My Strange Relationship With Sex

By Raj Bandyopadhyay, Open Magazine. Posted May 12, 2008.

I consider myself to be the world's least qualified person to be writing anything meaningful on the topic of -- deep breath -- sex. First of all, I come from a country and cultural background where open discussion of this topic is unacceptable. On top of that, I am an Engineering major, and nerd to boot. This double whammy means that my sexual knowledge probably ranks lower than the stereotypical American undergraduate. So what am I doing pretending that I could say anything insightful about -- sex?

I grew up in an urban middle-of-middle-class milieu in Mumbai, India in the eighties and early nineties. This was still when India was a partly socialist economy with several aspects of life controlled by Government. While India had a politically free and lively media since its independence in 1947, moral censorship was a fact of life. This meant that television, newspapers and films were carefully bowderized and no public discourse of sex and sexuality existed in the mainstream media. Even socially, sex was taboo as a discussion topic and inseparable from (very heterosexual) marriage. I was not aware of homosexuality until I came to the United States. This censorship was not something that was forced by the government. It was very much a part of society and what a large number of people wanted and appreciated.

However, unfortunately for me, I've always liked reading too much for my own good. My parents provided me with a bilingual and secular upbringing, and always encouraged me to read and think for myself. A turning point for me was when, for my tenth birthday, I received a complete set of a 20-volume encyclopedia (this was before the Internet and Wikipedia existed). This was where I went when I first heard the word "sex" whispered among older students in middle school. Reading books like these told me that sex and relationships were perceived very differently by cultures around the world.

However, my purpose is not to present my country as sexually backward or perpetuate outdated notions. India has a social system that has developed organically over centuries and has served its purpose historically. Once I settled in the U.S., I found that there are two distinct stereotypes about Indian sexuality. One thinks of India as some kind of sexual paradise based on the Kama Sutra or Tantric sex, and the other view, mostly held by people who have actually been to India or studied it superficially, sees Indians as asexual beings who somehow still manage to have lots of children. Conversely, growing up in India, the U.S. seemed to be both a land of sexual excess and a utopia where people were far more open about their sexual needs and desires, judging from its movies and television shows.

As always, the truth is far more complex. India is a big and diverse country, and attitudes to sex can differ drastically among different subcultures and social classes. In addition, India is currently in the throes of a rapid transition in sexual attitudes. This has several causes: globalization, western media, and the AIDS pandemic. These days open displays of affection such as kissing are far more acceptable in movies, and a few urban societies, and homosexuality now exists as a peripheral topic of discussion in media. On a recent trip to India, I needed a transcript from my college, which is on the banks of a lake. On the way back, I saw a bunch of workmen dredging the lake, piling up mountains of white shiny stuff on its banks. Upon closer examination, I was shocked to see that those were piles of used condoms. Apparently, a favorite activity for nearby high-school kids was to rent little boats to take out into the lake and "do it". Should I be relieved that at least they remembered to use condoms, or should I be appalled at that particular addition to my city's major water supply? Whichever way one looks at it, this is highly illustrative of some major changes in Indian society.

As I found out after I landed in the U.S. for graduate school, sexuality here is far more diverse than American TV shows would have the world believe. While the American media is highly explicit and commercialized in its depiction of sex, a spectrum of attitudes exists in American society. Even in a small school such as Rice, I meet both people who abstain from sex and those who treat it as just another fun activity. In addition, the sexual mix here includes people who are openly homosexual, bisexual, polyamorous and have other sexual preferences. This relative openness towards sex in the U.S. was quite a shock at the beginning. I was amazed to find myself in groups where people actually discussed sex-related topics, especially in mixed-gender gatherings. In contrast, I found myself having to switch to a far more conservative version of myself when in predominantly Indian events, a cultural schizophrenia familiar to many immigrants.

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