In India, a public kiss is not just a kiss
A warrant for Richard Gere's arrest is part of the nation's struggle to come to terms with its views of women and sexuality.
from the April 30, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Men's magazines arrive
Some say it is ushering in India's own Sexual Revolution – a 1960s-like liberation of the Subcontinental libido. As a new generation and a new middle class adopt more Western values, men's magazines such as Maxim have arrived. Playboy took the unprecedented step of agreeing to clothe models for its Indian edition in order to pass censorship laws and enter the market here.
More likely, say others, India is merely doing what it has done from the days of Mughal invaders to the British Raj – finding ways to absorb foreign influences within its own traditions. "It is trying to fuse, but with all the fusion, there is a lot of contradiction," says Dr. Gupta.
After all, this is the land of the "item girl" – that would-be Bollywood star whose dancing includes everything short of a pole and a wardrobe malfunction. Yet for all her overt sexuality, the temptress is acceptably Indian. The public kiss is not.
"The dance numbers … follow certain well-established conventions and therefore do not scandalize," says Tejaswini Niranjana of the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore in ane-mail. "The kiss in public could be a form of … sexuality that doesn't have a long public history in our context."
It is no longer unfamiliar to Mr. Dhanraj, sitting among his saris. That, he says, is the problem. "Celebrities are getting big money for this kind of behavior," he says. "It is the public who want this."
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