Anxious about sex

I start getting anxious when people touch each other all the time in films Do you feel that a friend said to me soon after physical distancing entered our lives Now as we contemplate backtowork this has become a central question of cinema Film bodies worldwide are trying to define SOPs for shooting intimate scenesThe anxiety about sex on screen is not really new The anxiety about the body as sexual as something that desires sex usually comes with the moral baggage of those who want to control well everythingEarly Indian cinema did feature some fullon closeup smooching which vanished by the 1940smdashbut not mysteriously Cinema like much of art is an elusive iridescent bird that exists to feed our senses and pleasure always has a precarious existence It is never seen as a good enough reason for something neither artistry nor relationships The fear that our pleasures will take us across the Lakshman rekha of social segregationmdashgender castemdashmeans pleasures are often censured for higher purposesScholars like Neepa Majumdar have shown how Indian cinema sought to legitimise itself in the 1940s by aligning with the nationalist movement This involved some sanitisingmdashno kissing and less maza masti more social issues and family dramas The scholar Sangeeta Gopal quotes a film journal responding to a readers query on the absence of kisses the technique of lovemaking in the West is different Sexual freedom threatens national freedom It is this legacy whereby films that want to be considered important go to some lengths to strip themselves of pleasurable sensual elements Social issues acquire authoritativenessand enjoyment deemed unnecessarySince nature yes even human nature abhors a vacuum kisses in Hindi films were replaced by songs sometimes featuring the muchmaligned cuddling roses suffused with eroticism triple meanings lipbiting and longing That we remember songs but rarely the movie must tell us something about our bodies which like to carry these memories and also why we like rosesLaws governing film censorship were based on the potential of cinema to lead us astray with that impactful bodily encounter in the dark of the theatre No kissing on screen to keep our thoughts safe and sanitary Authorities would decide our thinking for us rather than let us understand with the right information what works for us without harming othersMedia and movies prop up this thinking by constantly telling stories of how dangerous the world is yaniki gritty realism you gotta be a real man to take it na where on the other side of social boundaries lie rape and murderStories about sex are mostly stories about violence not pleasure apparently for our own good Violence is also touch but it seems to cause no anxiety ya Im also confused All this terrorises us into sticking to the straight and narrow minded never developing the confidence and judgement to make our choicesToday there is a literal heightened risk to our bodies Yet emergencies are often used to create new normals of repression and control Can the future imagined purely as danger yield answers that enable us to choose our own good while being free Or maybe were likelier to discover those answers by imagining a desired futuremdashof security but also freedom and kissesParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at paromitavohramiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news