Illustration by Siddhartha Mitra

The Seventies entered noisily - sex was dominated by outrage against the diminishing rain forests of Kerala, escapist moments with blue-eyed Commies, and weak-kneed fantasies of watching Mick Jagger unzipping his flies live. Woodstock fever had just hit the city (almost 10 years later) but it was time for the big roll on the landscape.

Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll were the big, the romps of the Krishnamurthi babes were hard to beat (even though hysterical mothers at the time had burned every copy that showed the late and lamented Protima Bedi streaking on the beach, city???) but beachniks like Bedi, her husband Kabir, Parveen Babi, Mahesh Bhatt were the grown-ups, with LSD induced sensuality, for budding teenagers, who hit puberty around the same time, to be a rock chick was the coolest way to find sex.

Sex was in the walk, the beat, the look, the talk. It began shaking rhythmically with the trashing of the electric guitar, the dress went higher with more guitar rage, and orgasms were reached with the final drum-roll of the Doors' LA woman.

The eighties was dominated by padded shoulders and power underwear. Sex was now in the boardroom and not the bedroom, as flushed, young executives, fresh from graduate schools in Boston and Berkeley signed deals and undressed tight-assed colleagues from the same schools. A kind of post-feminist lapse, that set committed women's teeth on edge.

For adolescence the whiff of weed was being replaced by frothing milkshakes at gleaming desi pizza parlours that were beginning to dot the city. Disco fever was heating up, the dance floor was the hunting ground for disc-ed out babes and boys, but most sweaty bodies collapsed alone and sprawled after hours of pelvic pushes and hip-knocking.

After all, it was only noon, and milkshakes kept you going only for that long - steroids and protein foods were still to come. While Madonna had already begun writhing on MTV, the disco-generation was still to hook onto hot videos on cable. This was not the time of cable-inspired sex, but for the first time, sex was being talked openly - by panting magazine editors, stylists, society divas, fashion designers…

The nineties is all about riot girls and cute boys. While the backstreet boys sign mushy-gushy songs of teen love, teen brats copy the street-defiance smartness of girl bands. Sex in this multiplexed Universe is a thumb job - its all about surfing and cruising, and marketing vanity. Self-possessed and confident, the MTV-cuties are their own image makers as they cleverly pick their cable heroes, wrap themselves as clones, pick and discard who they choose for the evening - its all about being seen at the right time, at the right place, with the right face. Sex is just another disembodied act, smart sex like smart cards.

Sex and revolution? When were we any different?

Vrinda Gopinath is a special correspondent with the Indian Express

Illustration by Siddhartha Mitra

Nor is the transformation class-, age-, culture- or gender-specific. With you being practically under Pamela Anderson's skirt every Thursday night, more and more Indians are tossing aside old shibboleths to indulge in paroxysms of orgasmic delight.

`Age no bar, caste no bar, sex bar bar' may be a trite and tiresome pun but never truer in the current context as queues of barely pubescent girls outside Marie Stopes' Clinic testify and broadminded classified advertisements become the zeitgeist not matrimonial columns.

In the changing milieu. Love is just another four-letter word with emotion a dispensable accessory. A scenario where as careers move up the priority list, romance moves down the grade. Where long courtships are for wet blankets, multiple relationships and a `love 'em and leave 'em' attitude is hip. With romance being increasingly played on the fast track, Olivia Newton John's Let's get physical is where it's at with soft sentimental numbers for fuddy duddies. Where for the amoral few love is not a post-dated cheque but like fast food with a shelf-life shorter than a Big Mac burger or a Coca-Cola can with Nike urging you on to Just do it. Where you try and live life kingsize.

It's not that the sexplosion is complete and India proselytised into a scandalously orgiastic society. Promiscuity exists concurrently with prudery with changes in many instances bring purely cosmetic with the cultural vultures not exactly on the backfoot. But that is part of the great dichotomy of India that is Bharat or vice-versa. And it is a sign of the times that a Bill Clinton is more an object of adulation and emulation not derision with a Monica Lewinsky treated more as a role model than a Jezebel.

And while cultural czars may bristle with indignation at Fire, they are not succeeding in dousing the amorous flames of the millennial generation who define their own heritage.

Vatsayana is in. Valmiki and Ved Vyas out. Family planning advertisements on Doordarshan are out. Kamasutra commercials set the turnstiles ringing. Foreplay is in. Hot water bottles out. Where even AIDS is not a sufficient deterrent in the rush to get laid.

Welcome to the era of hedonism - be you male, female or neuter. Whatever be the opinion of the computer, let it like it or lump it.

Rajeev Mathur is an executive with Benetton

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