Guest Blog: “BDSM in India” by Goddess Sikha

Sexuality is part of humanity

India has always been known for its culture and traditions. It is also home to the world’s oldest sex manual, Kamasutra, which dates back to as far as the 4th century BC. This guidebook provides a comprehensive list of sexual activities and practices, using which people in India can explore their sexuality and engage in diverse pleasure pursuits.

India is the hub of regional sex, and the Kamasutra, written by a Hindu sage, provides detailed advice on how to manage your libido. The best way to understand this sexual guidebook is to embrace Indian culture and embrace the pleasure that could be available to you in this ancient text.

Kamasutra is not only a sex manual but it is a way to lead a healthy life too. It provides you with powerful tools that can be used to achieve your sexual goals, as well as enhance the quality of your life.

The word kamasutra comes from the Sanskrit word for “desire” and refers to a treatise on human sexual activity. The Kamasutra is believed to have been written by Sage Vatsyayana as part of his Patanjali Yajnavalkya it was written in Sanskrit and compiled into three parts: Astrology, Sexuality, Manners and Erotic Poetry.

Despite this ancient document, BDSM and related kinks still remain largely taboo in India today. Because of societal stigma and familial pressure, many people who want to explore their sexuality are often forced to hide their desires or even completely abandon them altogether. This is tragic since there are so many unique and wonderful sides of human sexuality that should be celebrated rather than judged or repressed.

The Land of Kamasutra and taboos

When we think of India, the Land of Kamasutra, we normally associate it with sexual pleasure and physical intimacy. However, many don’t realize that BDSM as a practice is something that has been part of Indian culture for centuries. Despite this, BDSM is still viewed with a certain amount of taboo in India. Kinksters have to hide or keep their desires and practices under wraps due to the stigma associated with BDSM and kink activities.

In India, sex and other socially taboo topics have long been avoided in public discourse – until recently. With a growing awareness of women’s rights, the LGBTQ+ community, and the desire for an open conversation about sex and its associated topics, India is slowly opening up to discussions around this subject.

From journalistic pieces about sexuality to grassroots campaigns highlighting the importance of consent and discussing contraception options, there are some exciting conversations happening all over the nation. So let’s dive into a brave new world as we explore India’s relationship with sex and taboo!

In India, “sex” is hardly ever spoken about openly. Despite being an integral part of human existence, it is a topic that often carries a certain taboo. From Indian movies to government policies, most aspects of this conversation have been historically restricted and censored. Fortunately, with ongoing efforts to break the taboo and educate the public, more people are opening up to this conversation in India and embracing healthier attitudes towards sex.

Although it may still be a taboo subject to discuss in India, sex is an important part of our lives. And while there is still much work to be done to make sure everyone has access to accurate information and resources, it’s important that we don’t shy away from discussing sex in India. Understanding the nuances of how the different cultures view sex here can help us not just become more informed but also more tolerant and respectful of one another.

A Kinkster in India

Fetlife, the India-based kinkster platform, is inviting all the open-minded people out there to explore their limitless desires and fantasies. This platform is a great place to find community as it allows its members to connect with like-minded individuals and share stories to create amazing experiences.

BSDM in India has been viewed as a taboo topic. It is a concept shrouded with secrecy, as many kinksters have no choice but to hide behind an invisible identity and remain clandestine about their sexuality.

This is mainly due to the strong social stigma attached to BDSM in the country. People are hesitant to associate themselves with the practice due to fear of judgement and criticism. As a result, many BDSM enthusiasts face injustice and ridicule due to their sexual preferences.

Understanding this reality and trying to dispel the misconceptions revolving around this topic is crucial for normalizing BDSM in India. Raising awareness about bondage, discipline, dominance submission,and masochism can help move us away from this outdated perspective on sexuality and help lead us into a more progressive society.

The subject of BDSM is still considered to be a taboo in India, where kinksters have to hide their true identities for fear of being judged and ridiculed by society. Despite this, BDSM practices have slowly started to emerge from the shadows and become increasingly visible in the public consciousness.

