After Jackpot’s success, Bollywood has just released Ragini MMS 2 with a bang — titillating and riveting to prod the bodily desires. Thanks to Sunny Leone’s past profession, the filmmakers are pointedly cashing in on it, as obviously understood. Hardly any newspaper now misses to add epithets describing this vivacious lady as an “adult-star” or “porn star” to make the readers more inquisitive. For the past two years we have been unfailingly updated about any tidbit and gossip concerning her. Thus, the spectre of porn has now been forced into the inner sanctum of our households.
Do we want our children to know about pornography? Given the manner in which Sunny Leone is being presented by the electronic media, are we not uncomfortably confused that our children now might see this adult actress also as their role model? Will they not become tempted to emulate a porn star who receives so much of appreciation and warm welcome, with even the privilege of gracing key public events? Can we imagine anything more bizarre than the fact that this lady is always being mobbed and clicked at by the media? To them she is a goddess from heaven descended to bless us all. What message does this send out to our children?
Well, take a sneak peek at Sunny’s Facebook page — it unfolds a whole lot of things. Just find out how many million fans’ ‘likes’ she has earned and analyse their opinions, perceptions and our naughty silence in respect to her raunchy flicks, from both Bollywood and the ‘other’ film industry. The number of her fans began to shoot up astronomically when she was invited to jazz up the television show Bigg Boss about two years ago. No doubt, the majority of the masses in India were not aware of what exactly the great big porn world was all about until her groundbreaking entry into the country. Until just a year or two ago, policemen would swing into action to pounce upon any suspects carrying obscene literature or digital CDs but now the lustful roar is coming out from Bollywood itself for our mass consumption. The media and Bollywood are hand-in-glove in this unprecedented scheme for porn’s success. It is not that there is any absence of a voice of protest against the porn star but the media seldom gives it coverage, however vehemently the public disapproves of her.
By now readers must have grown sufficiently curious to know who this over-discussed bold lady is and what she does. Just Googling her name on the internet will flood them with the unmentionable things that we had never known or could never have imagined existed. A good many have already been pulled down into the whirlpool of this murky underworld and some might sorely be afflicted by its addiction syndrome. It has long been acknowledged that this voyeurism has drastically shattered millions of households and marital relationships, contaminating their thoughts and ruining their personal values, as has often been reported in hundreds of journals published around the world after exhaustive surveys. “A true strength of sex and its purity and purposes has drastically gone down these days. The marital bond is dismally slack now. An easy access to pornography and sex are the contributing factors,” quips Dr Naresh Patel, a scholar and writer from Mumbai.
Again one academician from Delhi opines, “I strongly believe that many unsuccessful models or filmstars in India have already been tempted to follow in the footsteps of Sunny Leone. Very soon they will boldly claim that they are porn stars vying for a Bollywood opportunity like Sunny Leone. Some young girls will now have less of a qualm joining this bandwagon of pornography.”
My honest questions are: are we not becoming unclear about what is right and wrong for society? What is good and bad for households? What is virtuous and sinful for our inner selves? Further, are we truly serious about pondering over the ominous repercussions of such pornographic thoughts that are fast taking space in the mindset of our grown up children, let alone mature adults? Will not such perverse thoughts make way for perverse indulgences that will take their toll on their studies and later in their marital lives, adversely affecting family values?
Have we not become a bit dithery about saying no to this windfall of wanton exhibitionism? Should the blatant female objectification in the entertainment world not raise our eyebrows and awaken our inner sensibility anymore? Have we not witnessed enough instances of cold-blooded rapes, sexual violence against women and a host of other perverse sexual activities in society? A prostitute may harm a few individuals while pornography can destroy the soul of a whole generation, and the next. Our acceptance of social evils means our inner strength of morality has become so weak and feeble that it cannot now prompt us to stand upright against vices. Here, our silence against the breeding of vice is akin to acceptance, which could well mean that our inner strength of morality has become weak and feeble, failing now to prompt us to stand up against evil. Our silence might make the lustful holler of decadence even shriller!
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Delhi