2020: A YEAR OF HEART OVER HORMONES?

WITH THE PANDEMIC KEEPING CASUAL DATIERS MILES APART..AND TOGETHER ONLY IN SPIRIT, DO WE SEE A SHIFT IN FOCUS? SANGEETA WADDHWANI PRESENTS AN OVERVIEW

Remember pop singer Britney Spear’s statement circa 2002, that she would save her virginity till she married? It was a counter-intuitive move, one that opposed the culture spawned by the sexualisation of everything in American advertising since the 60s, (remember that epic marketing term, the Sexual Sell?). Sex and sexiness sold products, movies, pop corn, soap, shampoo… and by default, sex became paramount in everything to do with the two genders. Britney in her tender teens was trying to reverse that tide, urging young women not to sleep with men casually, suggesting instead, that their boyfriends invest in the relationship, even commit, to earn that privilege. Well a poem from 1681, by poet Andrew Marvell, does reflect a world where all parties waited for the Big Bang, and this is a world we certainly don’t see anywhere now. We are truly one with the animal kingdom, free falling, wild and free. Or are we? Let’s visit Marvell’s epic poem,

To My Coy Mistress.

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Yeah, we got the point. But let’s face it, romance died when casual sex entered the picture. Everything for a man became about getting laid, and while some women could handle the ‘casualness’ of this, many felt nostalgic for a time when love and romance had an existence outside the frameworks of physicality. When glances were shyly exchanged across a ballroom, time together felt so precious, when lovers enjoyed just being in each other’s presence, going for long walks or long drives, sharing experiences, basking in each other’s voices, feelings, thoughts.
With the global #lockdown keeping lovers at more than a healthy distance, the nuances of connecting through the higher chakras have seen a resurrection. Relationship coach Matthew Hussey has shared many a view on this, stating some relationships contained within a home are falling apart faster than you can say divorce, and it’s not a bad thing. It means perhaps you were really not meant to be together long term! As for those living away from a loved one, he actually feels the connection has the best opportunity to evolve – in an online avataar, through Skype, or Facetime, or other video chat platforms. The lockdown has created mental space where there would be daily distractions – work appointments, unending emails, traffic jams. Now that there suddenly seems to be so much time on hand, I recall Matthew saying something like, “This is the best time for your long-distance bond to develop, to grow and take a richer form.” He has a point. He is talking of a more sacred emotional bond, the kind that nurtures the soul, the kind that usually has no worldly strings attached.

While in cities around India, the novelty of casual sex is still spurring Indian mankind (do read Ira Trivedi’s book on the subject, India In Love: Sex, Marriage and Intimacy in Our Cities) I have encountered plenty of self-respecting career girls who look down on the Tinder style of finding their Mr Rights, where three dates without action, and forget love – your lust story also won’t stand a chance! Frankly, my male friends outside of Mumbai say that they don’t operate by such rules – if things happens organically, that’s ok… but they certainly won’t evaporate on a woman they care about or have gotten to like, just because she won’t ‘put out’ on a third date timetable.

Now if you visit the Netflix universe, the latest reality TV shows prove that there is some introspection going on about modern ‘love’. Yes I am talking about webseries like Too Hot to Handle, and Love is Blind. In the first, a merry ensemble of horny and physically attractive singles are thrown together in a retreat, where they stand to earn a total prize of U$100,000 if they abstain from physical contact. The rules do shift as they go along, and everytime any two people get physical – prize money gets deducted. Thrown into this great experimental mix, are masterclasses with coaches that make men and women in the group pair up and stare into each other’s eyes, wordlessly, to tune into the other’s energies. When I saw this as an exercise, I was reminded of that old Hindi film song, ‘Aakhon hi aakhon mein, bitayi saari raat!” See, this happened already in India! What this show was trying to do, was turn the clock back to a more prudent, more Victorian ethos, while its participants were hanging out in g-strings and tankinis and threadbare shorts for the gentlemen… hilarious.

The other show waxing of Andrew Marvellian values – Love Is Blind. The deal here is for men and women to enter closed pods and talk to potential soulmates, without seeing them. They talk till they are convinced they are made for each other, and then, MEET! But by then, the man has already proposed to the woman. Now THAT, is brave! All physicality enters the picture once they are engaged. Interestingly from the episodes I have seen, some couples sail through their bed-test, but other couples come unravelled. My honest view – the format is a bit extreme. Physical attraction has always been considered a key marker for interpersonal connection. And what feels extreme is that they are thrown into deep intimacy post this blind engagement….of course, each individual plays by his or her rules. It was interesting to see that one lady was hesitant to get into the ‘act’ as her fiance was a decade younger. He looked hurt and felt rejected. She had concerns about how his mom would react to her! And in another case, a gentleman has trouble getting into this zone, because he is bisexual… well a bit unfair not to tell the lady you proposed to ‘blind’!

But the trend is interesting. Where psuedo-Westernised India is on fire thinking every woman is a piece of meat – and a meal out should take every lady to the bedroom for dessert, Netflix content from the West is saying, ‘have we shortchanged our relationships? Reduced each other to commodities?’

A very adventurous Punjabi male friend of mine once bought into a Tantra weekend experience on an exotic island in Asia. And while they did beautiful things with beautiful men and beautiful women, it was far more in the realm of the sensual than he had expected. No bang bang… it was deep gazing, chakra based touching, even third eye stroking… Smell the matcha dudes. Even the Kamasutra advocates three days of talking between a couple before they even share a bed. Remember they were perfect strangers when they married back in the day, unless they were lucky to have a Gandharva Vivah (love marriage, or a marriage where a Kshatriya kidnaps a beautiful princess and forcibly marries her).

Plenty of love, and lust stories abound in our rich past… my journey thinking about what we have gained, what we have lost in our frenzied times, has just begun… But let’s see how our love stories evolve, in the Time of Covid.

#covid-19 #lovestories #luststories #andrewmarvell #kamasutra #loveisblind #toohottohandle #netlfix