We keep saying the West is obsessed with sex. The fact is that we in India are equally obsessed with it. But we also have a schizophrenic attitude to it. What did Khushboo do after all? A journalist asked her a question about pre-marital sex and she said if people were doing it, then they should do it safely. What is so offensive about that? Khushboo was actually talking about safe sex. Isn’t that what all the government hoardings on AIDS say?

It’s one thing if some people don’t think much of her opinion, but they shouldn’t feel superior about their own. It’s ridiculous the way this issue has been blown out of proportion. I want to ask those well-respected women’s groups what were they doing when Khushboo’s effigies were being burnt?

The same thing happened to Sania Mirza. They made it so difficult for her that she was forced to retract her opinion. And, even as I write this, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by sharing my take on this whole controversy. But I guess that’s the difference between me and Sania!

It’s hilarious that in today’s age a woman isn’t allowed to speak her mind. A woman’s body is her own and what she does with it is her own business. In any case, the definition of marriage in urban India is changing. Women may now want to get married at 45. Do we expect them not to have a physical relationship until then? Yes, if we are talking about under-age sex, then of course we would need to be careful about what we’re saying. But, then again, this is the same country where 13-year-old girls are giving birth to babies.

We have to do something about our double standards. Chennai was the place where the first AIDS case was detected in 1986. I remember a few years ago a survey found that the maximum number of “extra-marital sexual relationships” take place in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. We can’t in live in denial. Look at our situation—we don’t protect women’s rights; we don’t react to sati, dowry, rape; we are still hung up on a woman’s virginity. I’ve never understood what gives a man the right to ask a woman whether she’s a virgin or not—and this in an age when women are having test-tube babies! Besides, I don’t think my body is bad and I don’t think the act of sex is a sin. Yes, sometimes the body can be misused. Sometimes, sex can be confused with love. But the important thing is to have an open attitude towards it.

Questions need to be raised. Only then will awareness follow. We’re going about it in a very strange way. No wonder kids have warped ideas about sex. Last year, I attended a talk on AIDS. Kids were making balloons out of condoms and giggling. I felt like going up to them and telling them that they wouldn’t be laughing if they saw people actually dying of AIDS. The government needs to educate the young about sex and safe sex in a better way. They are, after all, the country’s future.