On the idea of sexual liberation

I probably shouldn't go here, but one of the essays in my Sita book reads, "The value [of the show] resided in capturing the social dynamics emanating from factors such as marriage by choice (not arranged marriages), job opportunities for women, sexual liberation and such-like changes in India."

I got a bit snarled up on the phrase "sexual liberation" because seriously, is that's what's going on India? When it comes to "liberation," in some ways, I wonder if we don't assume that the grass is always greener on the other side of the geo-political divide. In my eyes, a "liberated" society is one that can gracefully accommodate a diversity of choices. Every society I've lived in has its own list of sexual prescriptions.

This doesn't stop humankind from dreaming about a "sexually liberated society" and, upon numerous occasions, inventing one where none exists. "Sexual liberation" is one of the oldest themes in science fiction - observe "Brave New World" or "The Left Hand of Darkness." In Brave New World (granted, a dystopian vision but still) society has integrated sex into all levels of society (which Huxley implicitly condemns). In "Left Hand," the elimination of gendered sexuality has lead to a world without war.

Others look to the past for images of the sexually liberated society. The Orientalist writers of yore (ie, the late great Faulkner) went into raptures over the Kama Sutra and managed by a collective act of will to convince themselves that feudal Indian society was just such an environment, never mind that the Kama Sutra was all about kingship and cautioned men against women who suffered excesses of desire. Faulkner's "Eastern woman" was supposed to be a Western woman freed from the shackles of Western sexual convention, which represents a serious act of wishful thinking.

More recently I've heard Indian elders allude to the idea that the world of the Bhagavad Gita was sexually liberated (after all, didn't Draupadi have five husbands?), referencing perhaps the Gita's assertion that being a good lover is one way to become closer to God (I may be misinterpreting this, but let's go with the general idea.) A few paragraphs later, however, Krishna says that when women lose their sexual morality, all of society comes into jeopardy (Making him sound a lot like some of the well-meaning Midwestern bible-thumpers I used to avoid in college)

In prudish America, we project sexual liberation onto the freewheeling French. The French frolic on topless beaches, screen soft core pornography in family theatres and don't care that nude photos of their current first lady appear in the public domain. (Never mind that she's a retired supermodel. What a scandal this seems in a country where the mere suggestion of Clinton cleavage takes up miles of newsprint and Michelle's bare arms have become a cultural symbol. A Vanity Fair profile of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy asked, "where else but France"?) France is where everyone goes to get "sexually liberated" - I still remember that scene in The Namesake when the main character asks his future wife "When did you become so sexy?" and she answers, in essence, "France," suggesting that the country cured her of all her insecurities. Meanwhile, the actual French are busy contradicting us by restricting women's public clothing choices, if their views on the hijab are anything to go by.

There's Margaret Mead's 1928 book "Coming of Age in Samoa," based on Mead's fieldwork on Samoa, an island tiny enough that Western sexual prejudices had passed it by. (apparently) In "Coming of Age" the women of Samoa tell stories of their joyous and carefree sexual existence, unburdened by violence or unfair expectations. The book caused an uproar when it was published, and it gave hope to a generation trapped by America's puritan attitudes. Unfortunately, every word in "Coming of Age in Samoa" turned out to be a flaming lie. In a later documentary, when asked about the stories she told Mead, one of the Samoan women grinned and said, "Oh, we lied and lied." Another said "We told Mead what she wanted to hear" and a final, very honest woman admitted, "We told Mead what we wanted to hear." The enduring lesson of the "Coming of Age in Samoa" incident is not the structure of this ideal society but how eagerly we bought into this society's existence, even when its rules completely contradicted our own.

Not even zoology is safe from the quest for the "sexually liberated" society. Bummed out by the misogynistic harems of gorillas and the brute promiscuity of chimps, primatologists (and the rest of us!) eagerly projected free love and tolerance onto bonobos, hoping, perhaps, that there might be light at the end of at least one branch of the evolutionary tree. Alas, turned out bonobos were just as sexually restricted as the rest of us. (Footnote: also see the case of the sea horses and all manner of birds)

What's the point of this near-treatise?

The other day I heard that one of the men who works as a servant in a friend's house (I don't know him well) has a reputation for hitting his wife. At a recent seminar on the rights of women, I heard that 90% of the men in urban slums are alcoholics, with all the attendant issues of abuse.

Invariably, when we talk about "sexual liberation" - especially for women - what we mean is "freedom from violence." This is both a lofty and a low standard, by which I mean that it's very basic but most human societies haven't been able to guarantee it, yet.

What I'm discussing is perhaps more subtle, and more important to a developed society. In essence, the idea of "sexual liberation" as a door to happiness. (Maybe it's an amateur confusion. After all, the United States constitution only gives us the right to pursue our happiness, it doesn't say we're entitled to happiness itself)

I don't know if Indian society is harsher on women who sleep around than American society is - it's certainly kinder to those who don't. I wonder if, in the course of chasing a "sexually liberated society" we in India aren't chasing a mirage? Or perhaps the mirage is chasing us (if recent Bollywood films are anything to go by). If anything, what these episodes suggest is not that there's no hope but that there's a lot of hope - or at least, that maybe we should all be happy with the society we have?