{"id":455,"date":"2023-01-31T00:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T00:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privategirlsinadelaide.com.au\/blog\/sex-is-a-taboo-subject-in-india-if-i-can-change-that-ill-make-womens-and-lgbtq-lives-better-leeza-mangaldas\/"},"modified":"2023-01-31T00:59:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T00:59:00","slug":"sex-is-a-taboo-subject-in-india-if-i-can-change-that-ill-make-womens-and-lgbtq-lives-better-leeza-mangaldas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privategirlsinadelaide.com.au\/blog\/sex-is-a-taboo-subject-in-india-if-i-can-change-that-ill-make-womens-and-lgbtq-lives-better-leeza-mangaldas\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex is a taboo subject in India. If I can change that I\u2019ll make women\u2019s and LGBTQ+ lives better | Leeza Mangaldas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2018A<\/span><\/span>re you a doctor, or are you a porn star?\u201d When I first started creating judgment-free sex education content online, I got asked this question almost every day. In India<\/a>, an ordinary woman talking about sex \u2013 knowledgably and without shame \u2013 felt unfamiliar, even transgressive, to most people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sex remains a taboo topic in India. Victorian social norms and laws, established during British colonial rule, remain central to public attitudes. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in 2018<\/a>. In 2022, marital rape is still legal<\/a>. Premarital sex remains frowned upon. And marriage still feels unavoidable, especially for women. Less than 10% of Indian men use condoms<\/a>, according to recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data, placing the burden of family planning on women. <\/p>\n

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\"The<\/picture><\/div>
<\/svg><\/span>The Sex Book, by Leeza Mangaldas.<\/span> Photograph: Palash Verma<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s hard to escape the message that anything outside this oppressive and narrow framework, particularly unmarried women having sex, queer sex, paid sex, sex with more than one partner, and even masturbation, is bad, dirty, weird, punishable. We\u2019re discouraged from even talking about sex, let alone questioning these beliefs, because, well, \u201c<\/em>log kya kahenge<\/em>?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That phrase means \u201cwhat will people say?\u201d and it encapsulates a preoccupation in Indian society with reputation and social standing. A fear of being judged dictates the personal lives of millions of people.<\/p>\n

Representations of sex in the media still tend to be either medicalised and scary, such as news stories focused on disease and violence, or scandalous and explicit \u2013 celebrity relationship gossip, and (now, technically banned) internet porn. Sex is rarely presented as normal, a topic that we all can and should be able to talk about honestly.<\/p>\n