a match? What about our politicians who find gang rape improbable or who think that female attire invites rape?

Perhaps the changing sexual economy of India against the backdrop of a digital revolution might be an anthropologist’s minefield, but surely it is not for the State or anyone to police it.

In short, banning is not the solution. To add a provocative twist to that third quote, there are also many men and women who film themselves for their private pleasure. So if any one of them leaks the video, then it is a breach of trust that should be dealt with. The question is not why someone filmed herself, but what gives the other person the right to share private correspondence with public?

Then there are also others who film themselves and upload such content on websites and derive pleasure out of comments and feedback on such forums. The key word here is ‘consent’. Perhaps the changing sexual economy of India against the backdrop of a digital revolution might be an anthropologist’s minefield, but surely it is not for the State or anyone to police it.

(This piece has benefitted immensely from CREA’s Sexuality and Gender Rights Institute, particularly the classes with Shohini Ghosh and Janet Price.)