Today, more and more people are slowly beginning to embrace this lifestyle that was once seen as perverse. From a handful of underground clubs popping up in cities like Delhi and Bangalore, to even some communities openly pushing for the acceptance of BDSM, this subculture has taken firm root in India. While it might take some time before it can be accepted as mainstream, there’s no denying that its progress so far is promising.

BDSM and taboos in India are not something discussed openly, yet they have been an integral part of our culture and society for centuries! It is a topic often misunderstood, but with increased awareness and acceptance, people are now beginning to understand the benefits of BDSM as a form of expression. Even though there are still many taboos associated around BDSM practise, it could be one of ways that people have healthier relationships with each other, by setting mindful boundaries between different parties.

Dominatrix and Submissives in India

I am a pro-Dom since the last 7 years I guess. At that time, we used to have a very close circle of Kinksters in the whole of India. Women who practised as a Dominatrix could be hand counted. At that time, people were not much aware about BDSM practises. Very few women could gather up the courage to become a Dominatrix . Submissives were also very few but they were the ones loyal to the lifestyle of BDSM. The kinkster community at that time was a closed group of few people.

After a year or two, all the submissives started coming in with their bad experiences. Everyone started sharing their experiences of being conned for money , blackmailed , looted etc. So the question arises as to how these submissives got conned ? As they said, a profile will come up in social medias, containing pics and videos of BDSM. They will announce sessions on particular dates in a particular city. When people will call to book for sessions, these accounts will tell them to pay some advances. After that profile has collected some money, it disappeared. But some left money trails. If they collected money in any digital platforms like paytm or bank account, then people could report frauds on those.

Now India is a country with such a huge population and so many crimes happenning , no one would take any real action against these. Also, these submissives were reluctant to go to any cops and report a cyber crime. Now,these profiles ask for a very small amount of money as an advance , like one or two thousand rupees. Often people asked me that what is the way of reporting such a cyber crime to any legal authority ? I simply told them to drop anonymous mails to the department of cyber crimes. One or ten mails won’t matter but hundreds will.

Previously, people were not sure of the legality surrounding the practices of BDSM. LGBTQ was still not legal back then. People often knew the full forms of LGBT as Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. They often forgot the Q part of it. Q means Queer and certainly the practices of BDSM falls under the category of Queer.

Fifty Shades and curiosity

So I’m talking about 2014. I started from this year. My BDSM activities dates back to 2010. Back then I was experimenting with it. But my real practices started from 2014 or 15. Back then, the books of “Fifty Shades of Grey” were released and it was picking up. People started growing curious about BDSM. The first part of “Fifty Shades” was self published by EL James in 2011 and the first movie came out in 2015. VOILA !!!!!!!

The release of the books and movies of fifty shades opened a huge door of BDSM to the world. Many more movies were made before that based on BDSM but FIFTY SHADES did something to the world. Even though people of the BDSM community has renamed FIFTY SHADES OF GREY as “FIFTY SHADES OF SHIT”, I will like to appreciate the movie as an introduction to the concept of BDSM to the masses. No doubt the masses consumed FIFTY SHADES as something acceptable. It was the era when everyone was introducing handcuffs, ropes, blindfolds, gags to their bedroom.

It was also the era where people started to find like minded kinky people . Amongst all the social medias, Twitter was famous and is still famous to have profiles of online Dominatrixes, submissives and other kinksters. Twitter never used to put restriction in their contents until the recent IT amendment act which was passed few months back in 2021 in India.

Blackmail and BDSM in India

These financial frauds started increasing as people were aware of how Dominatrixes and submissives work. The constars grew . They started making profiles, collect advances and then dissappear. Some were caught by some people as they left money trails, phone numbers etc. Then they came up with the idea of taking Amazon gift cards. Amazon GC never leaves any trails or it might take a hacker sometime to find about the whereabouts of the profile.

