Locating Sexting in the Contemporary Indian Sexual Arena
摘要
The journey of ‘wandering charming prince on a white horse’ to ‘surfing/sexting on the scruffy beanbag’ is an anecdote reflecting upon the midnight hour of every society. The study explains the impact of sexting in a technology-laced Indian society, exploring whether sexting self-absorbedly vaporizes the ideas of love, romance, and intimacy, along with its effects on society. Locating sexting in three axes, i.e., as an Ideology with an idea of controlling sexuality, with values of maintaining the traditionality of cultures, and controlling the youth and keeping them under restricted surveillance; as a Platform of Opportunity, i.e., the virtual space providing equality from the discriminated social-reality/social-identity (caste/class/ethnicity/race etc.), an opportunity to transcend cultural barriers and providing a free space; and Vandal comprises of impact on the ideas of love, romance and intimacy due to the struggle between previous two axes. The study findings revealed that the sexual arena has provided a space in Indian society to co-habitat all aspects of love, romance and intimacy as a pious form and a degenerate concept. The study concluded that society has not yet developed an idea of a centre of gravity, and the absence of the same has created an imbalance in the form of unlimited and unchecked use of such platforms, causing problems and affecting other channels such as love and romance. The negative impacts of unfiltered access (transgressing the boundaries of mental and physical age) to globally connected technology and gadgets have not remained a trove to discover.