Thursday, November 1, 2012

Mommie, what is sex?


I must have been in class seven at that time. I still remember I was sitting by the window studying Civics (we used to have it for twenty marks under social science) and it was one of those neglected subjects that nobody paid much heed to.  

I wanted to go out and play but mom was sitting right next to me, trying to make sure that I studied, so one thing was for sure that there was no getting away from civics that day. Anyway bored out of my mind I started reading out loud, ‘All of us have the right to vote irrespective of our colour, caste, religion or sex.’ Colour was fine, caste I understood a little, religion- i thought I had an idea about. 
But Sex- What the fuck was sex? (It was something bad that much I knew but nobody ever spoke about it.)
Trying to be a smartass, very innocently, I popped the question, ‘Mom, what is sex?’

As a near adolescent myself, I was aware that there was something about this word that changed the very body language of adults and kinda made them uncomfortable. Now normally I wouldn’t have had the guts to ask but now that it was in the book itself, I had attained a virtual right to question and not be snubbed in return. Mom couldn’t possibly get mad and if I ever had any shot at solving the mystery of sex. This was it.

But to my utter disappointment, very nicely mom explained to me how men or women can’t be discriminated against when it came to our rights etc etc. Yawn! 
Needless to say, it took me a couple of years more to learn what I had actually asked for that day- the hidden –darker- meaning of sex.

I know a lot has changed in the last one decade or so and sex is not as taboo as it was back in the day. I mean, you remember, don't you? that they censored that song, ‘sexy sexy sexy mujhey log bolein’ to ‘sweety sweety’ or something to that effect. But times have changed. Now a days, there are songs about people sitting nude on shitpots  (Leaving practically nothing to imagination).

There goes a facebook group by the name ‘Why poke? Let’s just have sex instead.’ There is no ho-halla attached to sex anymore.

But I have a point to raise.

I kind of miss that ‘ho-halla’. You know, the age of innocence? When a simple lip lock in Raja Hindustani used to send a terrible chill down our spine and so determined we used to be to escape that awkward moment in front of our parents that we used to rush to the kitchen that very instant, to get anything from water to apple juice. And never did we have the guts to come back in the living room until we were convinced that all the ‘Bad-stuff’ was over.

I miss the time when not every single sentence that came out of our mouth was distorted by our friends into a double meaning sleazy innuendo.
And  most importantly I miss the time when ass was a funny cute animal and pussy was just a cat!