When sex gets out of the
cupboard By Siddharth Srivastava
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.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
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