One night, after copious amounts of alcohol were raging through our bloodstreams, a group of us women decided to play a rather sacrilegious game of Scrabble which involved inventing new words. Midway, a 20-something friend placed four letters on the board that intrigued us-O-R-G-A. She grinned mischievously and said, "Orga. That's half an orgasm."
Analysing the results of the 2010 sex survey, one gets the feeling "orga" is a term many urban Indian women would identify with. Besides suggesting half an orgasm, it is the only word I can think could exemplify how underwhelmed most women seem to be about their sexual state of affairs.
Only 59 per cent of the 2,664 female respondents were satisfied with their sex lives, a depressing statistic since most women rated other aspects like family, social life, health and finances as far more fulfilling in comparison. The overall results form a tragic reply to the much-raised question of what Indian women expect from Indian men-next to nothing.
This, however, is not to suggest that women want nothing from men. Women invest vast amounts of time, money and energy in making themselves desirable to the opposite sex. We spend hours sampling products designed to enhance our beauty and improve our sexual prowess. Increasing financial security allows us this privilege. Yet, women's expectations from men remain understated. Countless magazines offer endless content on 10 ways to please a man, how to give him the perfect blowjob and sure shot ways to appease his appetite. While urban women may have finally formulated a vocabulary with which they can articulate their sexual desires, we are yet to discover a language through which we can communicate these to our male counterparts.
The media may advocate women's right to pleasure but our culture remains unaccommodating to women's sexual needs. The sex industry, to begin with, continues to cater almost exclusively to men. Women continue to be portrayed as objects whose only function is to titillate men and thereby encourage the sale of consumer goods. Think about it: Indian men have access to Playboy magazines and pop-culture icons like Savita Bhabhi alongside a repertoire of pornography. Men who cannot afford the immediacy of Internet porn are allowed to openly indulge in blue films at their local cinema halls. Women, however, must make do with re-runs of Sex and the City and cheap paperback romances. It is acceptable for men to celebrate their pre- and post-marital sexual exploits while women nurse them like dreaded secrets for fear of losing the "virgin" tag.
We live in a country where women are regularly accosted for wearing anything mildly revealing. Where walking unaccompanied at night is the setting for most rape scenes. It's hard to find a single woman who hasn't been violated by a family friend during her childhood and hasn't had to keep mum about it, who hasn't been harassed at her workplace. Who hasn't, after a particularly exploitative experience, been told that she deserved it because she "brought it upon herself" by being too liberal. If sex doesn't feature too prominently in women's list of priorities, it's perhaps because of the sinister subtext it embodies, one that is ever discussed.
The nature of the questions that the survey sought answers for indicates how little we make of women's sexual inclinations. Under the present circumstances, we're still stuck at the level of asking questions like "do women fantasise" and if they do, then "what forms the content of their fantasies", or "if women prefer foreplay before sex". When will we be able to move on to more daring questions that probe the depth of a woman's lust? Will we ever reach a stage where women will be encouraged to acknowledge and celebrate their libidos?
There's a line in Annie Hall, the classic 1977 Woody Allen film, spoken by a random woman in the course of a cocktail conversation. "I had an orgasm the other day," she says. "But my therapist told me it was the wrong kind." Her naïve confession probably held true for American women in the 20th century, an era mired in myths about the female orgasm. Most urban Indian women, unfortunately, still suffer from the same predicament - the inability to understand the machinery of lust, an ignorance of their own bodily needs. And they are not to blame. This isn't to suggest they are victims.
Pry in on a conversation among women in spaces that are traditionally feminine, like community kitchens or even the one boogey reserved for women on the Delhi metro. Behind closed doors and beyond the confines of coffee-table conversations, you will overhear them whispering about sexual urges they have repressed for years. This survey documents the responses of women on the verge of a sexual revolution. Women who are finally, en masse, voicing their discontent; their desperation for more fulfilling sexual relationships. Women who are no longer satisfied with multiple orgas. Women who want the real deal.