I logged on to Sunny Leone’s website to be greeted with ‘WARNING! ADULTS ONLY! This Site Contains Sexually Oriented Material,’ followed by a detailed disclaimer spanning legality, culture and morality. Below, it says, “If minors have access to your computer, please restrain their access to sexually explicit material by using…”, with links to parental control products.
I read through that and then proceed to get really turned on. Boy, is Sunny Leone hot!
Screengrab of Sunny Leone’s website
Although I’ve never watched any of her movies or TV appearances (except for these *ahem* clips), she has always fascinated me as a sociocultural phenomenon: an Indian-origin American porn star doing increasingly mainstream roles in the Indian film industry. She exists at the nucleus and intersection of several paradoxes-her Sikh upbringing and career in the adult film industry in the US.
These politics that coexist in Leone’s life are brought to the fore by the PIL filed by a Mumbai citizen on behalf of a Hindu organisation, where the actress is accused of creating “grossly indecent” material and publishing it on the Internet. This is going to be interesting because, hey, the adult film industry IS legal in the States, where all of her porn was created and published, but she faces up to five years in jail if she is convicted under Indian laws. She is also charged under the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act. This case pertains to her porn-star past, not to her current mainstream career.
It is safe to say that what comprises “grossly indecent” content is subjective: Fair & Lovely ads, with their deep-seated cultural ramifications are “grossly indecent” to me. What comprises the “Indecent Representation of Women” is also subjective-many Indian movies reinforce the good/bad girl binary, bring female sexuality into bedrooms via item numbers, and badly fail the Bedchel Test. But we live and let live with our (largely unenforced) U/UA/A certifications, in the belief children should be protected and that adults are to be treated as such.
Ditto with porn.
Porn is illegal in India, but the complainant, Anjali Palan has her head buried deep in the sand if Leone’s content is the only-or worst-of the pornographic content she’s found on the Internet. Studies have shown that a majority of digital immigrant Indian men go online for porn, and Sunny Leone is India’s most searched person according to Google’s 2014 list of top searches.
Nothing worse then a desperate person leaching of my name. #epicfail
— Sunny Leone (@SunnyLeone) May 26, 2015
Sunny Leone’s reaction to the PIL
Palan is reported to have said that adult content poisons the minds of people and children, and I wonder whether she is proposing that India ban porn on the Internet? Here, might I suggest that parental vigilance and controls on computers are a more effective solution than targeting the actor’s solitary site.
According the Daily Mail, the spokesperson of the Hindu organisation, Dr Uday Dhuri admits: “Sunny Leone should be ousted from the country. We have registered several complaints but unfortunately no action is taken against her.”
Palan adds, “This actor is coming here and displaying vulgarity. Bollywood films could earlier be watched with families. Today we cannot see them with our families,” she told reporters, yet her complaint has nothing to do with films you could (or should!) watch with family.
Leone is a strong feminist force, a woman forging her own path and not bowing to stereotypes, and I wish her all the best in battle. At the time of filing this article, her latest post on Facebook is a quote by R Hunter accompanying a picture of her and husband Daniel: “Sometimes we live no particular way but our own”. Take that!
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