WOMAN IS STILL THE NIGGER OF THE WORLD

Lads Gone Mad: A followup to last week's Tribune piece about the alleged relaxed sex standards in India. Gawd forbid you're a famous South Indian actress and say it's OK to have premarital sex as long as it's safe, and that men probably shouldn't expect to marry a virgin -- you'll be attacked by everyone from other women to Dalits (formerly known as Harijans or the Untouchable caste) to British boys' magazines.

If yr in a hurry the juicy bits are in boldface.....

BAD, BAD MAXIM:
From the 1/28 Observer (UK)

The actress, the virgins and the lads' mag in India

Wealthy young Indian men are being targeted by a 'culturally tweaked' British publication

Amelia Gentleman in New Delhi
Sunday January 29, 2006
The Observer


In the new basement offices of Maxim, the British lads' magazine launched in India this month, Sunil Mehra, the editor, sets out his policy. 'We don't do breasts. We don't do nipples. We do cleavage - that's our cultural template,' he said.

Studying proofs of the magazine's second edition, Mehra is navigating new terrain, trying to identify the boundaries of sexual acceptability in an increasingly permissive India. For the first issue he erred on the side of lewdness, superimposing the head of a famous actress on the body of a woman wearing transparent knickers, and ended up fighting off legal proceedings. Now he is veering towards caution. February's cover girl is Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor and the strapline promises 'Eye-frying pics: More Kareena - Less Clothes'. On the cover Kapoor displays maybe an inch of midriff, but otherwise looks as if she could be on the way to meet her grandmother. Inside, pictures show her draped across a sofa, wearing a sensible T-shirt and a skirt which is only a tiny bit short. Readers' eyes will remain unfried.

Gentle titillation appears to be a winning formula. 'I have to walk a razor- fine line,' Mehra said. 'This is India, after all. I don't think Indian men are comfortable with total nudity.'

Maxim's arrival is the first attempt to export lad culture to India, but publishers of other men's titles have also expressed interest in targeting its growing population of rich young male consumers. The rival Condé Nast group is looking at bringing GQ to India and Playboy's chief executive, Christie Hefner, daughter of the magazine's founder, Hugh, said her company was aiming at a launch, though its magazine 'would not have nudity and I don't think it would be called Playboy'

Most media analysts agree India has no lad culture of the sort that fuelled Maxim's success when it launched in Britain in 1995, but 80,000 copies of the first Indian edition sold out in 10 days. 'This is just the beginning; others will follow,' Suhel Seth, a Delhi-based advertising executive said. 'There have always been flesh magazines in India, but until recently you wouldn't want to be seen carrying them, so they were sold in paper bags. That paper bag culture has been dispensed with.'

Vasanti Rao, director of the Centre for Media Studies in Delhi, said there would be a market for lads' mags among a new generation of young men, living alone for the first time. 'In the countryside people live with extended families. You would not want to sit with your sisters reading this. Changing lifestyles in urban India have given people a new privacy.'

International women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan have been pushing the boundaries of sexual openness in India for about a decade, but the men's market has not previously been targeted by foreign publishers. Among the domestic English-language titles available, Indian men could choose from Man's World, offering gardening and interior decoration tips, or Debonair, showing skimpily dressed girls headlined 'nubile nymphets'. Pornography is illegal, but available under the counter.

Attitudes towards sex are changing swiftly in India, but puritanism and permissiveness still coexist. Many Bollywood films still use such euphemisms as thunder or butterflies kissing to denote sex, and there is a long way to go before the nation readopts the relaxed mindset which inspired the Kama Sutra. Beyond the capital, displays of conservatism can be extreme. This month TV images were broadcast across the country of police in the northern town of Meerut beating young couples sitting in a park as part of a drive to eliminate 'indecent displays' of affection between unmarried couples.

When the actress Khushboo, who goes by one name, said last year that men should not expect their brides to be virgins, arguing that premarital sex was fine as long as it was safe, she was pelted with tomatoes, old shoes and rotten eggs by conservative groups and taken to court.

