Censorship The Reality
The other day I attended a meeting organized by an NGO. The theme of the conference was ‘Obscenity in Social Media and the Need for Censorship’. Articulate speakers expressed two divergent opinions. Some felt that it may not be possible to totally ban it and others were vehement that government should step in.
This set me thinking. How are we going to deal with this controversial issue? What is obscenity anyway? Nobody knows what is obscene. The dictionary definition classifies the word ‘obscene’ as foul, disgusting, offending against accepted levels of morals or taste. The dynamics or the levels of acceptance have undergone and seen a sea of change.
It is ironical that we do not have a clear-cut definition of what exactly entails obscenity, which makes its undoing even more complex. If we take movies as a category, an intimate scene alone does not constitute obscenity; even violence, gore, rape, flouting law, depicting women as sexual objects, double-meaning entendres, smoking, drinking etc all come under the umbrella of obscenity. While commercial exploitation of sexuality ought to be condemned, healthy sexuality can be permitted.
The Internet, which is otherwise a revolutionary necessity, is an entirely unlimited window of possibilities, where obscenity is concerned. A blanket ban is impractical neither can usage be supervised at all times. Since we are not in a position to categorise the areas of obscenity, a pragmatic approach would be to equip people to be more aware and discriminative; the ability to gauge for oneself what can be construed as obscene.
The writer is a sexologist.You can mail him at dr.narayana@deccanmail.com.
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