{"id":15466,"date":"2018-11-01T09:32:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T04:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=15466"},"modified":"2018-10-31T16:49:48","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T11:19:48","slug":"interview-richa-kaul-padte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/interview-richa-kaul-padte\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Richa Kaul Padte, Author of ‘Cyber Sexy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richa Kaul Padte, in her own words<\/a>, is \u201ca writer and editor interested in gender, sex, tech, popular culture and illness.\u201d She has recently authored Cyber Sexy<\/a>,\u00a0a book on pornography and experiences of online sex cultures and expressions. Richa is co-founder and managing editor of Deep Dives<\/a>, an award-winning, digital imprint of Point of View, a Mumbai-based non-profit that focuses on issues of gender, sexuality and rights.\u00a0 Shikha Aleya interviews Richa about porn, pleasure and pussycats.
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Shikha Aleya: Richa, thank you for taking the time and energy out for this interview. You have mentioned illness in the bio blurb on your website, and in the online piece \u2018If we bring our loneliness to the internet, what do we take away?<\/a>\u2019 you have shared your personal observations of illness, the body, and experiences with internet spaces. How do illness \/ wellness connect to your experiences of life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richa Kaul Padte:<\/strong> The vast number of people who live with chronic or debilitating illnesses are women. Johanna Hedva\u2019s \u2018Sick Woman Theory<\/a>\u2019 is an incisive and evocative essay that many of us sick girls hold closely, because it contains, among many things, the idea that it is ultimately a capitalist patriarchy that is making us sick.<\/p>\n

Personally, though, I haven\u2019t deep dived very much into the theories behind illness, even though there is some wonderful writing in this area (especially by women). For now I am more interested in the effects of illness; how it changes the shape of your life, and how you can find a way to live through your symptoms in a manner where you still feel like yourself.<\/p>\n

The internet has been both a blessing and a curse in this department (like it has in all departments) \u2013 I feel so inspired by all the sick girls I follow online, but at the same time, I am beleaguered by the feeling that they are doing illness \u2018better\u2019 than me. Last year I wrote an essay<\/a> about this for Racked, and it\u2019s something that I still wrestle with in my everyday life.<\/p>\n

Shikha: That gives one a lot to think about. Now, on a different plane, in 2013, while blogging about a workshop by EROTICS India on sexuality and internet use<\/a> across five countries, you wrote of claiming and advancing sexual citizenship. In the light of recent changes in India\u2019s legal landscape, the reading down of Section 377<\/a> this September, the decriminalisation of adultery<\/a> through Section 497 being struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, what are your thoughts on sexual citizenship now, five years later? What are the challenges up ahead?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richa:<\/strong> I think we\u2019ve seen some hard won legal victories around sexual citizenship in India in the last few years, but in my more cynical moments (of which there are many), I sometimes wonder if we\u2019re going one step forward and two steps back. So for example, the two things you mentioned \u2013 Section 377 and Section 497 \u2013 are indeed incredible victories, but at the same time I\u2019m thinking about the raising of age of consent to 18, the continued legal denial of marital rape, and our anti-trafficking and sex work laws that entirely disregard consent. I think as a society, both legal and otherwise, we\u2019re still a ways away from embracing the concept of sexual citizenship \u2013 the idea that each of us is an autonomous sexual being, and that as sexual citizens, irrespective of caste, class, religion, marital status and so on, we have the right to pursue pleasure free from harm.<\/p>\n

Shikha: You spoke to the writer of a recent online article about being threatened by online scammers<\/a> saying they have footage of you masturbating to porn. Please tell us more about how you dealt with this. What are the strategies by which an individual can take control of their own personal narrative of sex and sexuality, in the context of a society where such control is almost always external?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richa:<\/strong> The scam e-mail I received was precisely that \u2013 a scam. I was fairly certain they didn\u2019t have any footage, in great part because if you spend two years researching a book on porn, your appetite for consuming porn for pleasure seriously diminishes. But that didn\u2019t mean I didn\u2019t feel a combination of panic, shame and fear at reading that e-mail. And the truth is that I don\u2019t know how to not have those feelings, or what to suggest to other women so that they can avoid having those feelings. Because look, of course we all know the theory: sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, your desires are legitimate, and violations of your sexual consent \u2013 online or offline \u2013 are never<\/em> your fault.\u00a0 And I absolutely 100% believe all of this. But in that moment when someone violates your consent, or threatens to violate your consent: in an e-mail, in a nightclub, in the bedroom, it can be difficult to convert that theory into practice.<\/p>\n

