This story is from January 22, 2006

Sex revolution in small-town

Prachi Bhasin / INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK / Updated: Apr 23, 2021, 19:16 IST

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When the families harass the women, judges actually order police protection.

Girlsfrom Lucknow, Patna, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Ludhiana, according to a sex surveyby a leading weekly magazine, have sex at a much younger age (15-18), ascompared to their counterparts in big cities. Women in Ahmedabad and Jaipurstand out for demanding greater variety in sex. People from Patna have thehighest tendency to watch pornography.
Stories about rural runawaylesbian brides, sex change of a village schoolteacher from West Bengal, groupsof girls caught from internet caf��s watching pornography...
Has the sex revolution reallytouched small-town India?
��Today,though, check out Saturday night. In Bombay, sweaty, bare-chested men aredancing with each other at the Voodoo, the country's first openly gay hangout.In the southern city of Bangalore, as in many smaller centers, discreetspouse-swapping parties are getting under way among couples who have found oneanother through classified ads. More and more Indians have decided that they areunfulfilled by mere glimpses or dreams, and a kind of sexual revolution isstirring - an unavoidable adjunct to the other sweeping social changes takingplace.��

This is anexcerpt from a Time report about India��s sexual revolution, published in1996. Clearly, we have come a long way in the past ten years. The small town hastaken over from the metro. The Mafatlal sex change story doesn��t amuse usanymore. The rich and the famous can afford to have such prerogatives. It is notmade into a big deal when Mumbai metro announces a free and open space calledthe Drop-In Centre where the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)community can spend time without being prosecuted or condemned.

Itis the story of Unnimaya, 23, and Sheela, 21, two self-confessed lesbians fromKerala that interests us. After the International Lesbian and Gay LawAssociation meeting in Toronto last year, E J Graff, a scholar at the BrandeisWomen��s Studies Research Center wrote about runaway lesbian brides inIndia.
��In their late teens orearly twenties, these women meet each other and fall in love; when threatenedwith arranged marriages, they run away from their parents and perform their ownwedding ceremonies in Hindu temples, exchanging garlands and anointing eachothers�� foreheads with red dots. In response, each set of parents chargesthe other woman with kidnapping their daughter, sending the police to bring backthe women back by force. But here the story becomes different from the storiesthree years ago, which ended in suicides.
Local women��s groups or onlinelesbian groups are now backing the girls in court -- and local judges are,incredibly, siding with the women. When the families harass the women, judgesactually order police protection. Indian newspapers, of course, love these juicystories, replete with disobedience, romance, and illicit female sex (which isnot illegal, since Section 377 applies only to men). And so each pair of runawaylesbian brides inspires more women across that vast nation.��
So has the sexual revolutionreally touched small town India? Yes.
Sexchange operations took place in a village in Gujarat, even in 1987.Tarulata/Tarun Kumar underwent a female to male sex change operation and marriedLila in 1989. Lila's father filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court sayingthat it is a lesbian relationship and that the marriage be annulled. Thepetition contends that 'Tarun Kumar possesses neither the male organ nor anynatural mechanism of cohabitation, sexual intercourse and procreation ofchildren'. Adoption of any unnatural mechanisms does not create manhood and assuch Tarun Kumar is not a male. T'he petition called for criminal action underSec. 377 .
Ina paper titled ��The Law and Homosexuality in India�� , Sherry Josephfrom the Department of Social Work, Visva Bharati University, Sriniketan writes:
��The concept of familyrefers to a universal, permanent and pervasive institution characterised bysocially approved sexual access and reproduction, common residence, domesticservices and economic co-operation. Let me quote two instances of alternatemarriage system as existing in India. Amongst the Nayar community in SouthIndia, who followed the matrilineal system of descent, several men could haveaccess to a woman through the tali rites and subsequent Sambandham unions.
The Tali chain and locket worna round the neck was tied by a man of appropriate ritual status on behalf of hissub-caste collectively, which acquired sexual rights over the woman concerned.These rights were extended to any member of the higher caste usually Nambudiriwho was attracted to and was found acceptable for the woman.
Menwho had Sambandham relations did not have any exclusive rights as husband or asfather; the woman could withdraw the sexual access allowed to them at any timeif she so wished. The right over her progeny was vested in her Tarawad(household of matrilineal kin). In the NayarNambudiri Sambandham, the lattercould not ever dine with his wife or children, not to speak of sharing anydomestic chores or economic activity.
In a small village Angaar inGujarat, among the Kutchi community a ritualistic transgender marriage isperformed during the time of Holi festival. This wedding which is beingcelebrated every year, for the past 150 years is unusual because Ishaak, thebridegroom and Ishakali the bride are both men.��
So all these��explicit�� acts of sexuality have been taking place for decades,centuries. The Kamasutra has its origins in this country and all that ... butthere is simply no denying that the taboo and restrictions about sex, sexualpreferences and habits have eased out the most now. Now, even in small townIndia.
The sexual revolutionof the West is believed to be ignited by a technological breakthrough - thePill. India's has been possible because of the liberation of the mind.

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