THE DESIRE DIVIDE

STRESS, STIGMA AND IGNORANCE ARE ROBBING INDIANS OF JOY IN THEIR SEX LIVES, LEAVING THEM IN A MIASMA OF UNFULFILLED DESIRE

- SONALI ACHARJEE

ONCE UPON A TIME, Amrita Pillai (name changed) would keep Friday nights for hooking up with her various digital chat buddies. This was five years ago when Pillai was 29 and still a mid-career professional in the investment banking sector. Now, at the age of 34, Mumbai-based Pillai has a lot more commitments that occupy all her time, including her once-favourite Friday night. She is responsible for two young interns, has double the workload, housing loans to repay, a longer commute to work ever since she shifted from the local train to driving her own car. Not to mention an ageing mother recovering from endometrial cancer. "Where is the time for pleasure?" she asks. "When there is time on hand, all I want to do is sleep and be alone. Dating, sex, masturbation, romance... seem more work than fun now." When she has had the time to date, the men, she says, have been hopeless failures. "The people I meet are also tired. They are only interested in themselves and don't put in the effort to learn about a woman's body. It's a double whammy-there's less time for sex and when there is time, the sex is bad," says Pillai.