Adding insult to injury may be a common enough human experience. But when it comes to adding insult to rape, nothing quite works like our countrymen’s imagination. The latest suggestion with regard to finding a solution to India rapidly becoming the world’s “rape capital” is that mannequins should be banned, particularly the racy types flaunting lingerie to catch the eye of potential customers.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s move to cover up mannequins on the grounds that they may trigger the male libido doesn’t quite register with the same insulting force as the President’s son saying, in the wake of the horrific December 16, 2012 gangrape in Delhi, that there was little need to pay attention to anti-rape protests by “dented and painted” women. On a more serious note, it’s not the seductive curves of mannequins that can trigger the kind of mindless exhibition of carnal desires of men in a highly sexually-inhibited society.
Amateur psychologists desiring to analyse triggers to rape may be warned that sexually explicit content of high definition clarity is freely available to young viewers on the Internet. To look for ways to guide them into experiencing and coping with their sexuality and to set some control on their curiosity about pornography would be the modern way to tackle the problem. Not through some silly ban on mannequins.