The real deal

by ARATI RANA

FROM ISSUE # 198 (June 2012) | IN THIS ISSUE
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Sex sells and it's no secret. While filmmakers and TV executives from the west have made use of it for over 50 years, some industries like our Kollywood are just opening up (although I must admit we are doing a terrible job so far).

Regardless of the degree of skin show, there are formulas – what I like to call myths- that most mainstream directors and producers like to stick to. Here are three of the biggest sex myths that we are fed on a regular basis.

Myth One: Making love perfectly
When two characters get it on in a Hollywood film, it's the finest example of love-making: clean, effortless, always missionary, mostly heterosexual and never protected. Perfect? Yes. Real? Umm no!

Unlike superstars, we sweat, our makeup gets smeared, our hair doesn't look like we just stepped out of a saloon, things get very messy and some of us are downright clumsy. We slip, sneeze, accidentally knock our head, pull our partner's hair or get hit by excited elbows and knees. We sometimes need a loo break in between too. Oh and sex is not all rainbows and butterflies, sometimes it's painful.

We regular humans are also far bolder in bed than our silver screen counterparts. We experiment with different positions; the man on top, woman on bottom gets boring pretty quickly. And our choice of partners is more diverse than the white boy-white girl union or the middle-class Rahul and Priya union. Inter-racial (or inter-ethnic in our case), multinational, same sex, threesomes and foursomes are all welcome. Some of us also prefer sex toys in our bedroom. But toys hardly get to make an appearance on-screen. Perhaps they are a threat to the hero's masculinity?

People in the industry seem to have forgotten to teach their children the 'safety first' rule. What else can explain Hollywood and Bollywood's blatant disregard of safe sex? Two people feel horny, make out, stagger into the bedroom (or a couch) and then bang! This doesn't mean movies put in a 2 minute public service announcement on family planning and safe-sex every time there is a bedroom scene, but once in a while it would be nice to see our star couples using condoms or other forms of protection.

Myth Two: Man the doer, woman the receiver
While we in the real world are trying hard to break down gender stereotypes and create a more equal world for both sexes, our friends in movie industries (across the world) strictly follow an outdated code of 'bedroom roles'. No wonder it's always Ryan Gosling, Robert Pattinson, Saif Ali Khan, and Imraan Hashmi wooing Rachel McAdams, Kristen Stewart, Deepika Padukone and Jacqueline Fernandez (never the other way round). And once the women have been swept off their feet, the hero carries them to the bedroom on his broad manly shoulders. Give us girls some credit! We know how to make the 'first move', can take control as well as any testosterone charged male and some of us actually enjoy being on top. 

Myth Three: The virtuous virgins
Myth three is an extension of myth two and goes to show just how sexist the entertainment industry still is. Although Hollywood (Disney in particular) has its share of virtuous virgins waiting for their prince charming, Bollywood stalwarts like Suraj Barjatya (remember Hum Aapke Hain Kaun or Vivah) and Ekta Kapoor (think of all her soap operas and generations after generations of betis and bahus drenched in 'purity' and 'innocence') are experts in this field.

According to this school of entertainment, young women are shown maintaining family 'honour' by 'saving' their v-card until marriage and rightfully 'submitting' themselves to their virtuous husbands only on the night of their honeymoon. The women who don't play by these rules are portrayed as evil, immoral witches. However, we are never told whether young men are also supposed to 'preserve' themselves in a similar manner. Smells awfully of double standards, doesn't it?

Why movies and serials still feel the need to thrust such archaic values upon us in heavy doses is beyond my understanding. The myth of female virginity (there is no equivalent concept for men) exists solely in our head and has no scientific or medical basis. It was created to control women's sexuality and took on epic proportions once the moral and religious police turned a non-issue into a big battle.

Sex is sex, whether it's the first time or 51st, whether it happened before marriage in the back of a car or during honeymoon in a five star hotel suite. As long as sex is between two (or more) consenting adults (of any sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or religion) who use protection and maybe a toy, we're fine with it. It's time Hollywoods, Bollywoods and Kollywoods around the world embraced this reality.