On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 1:11 AM Cindy Gallop <[email protected]> wrote:
> If I may introduce myself - I'm Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of social sex > videosharing sextech startup MakeLoveNotPorn, which began as a little > public service site I launched at TED 2009 with this talk: > > http://blog.ted.com/cindy_gallop_ma/ > Welcome to Silklist, Cindy. I first heard you (and of your work) a few years ago, IIRC, in Dan Savage's podcast Savage Lovecast. Indian attitudes to sexuality and sex is mixed and contradictory. On the one hand there is a long tradition (going back to Kama Sutra, certain Bhakti poetry, etc.) considering sex to be fun and pleasurable. On the other the patriarchy tries to keep women suppressed through a veneration of (women's) virginity, an emphasis of abstinence, rules of impurity around mensuration, etc. Sex education in India, at least in my days, was a matter of hurriedly teaching the biology. I remember my biology teacher spending a mere 30-40 minutes on human reproduction (almost entirely speaking in clinical terms of gametes, fallopian tubes, glans, etc.). I suspect many Indians, wrongly in my opinion, worry that teaching teenagers about safe and pleasurable sex would lead to copious copulation and unwanted pregnancies. The less said about Bollywood's (and its South Indian cousins') depiction of courtship, finding a partner, consent, sex, maintaining a healthy relationship between two adults, etc., the better. Thaths
