India’s leading magazine India Today in their Feb 8 edition of the magazine, published the insider stories of our bedrooms. Their annual sex survey shows that probably the society has opened up to a new reality of modern culture where discussing sexuality openly has become a trend. To the marriage counselors like us, it is good in one way because we get a slightly better picture of our increasing divorces.

However, writer Shovon Choudhury finds a witty side to this as well, as he observes –“The theme of group sex dominates the survey ….. as more and more supermarkets and online shopping portals offer 1+1 or 2+1 offers.”

He observes that – “It is best to avoid public transport in Bhubaneswar and Patna” because respectively 31% and 24% people there are open to public sex.” Or as he observes that 41.8% of us practice some form of domination, submission or role-playing and he observes – “sadly the survey does not reveal what roles are being played. ….Chhota Bheem? Arvind Kejriwal? Raghuram Rajan? Jodha and Akbar? Savita Bhabi? The Landlord’s Son? Pizza Delivery Boy?”

The India Today sex survey shows the emergence of smaller cities as more kinkier is what more important and significant. Kochi (85%) emerged as a city of high sex drive and Gurgaon lowest. 85% in Kochi said they have a high sex drive, 55% in Gurgaon faced sexual dysfunction. Even worse is 51% in Gurgaon have faced forced sex in their relation and 40% faked headache to avoid sex.

Guwahati emerges in the survey as the best city for marriage as 87% there faced no sexual dysfunction and 91% are attracted to their partners. Problem is 14% of them have said they started their sex life as early as 12 years of age.

If we focus on gender roles in this intimate act as revealed by the sex survey, we see 80% women say sex is important compared to 66% in 2003 – expectations from our relationships have changed. Also, the variants like Oral sex and Anal sex being more popular among couples compared to earlier years is a matter to ponder upon. Because 16% women would not have sex with their partner if he refused to give her oral sex. So if your partner loves any of these and you don’t, chances are s/he will go astray.

When it comes to straying Kochi is the leader with 49% cheating with their partners and 62% think that couples will survive straying. But 98% in Kolkata thinks couples will NOT survive straying. Another important fact is 78% men and 82% women cannot accept their partners cheating on them. The fact that adultery is higher in smaller cities compared to the bigger cities make us think. According to the survey, overall 19% men and 10% women have cheated on their partners.

A recent trend of 3.8% housewives having paid sex is also a matter to observe. India Today also claims that the apps like Tinder or Truly Deeply Madly getting popular in India (probably it will increase even after the release of this survey 🙂 ). With sex available freely and marriages and long-term commitments getting tougher, 34% youth have confessed to a committed relationship for more than four years yet no marriage.

India Today’s survey reveals that 41% people like the one who controls the intimate act and 34% likes people with skill and flair to experiment. Only 25% like someone who desires them. But still, 34% said emotional attachment is the biggest turn on for them.

One more important figure is, today 19% of women masturbate compared to 9% in 2003. This is of immense importance to Indian males because women being more open, demanding and more experimental in terms of sex can cause a lot of trouble at home. A horny empowered wife at home can lead to more trouble everywhere.

One more important aspect of this survey was the male and female attractiveness indicators. For 37% women, strong shoulder and back are turn on while 23% want nice abs. Men also have shifted their focus from women’s breasts (22%) to their face, skin, and hair (24%) [good business indicator for beauty parlours]. Hopefully, men will also include a woman’s character on this list very soon.

Some of the myths busted and some facts to reconcile from India Today Annual Sex Survey, 2016 are –

More men (32.1%) think love is important for sex and not women (22.9%) More women (40.4%) think sex is important compared to men (36.3%) Almost equal percentage of men (19.8%) face forced sex in a relation compared to women (20.1%) – marital rape against men not recognized by any law Women (8.6%) are more adventurous in bed than men (7%) Women (21.7%) are more into filming the act than men (16.6%) Men are not more attracted to a woman’s breasts or buttock than anything else (Face, eyes, hair 24%, Breasts (21.2%), buttock (10.5%) 20.5% of men do not discuss sex at all compared to popular belief that men discuss sex all the time.

What Indian men need to understand is the change in women’s sexual behavior. With the rise of women empowerment, it is becoming more challenging for men but Indians are still very much into personal touch. The arousing factors for them are caress (57%) > massage (21%) > Dressing up (12%) > setting the scene (6%) > Sex Toys and erotica (4%) tells us that. Those little things that matter in relationships. But this fails to explain why more Indians are cheating on their partner or looking for casual sex. Dr. Sudhakar Krishnamurti, director of Andromeda Andrology Center, Hyderabad finds this as – “… The most important thing why humans lean on sex toys and erotica after monogamy is the lack of novelty in the bedroom”.

Surely enough the role-playing and expectations like group sex or public sex is becoming popular because of this experimentation by people. More often than not popularizing porn artists and demanding more for women is creating a huge burden on men. When softer touches or personal intimacy still taking prevalence in sexual matters, men are burdened with more responsibilities and challenging lifestyle and women are given more ways to fantasize – making the equation increasingly biased against men.

India’s increasing separation and divorce rates give us more insight into this. India’s topmost states in terms of the divorce are Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and WB. In these states separated/divorced women outnumber men by ~3 to 4 times. This is an indication that the states affected by feminism and IT boom have more problem of divorces. It is time that before getting married a man understands these changing scenarios in a relationship.

India Today Survey reveals marital rape on men

One most important aspect that comes out of this sex survey is marital rape of men. At least equal percentage of men are raped by their wives in a relationship and when women have protection against marital rape under DV Act, men do not have any protection in law. This is set to increase with women going wilder in bed and loving anal sex or oral sex.

India Today sex survey is thus important for everyone to understand the changing nature of those warming nights. Without understanding the change we can’t have successful relations.

***