Porn And Prejudice

Last month, the police made a celebrity arrest for porn trafficking. The accused, Raj Kundra, countered that the material he had been circulating was erotic, not pornographic.

- Amrita Narayanan

Since we are not privy to the particularities of the disputed material, the point is moot, but it’s a reminder that the law is not sensitive to the distinction between pornography and erotica.

Section 67A of the Information Technology Act, the law invoked in the Kundra case, prohibits the circulation of “explicit material”, legal language that makes no distinction between purchasing a sexually explicit home video to watch with your consenting partner and acquiring a sexually violent video to watch as a prelude to a gang-bang.

While the law against circulating pornographic material may be protective in its intention, in its effect, it infantilises the public. By legislating the circulation of pornographic material, the law effectively polices the public discussion of what is and isn’t acceptable in sexuality. If, for example, the media coverage of Kundra’s case had laid out the nature of the contraband material for a debate about its erotic or pornographic status, then the report itself would have likely been in violation of the law.