From Sex Object To Sex Subject

Your sexuality is your birthright and it’s time you reclaimed it, says Salome Mitter.

- Salome Mitter

She may seem quirky and unconventional in facade-obsessed Bollywood – a microcosm of our country at large – but one thing Kangana Ranaut is, is utterly real. Fierce, yes, but also achingly vulnerable. After the dust settled post her ugly slanging match with Hrithik Roshan, one statement stands out: “I am not ashamed of anything, not my past, not my affairs, not my body and most definitely not my desire.” It’s a line brimming with lessons…

Society is quick to hang tags around women’s necks; the world seems to find it so much easier to deal with a woman once they have boxed her in a nice watertight compartment. If a woman gives in without too much fuss, she is ‘easy’. If she moves on from one affair to another, she’s a ‘slut’. If she takes her time or decides not to enter into physical relations with a man, she’s a ‘prude’, a ‘bitch’, a ‘c***tease’. A broken love affair, a failed relationship... and society decides that the woman is dumb, lacks the capacity to hold a man, is incapable of raising a family or is basically too ‘loose’ for a committed, successful relationship.