Rich in the forbidden content, Cyber Sexy tracks the search for satiating desire from those mythical days in the elusive garden to the brave new world of virtual flesh. Howsoever the individuals may shun it publicly for being politically and morally incorrect, desire runs deep through various facets of our individual and collective lives. Demand meets supply as countless categories of desire dotted across the internet help people in their daily swim across the fleshy landscape. If we were to look within ourselves without judgement or shame, as Richa Kaul Padte echoes, there is a high chance that we will find ourselves faced with variations of the same desires that we condemn others for. Variants may range from sheer pleasure to dreadful perversion.
Taking readers on a cyber tour of online pleasure, the author provides a nuanced understanding on why our foregone conclusions on the topics of sex, identity, and desire are gender-biased and flawed. Why is it that sexual desire, and not sexual pleasure, a moral problem? Why is there an undue emphasis on male desire for seeking sexual pleasure? Why does society make women feel ashamed of expressing their desires? And, why is there an almost default assumption that online sex (read porn) is worse for women?
David Leeming, author of upcoming Sex in the World of Myth, lends a helping hand by arguing that sex is as important in myths as it is in our lives. Despite ancient sculptures and medieval paintings bearing testimony to desire being eternal to humans, the irony is that reality manifests itself between the sheets or behind the closets. Further, the colonial idea that anything related to sex is immoral and dirty persists under regressive laws, holding forth the obligatory need for the state to protect women from its purported impact, both moral and physical.
The book blows the lid off such assumptions. Far from what the laws state and what the state feels, Indian women have come of age in exploring their sexiness. They are as adventurous as their counterparts, or even more if the case stories are any indication, as 30 per cent of all visitors on the porn websites were women in 2017. This does indicate that women have agency and autonomy to explore their hidden desires, caveat being that their conversation on the subject can refresh the narrative on the harms of obscenity or objectification. Not many will agree though!
Cyber Sexy is a provocative undertaking on a subject that is pregnant with hitherto unnoticed categories of desire. Not that these desires did not exist, internet only enabled people who desired differently to feel a little less alone by giving shape and support to the thing that lives inside them. And, it proliferates because it stirs the universal set of emotions that lie buried underneath. But not for the conservatives who frown at such notion being outrageous and insane as it ends up corrupting unsuspecting minds. Little is realized, and the book offers enough evidence, that people are exploring each other’s bodies, sexting one another, and uploading their unmet desires on the internet. To pretend that these aren’t happening does not make them any less true.
Taking a deep dive into the kinky treasure of online porn, Richa comes out holding a mirror on society’s totally subjective moral judgement. As the country runs through its millennial churn, the question worth probing is why women’s bodies are often the battleground on which the fight for morality takes place? Why cyber technology is held dangerous for women only? Reading through this intrepid narrative, it is tough not to agree that the solo aim of pushing desire into morality’s deepest trench is to monopolize the power for defining gender roles in a man’s world
Cyber Sexy provides an equalizing narrative on how the artificial binaries have begun to blur. Although concerns regarding seeking consent, avoiding objectification and curbing coercion are not entirely misplaced, the need to redefine our approach towards fleshy fruits freely hanging on the internet is critical for the society to begin acknowledging desire as an integral part of human rights to sexuality. While there is no denying the need to fix the parts that are going wrong, there is an equally compelling reason to prioritize peoples’ rights to bodily autonomy and agency.
Radical and uncompromising, Cyber Sexy is a book on woman’s perspective on cyber porn by a woman. This is a timely study as the impact of internet outreach has yet to be felt by two-third of the country’s population. But it puts to rest the fallacy that by valuing desire one compromise on family values, societal norms, and inner spirituality. It is an engaging and must read book on a subject on which only male giggles been heard in the past. Richa Kaul Padte invites the other half to join in serious conversations, but cautions upfront that women are not coy anymore – we have agency and autonomy, and have desires and fears too.
Cyber Sexy
by Richa Kaul Padte
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent: 255, Price: Rs. 399
First published in Outlook on July 19, 2018.
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