2009 sperrten indische Behörden den Zugang zur Internetseite von Savita Bhabhi, einem Online-Comicstreifen, der von einer promisken Hausfrau mit unersättlichem Sexualtrieb handelt. Dies wurde in den Medien kritisiert. Maryam Omidi waegt ab, ob die Behörden die richtige Entscheidung trafen.
Der Fall
2009 sperrten indische Behörden den Zugang zur Internetseite von Saviat Bhabhi, einem Comicstreifen, der von einer promisken Hausfrau mit unersättlichem Sexualtrieb handelt. Der Cartoon, der auf scherzhafte Weise die sexuellen Abenteuer von Savita Patel beschreibt, zählte eine Anhängerschaft von mehr als 60 Millionen monatlichen Nutzern, wurde jedoch unter den indischen Anti-Pornographiegesetzen verboten.
Das Verbot erntete starke Kritik in den Medien. Zeitungen titelten mit Schlagzeilen wie: Lasst Savita nicht sterben! Einer der Schöpfer des Cartoons, Puneet Agarwal, sagte: „Einer der Gründe für das Schaffen von SB war, darzustellen, dass auch indische Frauen sexuelle Bedürfnisse besitzen. Indien ist ein Land, das immer noch sexuell unterdrückt ist und ich meine, dass die indischen Frauen den ersten Schritt tun müssen, um die Fesseln zu lösen.“
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as a woman comic artist, I am saddened that this kind of pornographic comics would be censored, sharing the same fate as live pornography. I do believe that it is the freedom of the artists to express themselves, and the problems and changes in society. I just looked up some of the comics pages and hope those pages represent well the comic as a whole and that the comments I am doing are not misplaced. We see a woman free with her body, who likes sex and knows how to use her body to get what she wants. But I also saw that the majority of the sexual scenes are mainly giving pleasure to man.
What I conclude about it?
In a sense it is a liberalization of the woman and her body. She controls it, enjoys it and in a way uses men to satisfy her desires.
In an other way it traps her in the circle of having to pleasure man in any way, and that this is the way she will be able to go through life, get the social stands and works she wants and needs. She is trapped in a vicious circle that has been long set in our societies, that women should be pleasured in pleasuring men, and not by receiving direct pleasure themselves. Although I am commenting this particular case, this is valid for any pornography as the greater public is male and products serve consumers demand.
For it to be censored? Well, I do not think it should. It opens our minds to other facets of women, as the fact that women can like sex without being automatically treated as a prostitute or underdog. Even though it is true that her pleasure passes through men first which is one of the bases of pornography, I do not think it should be censored at all or at least in the same way. In this case there are no live women usually forced into prostitution to produce this content. Here no one is hurt, except perhaps the men who read this comic and will now have to turn to some other, perhaps worse, „product“ to alleviate their sexual desires and fantasies.
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I’m a firm believer in the liberation of sexualities. I also believe that all sorts should be represented in the media, as long as no one was harmed and children weren’t exploited.
Especially as this added something more than just pornographic images, I think it’s a shame that it was censored