Sense & Sensuality

SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALISM IN INDIAN LITERATURE (2)

The nude photo of Saroj Bal, the avant-garde Oriya writer, made a source of controversy for a long time in Oriya Literature and still now I am astonished, why the media as well as the critics considered the nude photographs as a serious set back in our social values .It is not that the masculine nudity was not displayed before, but I think it is the display of masculine nudity in context with Eastern or Oriental culture which worried our male dominated social gurus.I think, this pics has a strong relevant with sexuality.
In India, most of the people mingle sexuality with passion and physical co-adhearance and some extent to perversion with a hidden concept of sin in their puritan mind .But the term sexuality has a wider aspect.Sexuality involves not only passion and perversion but also biological or physiological sex, gender, gender identity, gender roles and sexual orientation In an Oriya news paper Dharitri, they termed this activities as Sexual Orientation , which I consider a very wrong concept .Sexual orientation is different from sexual behaviour because it refers to feelings and to self-identity, rather than only actions. Persons may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviours..Sexual orientation refers to emotional, romantic, sexual and/or affectional attraction from one person to another person or persons. Someone’s sexual orientation is categorized according to the gender(s) or biological sex of the people he/she has these feelings for, that is, it describes whether a person is attracted primarily toward people of the same or the opposite sex, or to both. Sexual orientation exists along a scale that ranges from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality. Sexual orientation is an important part of a person’s total self-identity: how we see ourselves and how others see us. A person’s experience and understanding of her/his sexual orientation can vary during their life. In my opinion Saroj Bal's self nude picture display refers to his sexual behaviour not his sexual orientation.
You have certainly marked,that most of our world famous writers from Flaubert to Sartre are at their most creative when trying to get a date — for better or worse. So sexual behaviour is core element of humans’ sexual nature , but not sexual orientation It does not mean that sexual orientation has no role in creativity. . In other words, sex is often the spark behind creativity, even you’re not having sex. For instance you can look at the erotic sculptures of the Konark or Khajuraho or you can access the 'Shringar Kavyas" of "Riti Yuga " in Indian literature.They are more of the sexual behaviour of an artist than his sexual orientation.Same kind of art can be found in western countries also. It’s tame enough you can show it in temples, children can view it in the art museum, it even came up on computer with "safe search" turned on. But there’s no denying there’s a sexual behaviour behind it.They are the artistic expressions by an artist where a woman with her clothes off. There’s a sexual element every time an artist depicts the human body, naked or not. Human bodies are shaped by sex, and not just the sex organs. Muscles, hair, skin, posture, everything about us is shaped to a degree by our sexual behaviour. So every painter or photographer is in some way engaging his/her sexual behaviour when they depict a human being. And not just in visual arts, but also in drama, literature, music, dance, sports, every form of art. Art that depicts humans depicts sexuality. Same thing can be found in Western Art.In Botticelli’s Venus or .Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings, Or Henry Dreyfuss’s styling of steam locomotives for the New York Central, we find either sexual behaviour present in explicit form or in implicit form.. Shakespeare filled his plays with sexual double entendres and allusions. In every play he finds 10 ways to make a joke on the word "coxcomb." In his day the word "nothing" was slang for female sex organs, so the title "Much Ado about Nothing," takes on a second meaning in a play about virginity and trust.Other times the sexual behaviour is virtually hidden. Take the last movement of Beethoven’s fifth symphony. The rhythm has an unmistakable sexual energy. And the modulation, up a fifth, when the theme is repeated, feels sexually rooted also. Or take Piet Mondrian’s paintings. There’s no explicitly sexual reference in most of them. Yet I sense a strong sexual impulse behind them. I imagine him painting in the same mood you might have making love, with the same intensity, creativity, the desire to really connect. Well, you might disagree about Piet Mondrian. But it’s kind of obvious to say that sexual behaviour is an huge element in art. I think that’s a good thing. The world would be a lot poorer without sexual energy in art, music, literature., drama, architecture, design, poetry, cooking.