In modern India, sex is still dirty

livemint.com:

Unashamed: Notes from the Diary of a Sex Therapist (HarperCollins India) that focuses on taboos around sex and sexuality. While tackling subjects like trauma and shame, Bhat offers ways to develop better relationships with the self and the people around. “Shame keeps people stuck in fear.

And when people become fearful of their own biological needs, shame also causes us to look away from abuse and pain around those needs." In an interview with Lounge, Bhat explains how people from different generations accept pain. Edited excerpts: There are two problems. One is sexual abuse or sexual harassment.

It’s rampant—a neighbour watching a child change clothes, uncle/aunty touching a child at home and the parent hasn’t been able to protect or is not even available. The other common thing is pelvic pain. Pelvic pain is not talked about at all.

There are many people who do not enjoy sex. They’re like, “Oh, I like my partner, but I’m not able to have sex". It could be so because there is trauma from masturbation, rape trauma or there is shame that you feel when you experience pleasure.

We are not taught that masturbation is healthy and orgasms are great. Our past gave us the Kama Sutra, but in modern India, sex is dirty and shameful. Guilt is human nature; not shame.

Say, I tell you, that your skin looks bad. Of course, you are going to feel bad, but then you also internalise this as, “I am ugly"—that is shame. And then you create this narrative that women with bad skin cannot be ever in a marriage, that women with bad skin don’t deserve love, that women with bad skin should go for plastic surgery so that they look better.