This is an issue that has subsided of late but I felt I had to express my opinion on it.It is regarding actress Kushboo and her comments in India Today about the changing trends in sexual behaviour.

For the uninitiated this is what Khushboo said "No educated man can expect his wife to be a virgin".This comment lead great hue and cry among the so called "tamil protectionist forces".It was quite some time before the beleaguered found any help and this time it was from an ardent feminist Mrs Suhasini Mani Ratnam.But this too didnt serve to help the actress as Sushasini too became a target of these bigots.The situation worsened for the two actresses as a host of defamation cases were filed against them in the Tamil Nadu courts.And far from quashing these cases the judges were quite happy to evaluated these cases and one judge went as far as issuing orders to arrest Khusnoo.Thankfully better sense prevailed and the actress was let out on conditional bail.Things started improving as celebrities and politicians from the north started issuing comment in favour of the two actress.As of now the situation seems to have mellowed down.

No sane human being would subscribe to the tactics adopted by the obstreperous "Tamil Protectionist Forces" mainly comprising of PMK and DPI cadres.These political parties tried to gain as much political mileage out of it as possible.The vernacular press too sided with these parties and this issue increasingly came to be seen as a conflict between the conservative tamil society and the liberals comprising of english speaking media and the people from the north.

Now on to the actress herself.Though I pity the actress for the situation she finds herself in,I feel she was partially responsible for her predicament.To say the least her comments were controversial and I certainly don't subscribe to her views.

Irrespective whatever the so called sex surveys may indicate India is still largely an extremely conservative society with limited freedom for women.Though we gradually liberalizing it is gradual and will take time.The common fallacy among all these so called "national surveys" conducted by english weeklies is that based on the response of a select few (2000 in this case) they tend to generalise things.Forget India these responses are not sufficient to gauge the pattern of a single city and this is where Khusboo made a huge mistake.The India Today survey was conducted among app 2100 women from 11 cities including Chennai.So on an average that 190 women from Chennai and the "englightened actress" made her comments for the entire city based on the response of these 190 women.

I will highlight a few of the comments made by the actress

"Women in Chennai were lagging behind Bangalore in expressing sexual desires. But Chennai women are now coming out of hibernation"

Now this clearly indicates that she was referring to the women of Chennai and this negates her claim that she wasn't referring to tamil women.Now if I am not mistaken most women in Chennai are tamilians.

She goes on to say

" I see a lot of women going out, in pubs and discos here. Women are able to talk about sex without inhibition. Given our conservative Indian backdrop, women are slowly coming out."

The above excerpts are certainly true but limited to a particular section of the socitey.The trend indicated above is prevalent among the upper middle class & the affluent sections of the society certainly not among the middle class.They have their life and careers to take care of and certainly don't find the time to indulge in such activites.

Now on to her most controversial remarks in the column
"Our society should liberate itself from such ideas that the brides should all be virgins at the time of marriage. No educated man will expect his bride to be virgin at the time of marriage."

Now why in the world should one liberate oneself from this idea.Forget brides I feel even bridegrooms should be virgin till marriage.Though it may sound impossible now-a-days it certainly was the case till few years ago.

Now why shouldn't an educated man expect his bride to be a virgin.Does she mean that all young educated girls lose their virginity before their marriage.Give me a break.For all the talk about being liberal this just crosses the limit.Does she consider India to be the US where being pervert is a way of life.I don't think so.Even there this may not be completely true and yet the actress takes all the liberty to make this claim and for this comment alone I feel the she deserves what she has got.

People living in Tamil Nadu are quite aware of Khusboo's personal life.Before she married C.Sundar she was the mistress of Actor Prabhu and after their relation broke down she had a live in relationship with her husband(as pointed out in her column).But what many don't know was that she forcibly went into a live-in relationship with her husband fearing that he may dump her.Now we all know the kind of reputation actresse have in India and the prevalence of the Casting Couch syndrome.I guess her experiences as an actress were responsible for the comments made in her column.

She claimed that she made these statements apropos to the increasing cases of AIDS in our society.

For that the above sentence would have been more appropriate had she said

"Our women should liberate themselves from such ideas that the bridegrooms should all be virgins at the time of marriage. No woman should expect her bridegroom to be virgin at the time of marriage.When indulging in sex, the girl should guard herself against sexually transmitted disease"

If she was really sincere about preventing AIDS among women she must have asked them to be cautious against all men irrespective of whether it is her husband or boyfriend.One of the banes of being a conservative society is that women unwittingly become victims of HIV due their men's sexual behaviour.It is men who predominantly indulge in adulterous relationships.It's men who go to prostitutes not women.A married women is in as much danger as an unmarried one.So pre marital sex is not an issue here.Safe sex is.

To conclude whatever may have been the intentions of the corpulent actress she certainly didn't put it forward in the best possible manner.From now on it would be much better if she stuck to what she was good at dissuades herself from making such dubious comments