"Despacito.....Vamos a hacerlo en una playa en Puerto Rico....Pasito a Pasito suave suavecito..

(The English translation to the headline is : "Slowly....Let's do it on a beach in Puerto Rico...step by step, soft, softly...slowly". These lyrics are from the hugely popular number "Despacito", a Spanish song about slow lovemaking.)

Growing up in a small town in Western U.P. in the 80’s had its pros and cons. News seemed to travel fast and every secret became the town’s latest gossip. But it was very confidence boosting to walk into your local bakery and have everyone recognize you. Which means you sometimes had to dodge your mother’s kitty-party friend or a kid you had a huge fight with in school. There were only about four activities to do but you got to meet your best friends, grow up together and have amazing memories.

Like everything else, the town has changed in size, infrastructure and amenities. It boasts of a burgeoning middle class demanding better schools, colleges, healthcare, lifestyle and entertainment. I was pleased to discover that the town I had spent my childhood in, was embracing metropolitan culture as seen in its multiplexes, clubs, pubs and multi-storied apartments.

Alas, these are only cosmetic changes that cover-up stagnant mindsets.

On my recent visit. I crossed a theater playing Veere Di Wedding. The poster outside the theater was the one with the animated faces of the leading ladies-only in this one Swara Bhaskar’s face had been pasted over with a big white piece of paper. It was a blank piece of paper-it said nothing, had no insidious markings-it just sat there covering the box that used to be her face.

It spoke to me of an attempt to obliterate her role in the film or maybe as a mark of protest.

In the town's defense, a woman unabashedly owning her own sexuality was possibly a little too much for the city to allow its men and women to be reminded of everyday. I reckon, Swara Bhaskar masturbating on screen is making a large number of Indians very uncomfortable. But the implications are massive and work on different levels. Firstly, it brings out the skeleton in the closet and puts it in your face, in this case your movie screen. Secondly, it puts the woman, as her own agency and does not demonize her for upholding her choice above the set social norms. The latter is an important marker for the Feminism movement in India.

Without digressing let me come straight to the focal point of this post - In the land of Kamasutra, why is sex a taboo?

My inquiry led me to explore our history and this is what I learned.

To my utter surprise, ancient Indian history celebrated sex and gave freedom to men and women to explore their sexuality.

The practice of Gandharva, as a form of marriage, where the girl selects her own groom indicates the freedom of choice. They meet each other, consensually agree to live together and their relationship is passionately consummated. This form of marriage did not require consent of parents or anyone else. A passage in the Atharva Veda claims that parents usually left the daughter free in the selection of her lover and encouraged her to be direct in her love affairs. In the Mahabharata, Rishi Kanva, the foster father of Shakuntala says, “The marriage of a desiring woman with a desiring man, without religious ceremonies, is the best marriage.”

So what changed?

Devdutt Pattanaik, an Indian mythologist and writer believes that we began to see sex as inherently sinful and viewed celibacy and abstinence as indicators of purity and holiness. This was a popular view in Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, which had thriving monastic orders. The men and women who did not have sex were automatically assumed to be pure, noble, kind and holy.

In Ancient India, as indicated from literature and rituals, all forms of pleasure were celebrated. Two parallel paths thrived: reaching God through pleasure or through denial of pleasure, one celebrating sex and the other shunning it. The fat really fell in the fire with the advent of the Mughals with strict purdahs. Victorian prudery was another blow to Indian liberal mores. With the arrival of British, sex became bad. Sex was seen as sin, and those who turned sex into commerce were seen as tragic, exploited beings, who needed saving.

Embarrassed by traditional comfort with pleasure, educated Indians highlighted India’s monastic tradition and distanced themselves from India’s pleasure tradition.

Thus a new order began that stripped India of all desire and this trend has now become the establishment.

But the good news is that this trend is beginning to peel off, as revealed by India Today’s Sex Survey of 2016. With expansive appraisals on “love, lust and longing”, it has presented a fascinating portrait of national pleasure. India is seriously moving and shaking under the sheets as urban India has attached itself to individual thrill seeking, its sex for sex’s sake not just procreation. Sex has come unstuck from “love” and “No strings attached” or “Friends with benefits” is becoming the popular parlance, leading the change from sentimentality to sensuality. Indians are in no hurry to tie the knot, preferring to indulge in sex, before taking the big plunge. Virginity is no longer paraded as a cherished jewel and the digital wave is offering both anonymity and plenitude in sexualizing India. Swiping left is the new pass code to a universe of infinite sexual possibilities and mutual pleasuring has overtaken the norm of just intercourse-centric penovaginal sex.

“Part of the sexual revolution is bringing rationality to sexuality – because when you don’t embrace sexuality in a normal way, you get the twisted kinds, and the kinds that destroy lives” Hugh Hefner

India is at the first stage of a sexual revolution. The choices, freedom, attitudes and experiences of today’s youth are radically different from everything that has preceded them. The emancipation of women, redefining of sexual mores, the shift from arranged marriages to love marriages, is all happening at the very same time.

It’s about time that we reclaimed our ancient culture where sex was not a taboo and all forms of pleasure were celebrated.

And sway along!