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I unwittingly watched porn on my 15th birthday, and I still remain the butt of jokes. Why are women judged for watching porn when men aren't?
I unwittingly watched porn on my 15th birthday, and I still remain the butt of jokes. Why are women judged for watching porn when men aren’t?
It was my birthday and I had just turned fifteen. I studied in a co-ed convent and the amusing thing was that we were only eight girls in a class of forty students.
Fifteen is an age where you have mixed feelings, there is an urge in you and you don’t know how to deal with it. One of our classmates had just returned from the US, and all the girls were attracted to him. He spoke very openly about some Angie with whom he had had sex in school back in America. Sex is certainly fascinating and as usual I was equally intrigued by it.
He circulated some yellow leafed books which had graphic details on intercourse, budding breasts, and privates of men. It was a highly misogynistic era (and sadly it still remains the same). In our class of forty pupils, the boys could talk about sex but we girls, couldn’t. And among the eight girls I was the odd one.
The reason behind the oddity was that I couldn’t pretend to be a good girl. I was foul mouthed and I just couldn’t sit batting eyelids, pulling a shy face, and behaving like a lady in front of my classmates, as I was expected to. It was years later that I came to know that I was the only one who did not have a boyfriend to date, who did not smoke a cigarette hiding behind the bushes, who did not kiss her fellow classmate… and the list was endless.
The girls who did all this now lie in my blocked list on social media, given that I rant, and cannot be a hypocrite. I call a spade a spade.
It was from my classmates that I heard about the term porn, though in whispers. The girls whispered and boys spoke about it loud and clear. I remember that pseudo American had pressed my breast during Holi when he had come to my house to paint my face with colors, where actually he found my breasts a perfect place to place his colour smeared fingers, which left an ever lasting impact on my mind; something I haven’t been able to forget. The very next day my other classmate spilled the beans: “Hey, XYZ had actually gone to your place to press your big boobs and has confirmed that they are like sponge!” And me a thoughtless idiot, laughed at my own humiliation. Apparently I was voluptuous right from my teens and my features were striking enough to lure the glances of those boys including some male teachers as well, especially the one who was in charge of our PT exercise.
There was this article “The Porn Factor” that was published at that time. The boys expressed their views on porn, on nudity and spoke about sex, and the badass girls like me (I thought so back then) wanted to know more about porn. While the other seven girls knew that the meaning of rape was to tear the hymen without the girl’s consent, to me rape was nothing but a smooch may be. Must admit I was abnormally foolish given to the very fact we had our dose of Biology lessons where Mrs ABC used to come clad in a saree with one breast always exposed. She took our Biology class and her son was our classmate. Mrs ABC divided the boys and girls so that we girls could be taught about menstruation, breasts and reproduction though she herself blushed each time she taught us.
So let me now start my own story of watching a porn movie – I had to visit hell for watching porn. I had invited my classmates to my home for celebrating my birthday. I did not invite my pseudo American friend. But there was something else too. I had told those boys that I want to watch porn, and those whispering girl friends of mine encouraged me. Years later I came to know that my fake American friend had actually gone to the video parlor to get the VCD of ‘blue film’ for me. They all came to my house and I, instead of celebrating my birthday, asked them to play the blue film, in better words PORN. They took pictures of the cassette and more pictures of me watching it as ‘proof’ (I did not know that they were going to use it as proof, at that time) so that they could taunt me forever for watching a blue film.
The movie started. The other girls preferred to close their eyes and the boys enjoyed it. Once I realised what it really was, I requested the boys to switch it off and watch Parinda, the other movie that they had brought with them. I did not feel captivated by the porn movie, as it was completely unreal, and had no story except for the sex.
Afterwards, the boys left and the girls decided they would stay overnight at my place.
Next day I was the talk of the town. It became a national affair -“The girl who watched porn on her birthday”. I heard later that the boys had watched it again, separately, and no one had questioned them, but I who did not watch it for more than ten minutes was now a vamp. My best friend drifted away from me as I was the villain. I was that bad girl “Who watched porn on her birthday.”
Now I am in my forties but till date my classmates who support feminism (as they say so) remind me of that incident, in fact they had also uploaded a picture on facebook with a caption “The special day”. This time I could not control my rage, I replied asking them to change the caption to “THE GIRL WHO WATCHED PORN ON HER BIRTHDAY”. So nothing has changed, our society still is biased. A woman cannot watch PORN openly. It is a taboo. I call these hypocrites “privileged assholes”!
When I got married, my husband was a complete snob, but he loved to watch porn. But there was one more rule imposed by him. If I needed to watch porn, it should be with him. Well fuck, I was not interested in watching porn. I knew what porn was, and had no interest in watching others fucking each other in all sorts of bizarre ways which are unreal. One cannot fuck with four people at the same time unless you are a super man or a spider man!
I got divorced. My marriage did not last. Now I am without a man but I am still young. I have my urges just like any human being, and I too feel the need to have sex. Now that the whole universe sees me as ‘available’ can I watch porn openly? I still have no interest in porn because it is, as I said unreal, one cannot have a 10 inch long penis or breasts the size of a watermelon. But people are very curious about my sex life. I get curious glances, people have asked me how do I manage without a man in my life, and also if I watch porn? Well, please tell me what do I answer? I cannot run behind any silly stupid man and ask him to have sex with me. But I should be honest, each time someone asks me about managing my urges I tell them “I watch porn and satisfy my urges”. With eyes rolling as if I am a Zebra from the zoo, they panic. What a bad woman! This female is insane, she has a daughter and she watches porn to satiate herself!
If men can watch porn and that doesn’t call for judgmental comments, then why am I being judged? So each time someone asks me about myself, I will keep saying I love watching porn and there is nothing wrong with it. There is no taboo as women too have desires and the freedom to express it. No one can stop you unless you think of it as an anathema in your mind. Just like me, be a badass woman who remains unapologetic. Let my classmates be happy stigmatizing me, especially the men and two of my own gender as well. Let me be happy by mastering courage and saying “Oh yes, I am the girl who watched porn when I was 15!”
Image source: pixabay
Rimli Bhattacharya is a First class gold medalist in Mechanical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, an MBA in supply chain management and is engaged with a corporate sector. Her essay in the anthology “Book read more...
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