Porn Swaraj is my Birthright

The ban and its subsequent (conditional) lifting on 857 pornographic websites has been nothing short of Tughluqian.

The Chief Justice of India, hearing the PIL by Kamlesh Vaswani, observed that people could claim that as adults they had the right to watch porn “within the four walls of my room”. Of course he had further commented that, “The issue is definitely serious and some steps need to be taken. The Centre is expected to take a stand…let us see what stand the Centre will take.” This did not imply that the government had to put curbs on these websites in such a ham-handed fashion. And what was the rationale in blocking these 857 sites when the government itself acknowledged that there exist lakhs of pornographic websites and it would be impossible to block all of them? 

However any absurd government action in this day and age definitely kicks up a social media storm. And this one sure did. I have never enjoyed a Social Media outrage as much as I have enjoyed the one on the ban over the past few days. Even the backing down of the government over the ban has done nothing to abate the storm. And I can only say, go for it. 

The wit has been flowing fast and free and given the topic most of it is naughty. However the humour masks a few very important issues. And I refuse to keep a moan vrat over it.

The first issue is whether pornography causes the problems of sexual violence against women in society as claimed by the PIL. 

The PIL claims a link between men viewing porn and sexual violence against women. It also seems to assume that it is only the uncouth Indian male who consumes porn. That is a ridiculous notion. The Bharatiya Nari, adarsh or otherwise, also consumes porn. In fact of the total population from India that watches porn on Pornhub, 30% is women (The worldwide proportion of women to men is 24%) and we are a close second to Brazil where the proportion is 35%. (As an aside the journos at The Economic Times have got this totally wrong. They need a crash course in Data Interpretation, I guess.)

If watching porn really leads to sexual crimes, does this mean that there is a raft of sexual crimes against men or boys by the Indian women who consume porn? I do not think so. At the very least it has not been brought to the notice of the aam junta. The National Crime Records Bureau does not even track sexual crimes by women against men, teens, young boys and girls/women. Rest assured if there is an epidemic of women sexually attacking men/boys in the country the NCRB would track it.

So why aren’t women sexually abusing men and boys even after watching porn? Could it be that it is the conditioning of society that does not push a woman to commit crimes of a sexual nature even after watching porn? I have the feeling that this is indeed the case. Which brings me to the more pertinent point – societal conditioning.

It is probably time for us to accept the fact that it is the lax attitude to women’s safety that leads to sexual crimes against women rather than easy accessibility to porn. 

The second issue is of a hypothetical couple using porn to enhance its sex life. Will the government intervene there too and say that they cannot watch porn because it will pervert their minds and/or lead to violence? The government would make a mockery of itself if it came out with a law that explicitly stated this. The couple could legitimately state that they had the right to watch porn in the privacy of their bedroom and they would be absolutely right. 

The argument put forward by a few people rubbishing this right to view porn has been to point out that nowadays children as young as 10 or 11 are aficionados of hard core porn. It would warp their minds on something as fundamental to life as sex. It could cause them problems later on in life when nothing that they seem to be experiencing sexually reflects what they had been accustomed to viewing.

Viewing porn at such an early age might even push them to experimenting with sexual acts much earlier in life than what their parents would be comfortable with. This is clearly an issue. However, I have a fundamental question to ask, what is a 10 year old doing with unhindered access to a smartphone with net access or with unregulated time with a laptop? I am not saying that this is not a serious concern, I am just wondering if this is not a case of parental abdication of responsibility too. Should parents not share some of the responsibility of monitoring the net browsing habits of the kids? I strongly believe that they should also be held responsible for the online safety of their tweens.  

Young children accessing porn because parents and teachers are not vigilant enough, in my view, does not negate the right of an adult to watch porn. 

However there is definitely one disturbing issue and that is the issue of child pornography. The sexual exploitation of children is a big problem and the government has rightly taken a stand against it. I do not think that there is any right thinking person who would condone child pornography. The tricky question is of course to figure out how make blocking access fool-proof. 

Till the time the government figures that out let it leave the hoards of men and women who want to consume porn in the privacy of their homes well alone.