It was then 2016. The biggest change occured during this time in the economy of India.

It was Demonitization. In this time, even the richest men in India suffered . It was a huge financial crunch on 2016 onwards. No doubt, at times of financial crisis, financial cyber frauds will increase too. People gave a damn about the legality of BDSM , and many profiles were seen to come up and dissappear within days. During these times, people started blackmailing the Kinksters.

A whole lot of hackers and teams of blackmailers were phising the profiles and the crimes increased. The very first targets were the Dominatrixes themselves. Don’t think that only the submissives were blackmailed, conned or looted. The same happened with the Dominatrixes too. These hackers would find out datas about the Dominatrixes and threaten to expose them in their original social medias or tell to their parents and relatives as to what they were doing. India being a conservative, developing country propagating monogamy for decades, no family can accept their daughters as a Dominatrix .

Culture, roots and perception

Even though India is the inventor of Kamasutra-the Sex Manual, still now, people can’t get over the fact of MONOGAMY. We see our parents worshipping Radhe-Krishna, speaking proudly about the tales of the Vedas, Mahabharata, Ramayana and other religious texts, still they want their children to lose their virginity on the night of their marriage and be monogamous to the one they are marrying. I mean Lord Krishna had 3 wives, 1600 gopis and Radha (as his Soulmate).

Now different books shows different datas about these things, but the most popular one states that Radha was 12 years elder to Krishna , was literally his aunt and was married to someone else who was impotent. Draupadi had 5 husbands among which except Yudisthira, all the other brothers had other wives, extramariatals, girlfriends etc. We grew up with such stories in our culture.

Majority of the temples in India are filed with carvings of intimate sculptures, among which Ajanta-Ellora, Konarak -The sun temple , Khajuraho are famous. The Indian parents love to take their kids to temples containing such errotic sculptures, they read out errotic stories of our religious sacred texts to their children as if they are the Hindu version of fairy tales. They will worship Radhe-Krishna , yet want their children to be deprived of all pleasures. How hypocritical !!! But I don’t blame them.

With the invasions happening, we were looted of our riches by the invaders . India used to be a very prosperous and rich country till 1500 BC.The invasions began from the Aryans till the British. Now we have our country invaded by the stupid values of our previous invaders and the corrupt people in it. How hypocritical. I am attacking religion , our system and society here. I am sure I am going to get trolled but I don’t care. Truth is bitter and people can’t face this bitterness. Find out some people who can’t face these bitteness and just ask them, do you know what “Shiva Linga” really is?

They will speak something huge, probably will take hours to speak up and distribute their free knowledge. Listen to them and speak out the truth – “It’s actually Lord Shiva’s Penis inside Devi Shakti’s Vagina” and see their reactions. The point of telling all of this is why and how the stereotypical hypocritical system and society of India is the way it is, even though it was not supposed to be this way. The invaders looted us of our rich traditions, which kept the balanceand they did give us their stupid cultures. We do live a mixture the cultures of our past invaders.

Blackmail and the ‘System’

So, coming back to the blackmails, these hackers even threatened many more submissives and kinksters . They would threaten them by saying that they will expose them. Now imagine ancient India. If at that time, someone blackmailed some person to expose their bedroom life, they will laugh it out !!! Isn’t it ???

But in the modern India, people take intimate sexual practises very seriously. If someone lost their virginity before marriage, it is considered a crime. No other man will marry her. These rules has been more strict for women then for men and in some parts of India, they still are there. So if a woman is caught practising as a Dominatrix, then she will be treated as a vile impure object which has committed many sins.

Of course women turn to objects then. They are not considered human beings with normal biological hormones running in their bodies having different types of desires, fetishes, wishes and dreams. Such impure women will be black tagged in the society, family etc. It is very sad to say that this still happens. At a root level this has been happening. So the Dominatrixes always got threatened. Many paid lots of money, many deleted all of their digital presences, changed their phone numbers, got married and lived as a slave wife to any man.

