Are
you a girl? Great! Born in India? Even greater! Well, are you a sexual being?
Uh, that doesn’t make a good combination. Duh, this is India, girl. Here, you
are not supposed to have an ounce of sexuality, not before marriage. And well if you
do, guess what new status you attain in the minds of your conservative-minded
parents?
Congratulations!
You are ready to be tied in the bonds of marriage with a guy of their choosing.
Well, most of
the females in our country do not even discover their sexuality (at least till
the time they are faced with the man who is going to be their prospective sex
partner for life), to explore it is further off the gird. And I doubt what
becomes of it after marriage is anything more than fulfilling their duties to
their pati parmeshwar (husband raised to the status of God).
If you are one of the luckier ones who discovered her sexuality during
her adolescence, be ready to be stupefied by the numerous “should-not”s
that the taboo-stricken Indian society has to offer you.
Dating
is unthinkable
Having a relationship is unacceptable
Having a relationship is unacceptable
Having
a live-in relationship? Only happens in the lives of “celebrities”
Talking
about sex is bad
Talking
about periods to a guy or guys? What? Who does that!?
Going
out to party is wrong
Masturbation
is unnatural
Wanting to buy a sex toy? Well, from where do
such thoughts even come into your head!!!
Are you one of the lucky ones who have been
able to debate yourself into reaching the conclusion that masturbation is
natural, healthy and the safest form of sexual pleasure, and that indulging
yourself for sexual satisfaction is not a crime? Congrats! A pat on your back!
Now that you have grown up a bit and learnt to
accept your sexuality, explored all you could with your hands and your mind
reading erotica and watching porn, you want to go for something more than your
own fingers; a vibrating sensation that is more satisfying than your mobile
phone’s. But where do you go?
There are no physical shops, not that I am
aware of, where you could go browsing and purchasing adult toys. Google for
buying vibrators in India and you get several links to e-commerce sites, both
adult ones as well as the popular ones like Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart. But
your friendly neighborhood e-retailers cannot sell sex toys by the name of sex
toys, not in INDIA. So, all the vibrators that turn up in the list of available
products on Amazon, for instance, are named as “vibrator massagers” for your back,
neck, head, even face and eye-bags, yes! And mind you, these are the vibrators
that turn up even when you clearly mention that you are looking for “sexual
vibrators”. And you are left wondering if that lipstick-lookalike vibrator will
actually work the way you intend to use it.
Well, I know what you would be thinking by
now. Why don’t you go a proper adult-toy site, girl? Go to one of the websites
that explicitly call themselves a dealer in adult products, and you would
either find a little word to the left of the site’s URL that says that this
site is “Not Secure” (which is less occurring since I conducted a search few
months back), or you find secure sites that would list out highly expensive
products. Not planning to invest in a good expensive vibrator as your first
one, you look for the cheapest options, but even they seem out of your expected
budget. You wonder where is that below-a-thousand-bucks lipstick-lookalike
vibrator that you have heard some people mention to you before. Oh yes, there
it is under the mini vibrator section, and it costs… 900 bucks (discounted from
its original price of 1200 bucks). But wait…. Isn’t this the same “eye
massager” from Amazon that cost just 150 bucks (discounted from its original
price of 500 bucks)? Yep, it is! EXACTLY THE SAME!!! But with such a disparity
of cost! Not a disparity of just the discounted price, but that of the original
price as well! Do these people have any standards to set prices of sex toys?
What if they’re just fooling us with listing whatever price they desire, even
for the other products? How do I know the real price of a product? There’s no
trustworthy source! The trustworthy ones like Amazon and Flipkart don’t give
you so many options under their “modified” names of vibrators. Even the sexual
wellness site Durex lists only three products which cater to only males’ or
couples’ needs.
Revolving among the top-listed adult toy websites
that explicitly call themselves so, now we know that a good quality vibrator is
not going to be within your existing budget of a thousand bucks, not even the
double of it, unless you are satisfied with paying over a thousand bucks for a
lipstick-lookalike one. And we still do not know the authenticity of these
prices. But we’ve got no choice than to succumb to their demands.
Next step? Save Up! Now this can be a little
easy or difficult depending on your pocket money and your expenses. Oh wait,
who are we kidding? We all have our pocket money designed to fit our expenses.
I don’t know how much of your expenses you could cut out to save for a vibrator
in case you’re one of those who get a bigger amount of pocket money than most
20 years old kids (well, kids in the sense that we’re non-earning), but a
couple hundred saved every month from my meagre pocket money is not gonna help
me at least. Oh, and did I say it was a problem only for the non-earning
community? Nope. In my case, even my own earned paycheck (as a fresher) goes
into my bank account which… is taken care of by my mother. So, we’re back to
square one. You can’t withdraw your money just the way you can’t ask them money
for a vibrator.
Next option? Gotta figure out something else,
as expensive as your toy, for which you could ask them for money, but which you
wouldn’t have to show them as an evidence that you bought it. That’s tough to
do for something priced around 4-5 thousand rupees. But if you have an idea, do
share.
The next hurdle you face is that of the
delivery address. Although the retail sites say that the package would be
discreet with no mention of the product inside, you just can’t receive a
package without your family members finding out about it. You’re lucky if you
are living out alone in a PG or a rented flat, but if you’re someone like me -
living with your parents, one of whom is always home - it’s time to think of
all your friends and come up with at least one who could be your trusty and receive
the product for you and let you collect it without asking too many questions or
judging you for what’s inside. Sounds easy? Or hard? Well, if you ask me, I
can’t think of any of my friends who I could ask for such a favor. I’m too
conscious of revealing that I am sexual enough to want a vibrator.
And all this hassle because this is INDIA –
“the land of culture”.
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This article was written by Ingene's millennial author Lily.
Lily, in her early twenties, is a free-spirited modern Indian girl who believes that talking about sex, not only in terms of sexual health but also in terms of sexual pleasure, should not be taboo.
To read about her own journey of embracing her sexuality, you can visit https://bdsmadventuresofavirgin.wordpress.com
To read about her own journey of embracing her sexuality, you can visit https://bdsmadventuresofavirgin.wordpress.com
