Porn

Yesterday I was in the video library browsing through some DVDs when I spied two 18 years olds eagerly looking through a shelf that held a particular type of movies, porn, more specifically soft porn. This was the tame & acceptable & over-the-counter kind which get past the censor board. I grinned and shook my head, because I know I've been there in their shoes when I was their age, the anticipation would be killing them now.

Porn is a taboo subjects here in India & One hardly finds many blogs even writing about it and it sure isn't dinner time conversation. When queried by their girlfriends or wives most men my age would admit that they have seen porn sometime or the other in their lives but weren't 'really' into it. I've claimed that too. But truth be told, we men find porn fascinating, there is no wonder that most porn videos are directed at men. Most of us guys get through with this obsession between the healthy age group of 18-25 and move on with their lives but some just get stuck on porn for the rest of their lives. This was the case of my former housemate DM, now DM in the year 2000 was a respectable and upstanding citizen of about 33 years of age. He was known to be the sedate voice in any conversation. He was also widely travelled, well read and a great conversationalist. He also had the largest collection of porn I have ever seen and his appetite for the stuff bordered on insanity.

In our house there was a television in the living room which DM had also hooked up to his hifi system (another of his passions). The intriguing thing about our house was that no matter what time of the day or night you switched on the tv, there would be one of DM's porn video playing. One night I had watched a late night movie on HBO & gone to sleep at about 2 AM. I woke up at about 7 AM and walked over to the living room and switched on the TV to find one of DM's videos running. He found it quite natural to eat, talk & read with a porn video running in the background. Sometimes he combined his passion for porn & hifi systems and the effect was in a word, orgasmic. Before you misunderstand me, I meant the noise levels would reach a cresendo that it would feel that the entire apartment building was having an orgasm. Funny thing though, we never got a single word of complaint from our neighbours.

When DM moved to Australia, he left his considerable collection of illegal porn VCDs to half a dozen of his friends, each guy getting a shoe box full of the best CDs.


Porn is illegal in India, the very fact that almost all the guys and atleast some of the women, have seen porn sometime or the other in their lives is a testament to the considerable black market tht exists in this country. An economy which is supposed to be larger than the legal or the 'white' economy.

In college I remember our code for watching porn, which when translated in english roughly meant "The cow is gonna shit in V's house on friday", this meant that on friday V's house would be empty to watch porn. So about 25 odd guys would land up at V's house to watch one stupid video. (Ok, no animals were involved, despite what that wierd code suggests, it's that kinda stupidity that makes college life fun & crazy). Eventually porn started getting called cowshit, I believe it is still used in our old college even after a dozen years. It's amazing to have witnessed the start of a tradition!

Now, I've always wondered why we men are so fixated with porn. Apart from the normal reasons, I think there are other reasons too. Firstly it's popular because it's banned, the best way to sell a lot of something is to ban it. Secondly I think it also has something to do with the speed of a relationship in a porn video. Why would you not be fascinated if a relationship moves from a hello to sex in under a minute? No dates, no flowers, no birthday cards and certainly no wedding vows.

Then just as it begain everything ends on a proverbial high with a simple goodbye. No divorces, no alimony, no 'you deserve much better than me' kind of talks etc. It's all over & done with in under two hours, just in time to catch your favourite sport on TV.