In India getting married is important,(That too with the permission of the Family, The family chose the brides and grooms), getting married to the right person isn’t. In India, it’s not okay to talk to a stranger, but getting married to a stranger whom the family has chosen seems perfectly fine.

These practices made these women scared, scared to the core and finally many gave up. Submissives were hacked, blackmailed and looted too. But when it came to men, men were less scared than women, but some were. I saw many men and women scared to death with such blackmails.
Well I was blackmailed too. I dealt with them in my own way. I am explaining these causes because they need to be cleared out.

People must know how these hackers and blackmailers took advantage of others just because our society, system and family allows them to. Yes you heard it right . The reason of our suffering is our own society, system and family. We are living in a system which is not meant for us.

LGBTQ in India

Now, as the years passed these frauds, cyber crimes, corruption increased with the passing years. 2018 was a year of relief as LGBTQ was legalised in India (of course consentual ones).

Now it was weird to note that no one paid attention to the Q in LGBTQ. Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning “strange” or “peculiar”, queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Entering the English language in the 16th century, queer originally meant “strange”, “odd”, “peculiar”, or “eccentric”. It might refer to something suspicious or “not quite right”, or to a person with mild derangement or who exhibits socially inappropriate behaviour.

The Northern English expression “there’s nowt so queer as folk”, meaning “there is nothing as strange as people”, employs this meaning. Related meanings of queer include a feeling of unwellness or something that is questionable or suspicious. In the 1922 comic monologue “My Word, You Do Look Queer”, the word is taken to mean “unwell”. The expression “in Queer Street” is used in the United Kingdom for someone in financial trouble.

Over time, queer acquired a number of meanings related to sexuality and gender, from narrowly meaning “gay or lesbian” to referring to those who are “not heterosexual” to referring to those who are either not heterosexual or not cisgender (those who are LGBT+).By the late 19th century, queer was beginning to gain a connotation of sexual deviance, used to refer to feminine men or men who were thought to have engaged in same-sex relationships.

When we think of BDSM, most of us automatically assume a straight couple who have switched up their normative gender roles. In those relationships, women take psychological control over men, and they inflict physical pain. They either do it by whipping mischievous boys or stepping on them in leather boots. Those who passionately oppose the kink community and LGBTQ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) would think this was just a way for a closeted gay dude not to disappoint his war veteran dad.

However, that is far from true. Let’s face it — every fetish is kinda weird, except for those that you have and understand. A man who’s not into feet cannot grasp the attraction of a footjob. The same goes for BDSM. So if a woman in latex dominates a guy, how does this fit in with the LGBTQ community?

Can Queer couples practice BDSM?

The thing is, the dominant-submissive straight couple is the widespread assumption of what BDSM is. However, as virtually always, the assumption is wrong. Yes, it’s a thing, but that’s not the only variant of it. Queers can also be kinky people! The BDSM community is even more accepting of people who are sexually attracted to the same sex. In fact, according to the NCSF, 35% of BDSM practitioners identify as bisexuals, as opposed to 2.8% of the overall population.

BDSM, as a, say, preference, is as old as mankind. You can find Sumerian writings describing a BDSM relationship between goddess Innana and her worshippers. Some frescos dating all the way back to the 5th century B.C. depict whipping during intercourse. On them, the male yells out, “Give me a bra and call me Brenda!” Okay, maybe not that last part, but you get the idea.

However, BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism) has always been looked down upon (and still is to this day). Starting from the second part of the 20th century, BDSM and LGBTQ communities helped each other, symbiotically working toward the same goal — being accepted.

Obviously, in Western societies, it’s a lot easier to be gay today than it was in the 1970s. LGBTQ people had quite a journey ahead of themselves to get where they are today. Being mostly accepted (publicly, at least) and having straight people attending gay pride events is not something that would be achieved as easily without the BDSM community.