I think for me, talking about the experience helps. Sharing it with other people changes it from something you hold tightly inside yourself to something you can expel into the world. And as it enters the world, it not only becomes a lighter burden for you to bear, but it changes the landscape of the world itself. And that\u2019s what is happening with the Me Too movement, right? Women are unleashing their experiences into the world, refusing to contain them in private webs of shame and fear any longer.<\/p>\n

Shikha:\u00a0So very true. In the book, Cyber Sexy<\/em>, you make linkages between porn and power, saying that pornography often gets defined as something that goes against \u201cexisting power structures\u201d.\u00a0 In India, where these \u201cpower structures\u201d are often a cultural, moral policing around sex and sexuality, how does it go on to impact the definitions and consumption of pornography?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richa:<\/strong> In India, power mostly lies with upper class, upper caste, cisgender, heterosexual men. And this power structure asserts itself on to the rest of us in a variety of ways, from cultural purity to moral policing to the family unit. I do wish I could have spent more time on this in Cyber Sexy<\/em>, because I think one really important way to look at the preservation of power in India is through the family unit. The family is a stronghold of the dominant power structure: caste-appropriate, heterosexual, demanding female subservience, and so on. And porn, with all its diversities of desires and pleasures, does not fit into this space. It is women pleasuring themselves. It is men being \u2018led astray\u2019. It is children being exposed to \u2018those kinds of things\u2019.<\/p>\n

Anti-porn attacks in India often include the idea that pornography is ruining Indian families<\/em> \u2013 and this is a very difficult argument to contest, both personally and politically, because the idea of the family as sacred is enmeshed very deeply into all of us. No one wants to be a home-wrecker, right? Especially not those of us typically positioned as \u2018home-makers\u2019. And I think in order to free pornography \u2013 and by extension sexual pleasure \u2013 from the ways Indian society defines and demonises it, we need to take a good hard look at how power is preserved in our immediate domestic spaces, and how these spaces influence our own opinions and consumption of pornography.<\/p>\n

Shikha: You speak of \u201cfeminist porn\u201d<\/a> in Cyber Sexy<\/em>, describing it as \u201cporn created in a way that considers the rights, pleasure and consent of all the people involved \u2014 on- and off-screen. Feminist porn isn\u2019t porn for women, but it is porn that takes women\u2019s pleasure into account as much as a man\u2019s\u201d. Please elaborate on this concept. What would be some of the aspects of an ideal form of \u201cfeminist porn\u201d, and how can this be made more inclusive and accessible?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richa: <\/strong>Feminist porn a term used by adult filmmakers from different parts of the world, who are bringing a feminist praxis to their filmmaking. Feminist porn typically has more women behind the camera, fair labour rights and contracts for sex workers, a greater diversity of bodies and sex on-screen, and an absolute commitment to consent.<\/p>\n

But not all porn and sexy content that has these attributes calls itself feminist porn, which is obviously fine \u2013 I think something can be <\/em>feminist without self-identifying as such. For example, I think of the many women I interviewed for Cyber Sexy<\/em> who create and post sexy content online, and who are creating \u2013 in my mind at least \u2013 wonderful, feminist additions to the landscape of the sexy internet. So while the term \u2018feminist porn\u2019 applies to a particular branch of studio-shot pornography, I think its implications have a far wider reach.<\/p>\n

Shikha: Thank you so much for this interview! A last question – Richa, there are these cats who feature in the About<\/a> section of your website. How would you describe the connections between who you are, your work, and your connection with animals? Do tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you would consider the most significant elements of your life journey thus far.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richa: <\/strong>I grew up in Kodaikanal, which is a tiny (or now, not-so-tiny) hill station in Tamil Nadu. I really loved living there, but it\u2019s only much later that I was able to see how much growing up in the midst of forests and greenery with dogs at my side shaped me. I remember when I left Kodai in my late teens and spent a brief and difficult time in Bombay, I was so distraught that I couldn\u2019t see the sky. I used to sit on the terrace of my grandmother\u2019s building smoking cigarettes at midnight, and all I could see were city lights. I felt so absurdly trapped, and I told myself that if I had a choice, I would never again live somewhere I couldn\u2019t see the sky. I don\u2019t know if I have an explanation for how this is connected to my working life; maybe it isn\u2019t \u2013 I am an ace compartmentaliser. I will say this though: Cyber Sexy<\/em> is dedicated to a cat, which should tell you everything you need to know about me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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