Even just five or ten years ago, this would not have been possible. And that’s how fast culture shifts. Ten years ago, rooms like this, filled with people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds wanting to speak openly about Indian sexualities were almost unimaginable.
Back then, most conversations about sex were whispered, hidden behind moral walls, or buried under shame and confusion. “Sexuality” was something we studied in Western theory or whispered about in therapy. Not something Indian bodies and minds could own, name, or express with pride.
Urvashi Malhotra (couples therapist), Neha Bhat (sex therapist & author), Shobha Managoli (couples psychologist), Dr. Sandip Deshpande (Sexologist)
We didn’t yet have the language to say consent without blushing. We didn’t have the courage to say pleasure without guilt. We didn’t yet know that desire could be sacred, political, spiritual, and deeply personal, all at once.
In those days, a public dialogue on Indian sexualities would be dismissed as “vulgar,” “too bold,” or “Westernized.” People would walk out. Institutions would panic. Families would tighten their control. Even progressive circles were unsure of how to hold this topic without flinching.
And yet, here we are now a full house. People sitting cross-legged on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, leaning in with curiosity.
Listening. Questioning. Sharing.
There’s laughter. There’s discomfort. There are tears. There are stories. And above all, there is safety. Safety to speak about the erotic, the shame, the confusion, the longing, the repression, and the liberation that lives in all of us.
Something has shifted in the collective nervous system of this country. People are ready — not to shock or provoke — but to understand. To explore what our bodies remember, what our ancestors repressed, what our culture encoded, and what we can now reclaim.
This is return.
Return to a land that once saw sexuality as sacred art, as yoga, as rasa as life force. Return to the idea that to know oneself, one must also know one’s desires, shadows, and vulnerabilities.
To see this room, filled with such openness, tenderness, and hunger for truth is to witness India in a new moment of awakening. A quiet revolution of intimacy, honesty, and courage. Thank you!
