I was going through the blog of one of my dear friends the other day. Her take on the cover stories of the innumerous glossy fashion and other lifestyle mags that are available in the magazine counters today. Most often than not and as my friend rightly pointed out, these magazines have a nubile young something or an anorexic size zero model seductively looking at you with some racy headline declaring the shortest possible way to experiencing the ultimate carnal nirvana. Sure everybody wants to have an explosive orgasm, with those incredible sounding moans and groans, the way they show in the movies; and there’s nothing wrong with it. Nor do I find anything wrong at ogling at those exorbitantly overpriced haute couture dresses. (Inspite of the fact that most of us real women can never afford a pair of Jimmy Choo sandals or a Roberto Cavalli gown or a Louis Vuitton purse).
Now let me clarify something here, I am not promoting these magazines in my blog.. (And neither am I getting a free lifetime subscription to one of these magazines or passes to the next fashion week to write this piece. ). I would like to recall an incident here. This was a couple of years back when I was working for a brief period of time in an NGO in Gurgaon. I was a new joinee and found the environment in the office absolutely stifling. However the impression I had got during the interview prior to my joining was a completely different one. My interview was taken by a very smart lady dressed in western formals who was the Managing Director and the Deputy Director. ( to add some spice, the Deputy Director was her live –in boyfriend; which ofcourse I found out much laterJ ).The couple were alumni of a reputed business school and this was their dream venture. The NGO was funded by Canadian and British agencies and I was told that this was a professional organization and didn’t function like other “sarkari” NGOs( god knows why did she have that idea in the first place). But once into it, I found out to my utter horror that it turned out be a jail. No cellphones throughout the day, no snacking during working hours except for beverages, only English or Hindi for communication(if there were two people from one region say from Kerela or Assam they couldn’t talk in the vernacular language!!!)strictly formalwear with no concept of even Friday dressing which meant only collared full sleeved shirts and trousers or skirts ( not even skirts above the knee mind you) and salwar kameez in Indian formals ( apparently wearing a saree was too fancy for my Boss!!!). The environment was totally claustrophobic (and very conservative for my taste.) until this new young and vivacious lady joined. She was liberal minded though a staunch feminists ( typical of all LSR girls) and completely turned around things.
One afternoon after lunch (and still not office hours yet) all the female employees were upto our typical girl talk. I don’t exactly remember now what it was that we were talking about, other than the fact that it was her marriage-she had just been married for about a year. But suddenly this new lady asked one of the girls “ if you know everything about marriage and sex , tell me where is the g-spot of a woman located?”. Now all of us were a little taken aback by this bold question, especially because no one talked about sex in this office. But it took even more time for us to realize that the girl had completely missed the question. The question was repeated “ Where is the g-spot located?”. She shook her head and turned around pretending to type something on her computer. Initially we thought she was too embarrassed to speak so we persisted and then exasperated she said “ what is the g-spot?”
Now you must be wondering what is the connection between this ram kahani that I have been blabbering about and the glossy mags which offer you the ultimate guide to finding Mr. Right or the concise version of the Kamasutra. This girl was a couple of years older than me.. She was young, confident and articulate and had traveled all by herself to the inhospitable terrains of Uttranchal and Tawang with our NGO work. All of 27 with an MBA in Marketing, she knew all about the Malthusian theory, Kotler’s concepts, other fundas about the stock market and about how to sell almost anything under the sun with the right marketing gimmicks. And yet she didn’t know about something which was part of her own body.
The reason why I mentioned this incident is that, there are probably many like her among us. We live in a society where even uttering the word “sex” is taboo, and are not discussed in polite society. Our parents are terrified of opening their mouths because they are too embarrassed to talk about it, or they fear we will come to know too much too soon and experiment with sex. But we do come to know eventually don’t we?
I would like to mention another incident. I had just stepped into my teens and was towards the end of the eighth standard. I hadn’t started wearing a bra until then and I went and told my mom that I needed to buy a bra. My Mom’s immediate reaction was “ What! you need a bra already?? Your barely have any boobs!” “ But Ma all my friends and my cousins wear a bra” that was my reply. My mother’s immediate concern was more for the fact that I was so conscious about my tender developing breasts, than about buying a brassiere for her just turned thirteen year old daughter. (ofcourse it was a different matter altogether that I drove mom mad searching for a size 28 cup A, in all the markets of Guwahati, and I wouldn’t even wear a sports bra!) At about the same time I had started reading the cosmo (Cosmopolitan) pretty regularly and diligently. My mother had shown her stern disapproval for such graphic and visually explicit magazines but I put my foot down saying -I was a growing girl and needed to know “things”. My mother somehow seemed to agree this time. Thanks to cosmo I came to know about breast cancer even before my breasts had fully developed. Or the fact that I can better handle my pms or numbing cramps during my periods every month( even though I occasionally have to pop an anti spasmodal) Yes I was probably a little too wise at 13 by Indian standards with my precocious knowledge about sex and my body, but now when I advise my mother about how to detect a possible malignant tumor, she knows she hadn’t made a wrong g decision letting me read a graphically vivid magazine all those years back.
Its exactly for reasons like these that I am all for the glossy mags with their ridiculous price tags. For lesser mortals like us, if 75 rupees is all it takes to spice up our insipid and vacuous lives or provide us some life saving gyaan(even if its is a quarter page article in a 150page magazine full of ads) I would say its a small price to pay my friend.
I am all of 25 years now and don’t read those mags as religiously as I did. I have probably become more worldly wise and satisfied with my share of knowledge about man-woman relationships. But for many of those women out there like my colleague , please go and get as many of those you can lay your hands on. Ofcourse I still go and get a copy every time I feel like. And well as for me - did I find a great guy and have amazingly mindblowing sex, I’ll let that be my little secret.
