The Dilemma with Sex in India

Of late, there has been an exponential coverage in Indian media on molestation incidents taking place in the country. I am not shocked that such incidents are occurring so frequently these days because such cases were previously unnoticed, or the victims never dared to complain as they were concerned about the societal norms. However, it is interesting and commendable that the victims, in the recent times, are more courageous to come to fight for justice. In a society with conservative (read uncivilized) views and where justice is delivered usually when the victim is dead fighting, it takes real courage to raise voices against injustice.

In a country with a population of 1.3billion, sex is a taboo. Even since childhood, our parents try to raise us as if sex is an offense. They make it seem as if it is the forbidden fruit or the Pandora box. This raises more desire and curiosity in the minds of teenagers than it normally would. Such curiosity turns into craving and gets to peaks as they cross their puberty and grow as adults. This leads to people finding alternative ways to deal with the situation. The ones who cannot deal with will stare at women everywhere as if they were going to rape them. And rape they will, as soon as they develop more frustration.

With society terming women who even hang out with guys as sluts, it is not surprising that women grow up with conservative mindsets. Instead of welcoming the attitude of the ones who grow over these ‘modern views’ that our society holds (I was going to say primitive, however, I figured that the primitive man must have been more open minded in this regard).

With these mindsets and unstated laws, we are creating barriers in the demand and supply for sex, which in turn leads to the black market such forced prostitution and worse, rapes. The trouble with legalizing prostitution in a country like India is that people are not ready for such a reform. The whole point of legalizing prostitution is to provide protection for these women and avoid forced prostitution. The police in India provide their disgusting personal opinions on the rape victims who are trying to overcome the societal views in a hope for justice. With such attitude, it is quite evident what kind of protection these policemen will offer the sex workers.

While there is no clear solution except for the people to change the way we look at things (as for any other problem), the fact that these rape victims are pursuing to raise their voices might hopefully make a difference with time. A society that is obsessed with bollywood where 90% of the movies are based on Love and Relationships, it is ironic that we all love to live in our own hypocritical world away from those movies. However, we love to pat our backs for our extreme cultural values which we preach to the Western World.