The BDSM movement and the LGBTQ community had one thing in common in the 20th century — public opinion considered them (morally) wrong. Nevertheless, BDSM was still a straight thing. But as the wild 80s arrived, people became more sexually exploratory. Many facilities, such as swinger and kink clubs, became more and more present.

Fetishes were no longer a sign of mental derangement, rather just sexual preferences we as individuals have. With BDSM, people challenge the normative way of having sex, during which a male puts his sword into a female sheath. Suddenly, we had a growing number of straight men who liked to be submissive (bottoms). They would let a dominant girl (top) take matters (and whips) into her hands.

SO, BDSM in India is COMPLETELY LEGAL.

The impact of COVID-19 on BDSM in India

Now, the cherry on the top of the cyber crimes happening in the world of BDSM is the NOVEL COVID19 Pandemic. It took the economy of the world by storm. It turned the whole world upside down. The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered a world economic disruption of significant magnitude with an escalating pace, resulting in steep recessions in many countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented global economic impact at an astonishing rate, leading to rapid economic downturns in many countries. Despite exceptional policy support, the baseline forecast envisages a 5.2 percent decline in global Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, the deepest global recession in eight decades.

With the widespread social-distancing initiatives, sharp contractions of financial conditions, a slip down in foreign demand depress activity is observed. Advanced economies are expected to shrink by 7 percent. In 2020, Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EDME) GDP was predicted to contract by 2.5 percent. News findings present a dismal picture of the number of affected supply chains.

With more than 90% of EMDEs indicated to encounter per capita income contractions this year, several thousands of people are likely to slip back into poverty. The global economy is undoubtedly lead to a halt with the outbreak of coronavirus. India being a developing country was more adversely affected.

We all are suffering now. Even till now, no one has recovered yet.

Such an economic crisis increased the number of fraudulent profiles in every social medias. They also increased the amount of blackmail, financial drains in in this era of economic destruction. Now, the situation is such that every other locality is having a Dominatrix , and their boyfriends are their handlers. Now Gang Wars are going on. Yes you heard it right. It might remind you of Mumbai gang wars ,now its the era of BDSM gang wars. People made organised gangs to wipe out others.

When I joined the scene, people were so respectful to the Dominatrixes. Whereever a Dominatrix was located, the subs and slaves used to fly there and treat them like Queens. Now due to such frauds, cyber crimes and corruption, all kinds of crimes has increased in the world of BDSM. Now, majority of the so-called applying submissives bargain on our tributes as if they are buying an inanimate objects.

They ask for verification even from a person like me who has got 17.3k followers in twitter, with no negative comments from any of my followers. People ask me to send my videos as if to see samples and then buy me. I laugh and tell them that my twitter account has got enough of pics and videos.

The respect factor for Dominatrixes has drastically reduced due to the crimes committed by others. Of course the submissives, slaves and other kinksters does have their fair share of bad experiences for this. They have been conned, looted, plundered, blackmailed and what not. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to behave rudely with others. Just because there are many fake profiles of Dominatrixes, it doesn’t mean that all Dominatrixes are fake.

Voluntary sex work is legal in India but trafficking for sex is punishable under the law.

In an order on 19 May, the Supreme Court also asked the Centre to clarify its stand on recommendations made by a panel formed by the apex court in 2011, which looked into the prevention of human trafficking and questions of rehabilitation as well as the dignity of sex workers. The Centre in 2016 told the SC that the panel’s recommendations were incorporated in a draft legislation.

So we all are hoping that the scene of BDSM in India along with the position of sex workers will improve. India must return to its former glory.

There we have it, Kinky Folks

A huge Shout-Out and thank you to Goddess Sikha for writing this hugely important and insightful article for Podopheleus readers.

Follow Goddess Sikha on Twitter @servingsikha.

Kinksters all over the world, let’s support each other – so please SHARE this informative article with other like-minded sexual creatures! Also, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @podofeleus and Instagram @Podopheleus.

Much Kink Love,

Podopheleus 

All links @ Podopheleus | Triple-Formed – Advocate for Change