Sex and the internet city (Orkutting Ourselves to Death Part II)

I have with me an interesting case typical of boys and girls on Orkut. The girl's profile reads thus -

About Me:
narcississtic. highly hateable. wild hair. random. foot permanent fixture in mouth. rudeness personified. beat up people i like. look good in photos here so if u want to be "friends" with me coz i look "byooteephul" or sum such thing in the photo on LHS dont bother. flight inducing nostrils. have big feet. calvin n hobbes.glass bangles. as good as blind. wear contact lanses (such bad spellungs!)-6 power. hate wet cockroaches.n i love wet blue paint. and random windows. and stone. need to cultivate feminine type gait. not very well behaved. may also need to discard habit of pointing at people while loudly saying horrible things abt them. possess heart of gold. and gem of person. excess adipose in some parts. goldfish have 3 sec memories.or is it 3 min..for some reason people think im "very dominating"..they also seem to have a tendency to suddenly stop doing what they're doing and stare at me for a second as if hit by blunt heavy object and say "you have no etiquette''...very bewildering behavior this

note: for those who didnt get the dont bother me msg. I DO NOT NEED NEW FRIENDS..i can say it slower and louder and in simplified language for the hard of understanding..I NO FRIENDS WANT..so do not scrap etc me unless ur a talking chameleon or a purple hippopotamus..or unless ur long lost item of yuman bean variety that i know..also if ur new to orkut n need to increase number of "friends" from 1.2 to 1200 do not consider me a candidate worthy of the honour please.and and i hate the word dear. hate it even more if it is spelt daer..so all dear and daer keep away

Well the girl is very impolite to say the least. Not just to the outer world (or just Orkut boys) but also herself and her crude definition of herself. It’s not because she is seething with her self image or has self esteem issues (surprisingly). But it’s in fact the other way around. It’s built into my generation that we pride ourselves in our negative representation. My Resume for instance reads that I have always been an academic failure all through my school years. My dad was baffled to say the least and gave me a one hour lecture on how I should model my Resume in such a way that it focuses on my ‘Positives.’ But I feel that- me being able to recognize and acknowledge something negative (though I don’t see academic achievement a huge positive) about myself shows not only my confidence but also my ‘I don’t care, take it or leave it attitude.’

Coming hence to the second part of her profile description. Now this brand of the Indian youth even I can’t tolerate. It’s the lets become friends on Orkut cause I don’t have any real friends category. They are a bunch of losers for all I care. And I can understand the annoyance that girls face when they get scraps from random guys who just discovered Orkut. But to what extent will some go-

hey ****...this is farhan(name changed)...a student of law...the fact that you seemingly seem interesting is the sole reason for me to scrap you...just a lil curious if there could be some other additional reasons to keep me interested...i aint here for pseudo friendship/romance/open relationships...am nihilistic, jaded and naive...and am lookin for sumone who can cope up with erratic mood swings and sarcastic behavior which is just a little short of being rude...all that i want is somebody to hold a good conversation with...sounds like a simple search...but it really is anythin but simple...of all the people i know and have met...just a very few of them with which i can hold a decent convo with...i hope you can help my case...i've heard and also believed for a substantial time now...that "what goes around...comes around"...will tell you more once this comes around...ciao


Again this reflects what I was formerly talking about. And curious as I was I went through the scraps of the boy and girl to see if there was any reciprocation. But I guess the negatives canceled each other out. One of my lighter observations shall we say :)

The following excerpt is from my thesis-

Sex and the internet city
Another important characteristic specific to the Indian youth is the sex anxiety. The sex anxiety has various components of curiosity, lack of fulfillment, fear of inadequacy, etc... Prolongation of the period of education means inevitably in our society a prolongation of the period of sexual deprivation. (Gore 1977:64)
Drilling deeper I use Psychoanalysis (and theories on repression) to discuss why the Indian youth find it easier to approach members of the opposite sex online. The sexual component instinct of scopophilia (the active component of looking), like its passive counterpart, exhibitionism (the passive component of being looked at), are subject to numerous restrictions in our culture.(Nagera 1969:146) These components play themselves as the research will find how many youth like going through pictures on Orkut and the nature of the picture they have uploaded.
This brings us to another sensitive subject ‘pornography’. The research will find how many of the youth find porn acceptable. Porn is a relatively new phenomenon. The youth of bygone on the other hand had a different substitute- Cinema. As Kakkar (An Indian Psychoanalyst) explains- I see cinema as the primary vehicle for the shared fantasies of a vast number people living on the India subcontinent who are both culturally and psychologically linked. Kakkar says that he has used the word fantasy as another word for a world of imagination. (Kakkar 1996:25) He gives the example of the rape scenes which were a staple feature of the Indian cinema. ‘What is being enjoyed by the audience is the sadomasochistic fantasy incorporated in the defenselessness and pain of a fear stricken woman.’ We can hence find easy explanations for the ‘item number’ which are also popular in Indian cinema.
But with porn nothing is left to imagination. More on this and voyeurism will be examined in the data analysis.