Instead of celebrating her stance, Maxim's inaugural edition had a mocked-up photograph of Khushboo half naked beneath a slogan declaring: 'Of course, I am a virgin if you don't count from the behind.' Khushboo threatened to sue and Maxim was forced last week to make a public apology.

'A lawsuit is the best thing for sales,' said Shobhaa De, a novelist who writes forthrightly about relationships.

Media experts say the magazine must remain sensitive to local tastes to survive. About a third of India's Maxim is heavily rewritten material from the magazine's 30 other international editions, including an article promising to reveal '100 things you never knew about women'. 'It is a different market,' said editor Mehra. 'The magazine is culturally tweaked. I don't think you have to be pornographic to address the erotic.'




Khushboo's still suing. Here's the latest
from the 2-15-06 BBC news:
Khushboo gives ultimatum to Maxim
By L R Jagadheesan
BBC News, Madras



Khushboo will not accept an apology (Photo: RS Kumar)
Indian film star Khushboo has given Maxim magazine three weeks to pay compensation for publishing a faked photograph of her in a bikini.
The actress, who has been in more than 100 films, is seeking compensation of 30m Indian rupees ($680,000).

She said she was not willing to accept an apology and would sue if the magazine did not pay up.

Khushboo, who is popular in southern India, said the article had caused her "irreparable damage".

Her lawyer Karthikeyan said she was also planning to sue for defamation: "Irreversible damage has been done to her. An apology will not be sufficient."

The 35-year-old actress already filed a police complaint against the magazine following which the police in Madras (Chennai) seized several copies of the magazine from the newsstands.

The police also registered a criminal complaint against the publisher of the magazine under the "Indecent Representation of Women Act".


Khushboo is known for her outspokenness

The magazine had published the picture in its new Indian edition as part of a feature called "Women you will never see in Maxim - 100% fake".

The magazine subsequently apologised but failed to placate Khushboo, who is known for her outspokenness in a film world where conservatism still rules.

She faced a storm of protests last year after speaking out in favour of safe premarital sex and advising men not to insist on their brides being virgins.

Some political parties launched violent protests across Tamil Nadu state and filed several cases against her accusing her of hurting what they called Tamil sentiments.

Courts intervention stopped violent protests, but the cases against her are still pending before various courts in the state.





And here's a piece about the comments that sparked the whole thing (a few days after this appeared the Dalits protested in the streets and demanded an apology and requested that Khushboo, who hails from Maharashtra [Bombay area], be deported from Tamil Nadu). Rarely do women take to the streets like that.
From the Hindustan Times:

For prudes, Khushboo’s views on sex stink

GC Shekhar

Chennai, September 26, 2005

Tamil film and TV star Khushboo has kicked up a storm with her interview to a magazine where she said there was nothing wrong in premarital sex. Women's groups have hit out at her for “insulting Tamil womanhood”.

The actor told the Tamil edition of India Today that society should free itself from “outdated thinking that a woman has to be a virgin at the time of her marriage”.

“They should know to protect themselves from pregnancy and AIDS if they chose to have sex before marriage. Educated men these days do not expect their spouses to be virgins at the time of marriage,” she had said. The interview was part of a survey on sex and the single woman.

On Sunday, women members of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI), armed with brooms and chappals [flip-flops], protested in front of the South Indian Artistes Association at T. Nagar. They demanded the actor leave the state and return to Mumbai. At least 60 activists were arrested.

Many suspect the DPI was getting back at Khushboo for spearheading a protest by female actors against director Thangabachan, a Dalit, after he had compared actresses to prostitutes in an interview recently. The director had to apologise even though the DPI had rallied behind him. Meanwhile, the Sun TV group’s new tabloid Tamil Murasu has tried to cash in on the debate and sought public opinion on Khushboo's — the star anchor of Jaya TV — remarks.

The actress and her director husband Sundar C. are currently in Singapore and are expected on October 5.







Oh, yeah -- In other news,the bird flu hit India today.