The Pink Panties Campaign:
The Indian Women's Sexual Revolution
First published in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 23, January 2010
...However, what is interesting, is that if India's historical traditions are the determinants of what the culturally- and socially-acceptable limits are to be of women's sexual roles in modern India, then India's long, chequered past throws up quite an assorted mix of options. While on one hand, way back in the first millennium B.C.E. women in the ancient Vedic texts were regarded as vixens, sexually promiscuous and opportunistic, who not only swindled men of their precious semen but through their menstrual blood inflicted pain, torture and even death on men, then the first millennium C.E. provided a radically different vision of women's sexuality and sexual freedom. Not only do the texts from this period declare that women had the same rights and freedom to enjoy sex as men did, but that they too could indulge in it for pure pleasure and not simply for reproduction. Moreover, the kamasutras speak of the issues of female orgasm, how different it is for women than for men in that it is foreplay and not coition that leads to orgasm in women, and how it is men who need to know and understand how to pleasure their female partners. Data from this period indicates a tremendous degree of freedom and choice for women in selecting their sexual partners, even if they were married, and in expressing their sexual needs and wants. Read more >>
Relevant Books
The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850–1920
Indian Feminisms: Law Patriarchies and Feminism in India
Toward a Politics of the (Im)Possible: The Body in Third World Feminisms (Anthem Press India)
Feminism in India (Issues in Contemporoary Indian Feminism)
Motherhood in India: Glorification without Empowerment?
Urban Women in Contemporary India: A Reader
Women in India: Women's rights, India, Dowry, Dowry death, Sex-selective abortion, Feminism in India, Women in Sikhism, Women in Hinduism, Sexism in India, List of Indian women in dance
Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies
.
The Indian Women's Sexual Revolution
First published in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 23, January 2010
...However, what is interesting, is that if India's historical traditions are the determinants of what the culturally- and socially-acceptable limits are to be of women's sexual roles in modern India, then India's long, chequered past throws up quite an assorted mix of options. While on one hand, way back in the first millennium B.C.E. women in the ancient Vedic texts were regarded as vixens, sexually promiscuous and opportunistic, who not only swindled men of their precious semen but through their menstrual blood inflicted pain, torture and even death on men, then the first millennium C.E. provided a radically different vision of women's sexuality and sexual freedom. Not only do the texts from this period declare that women had the same rights and freedom to enjoy sex as men did, but that they too could indulge in it for pure pleasure and not simply for reproduction. Moreover, the kamasutras speak of the issues of female orgasm, how different it is for women than for men in that it is foreplay and not coition that leads to orgasm in women, and how it is men who need to know and understand how to pleasure their female partners. Data from this period indicates a tremendous degree of freedom and choice for women in selecting their sexual partners, even if they were married, and in expressing their sexual needs and wants. Read more >>
Relevant Books
The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850–1920
Indian Feminisms: Law Patriarchies and Feminism in India
Toward a Politics of the (Im)Possible: The Body in Third World Feminisms (Anthem Press India)
Feminism in India (Issues in Contemporoary Indian Feminism)
Motherhood in India: Glorification without Empowerment?
Urban Women in Contemporary India: A Reader
Women in India: Women's rights, India, Dowry, Dowry death, Sex-selective abortion, Feminism in India, Women in Sikhism, Women in Hinduism, Sexism in India, List of Indian women in dance
Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies
.
