India’s first porn star
How an online comic about a hypersexual wife-next-door is inflaming India
It looks like “India has its first porn star,” said Tracy Clark-Flory in Salon. The only catch? She’s a cartoon. The online comic strip featuring the sexual exploits of virtual “horny housewife” Savita Bhabhi—literally, sister-in-law Savita—draws 60 million viewers every month. And neither Savita’s “buxom breasts nor her raging libido” fully explain why she’s hit such a “cultural hot spot” in India.
It’s an Indian thing, said Jason Overdorf in GlobalPost. Pornography is illegal in India, but 70 percent of Savita’s readers reside there, and many of the scripts are based on fantasies readers send in. Savita exploits the tensions between modernity and conservative traditionalism, between India’s sexual “repression and the temptation to escape it.”
The appeal also lies in “breaking a common taboo,” said Akela Talamasca in Manolith, and it’s pretty controversial in India to sleep with your brother’s wife. In fact, it’s a good bet that “the servers for this enterprise are not located on Indian soil.” Still, all the fuss seems a little hard to understand coming from “the same country that gave the world the Kama Sutra.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Will Starmer's Brexit reset work?
Today's Big Question PM will have to tread a fine line to keep Leavers on side as leaks suggest EU's 'tough red lines' in trade talks next year
By The Week UK Published
-
How domestic abusers are exploiting technology
The Explainer Apps intended for child safety are being used to secretly spy on partners
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Scientists finally know when humans and Neanderthals mixed DNA
Under the radar The two began interbreeding about 47,000 years ago, according to researchers
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published