19-9-2014 7.00PM IST

Medhaj News: First I must thank Medhaj, its CMD Shri Samir Tripathiji, for starting a venture like Medhaj News, which gives common people a platform to say what is in their minds. Hope you guys will not mind my mistakes. I am doing MA Sociology from Delhi University. For years, poverty in India has been blamed for its booming population. The fact is that we are a poor country and sex is the cheapest form of entertainment. As we believe in the institution of marriage, the availability of a sexual partner only makes babies faster.

However, the recent trend of avoiding poverty through sex is emerging as new social phenomena. A known child artist confesses to a certain lifestyle that she couldn’t keep, so opted for paid sex. Actresses in Bollywood or models on the ramp choose to make easy money for their partying ways. Let’s accept that its good money and its cash. The glamour world survives on sexual satisfaction and predation: all fulfilled by the hordes of aspiring talent eager to please.

Where does that leave the poor?

Their basic need of food, clothes and shelter are still difficult to come by. We are a country where the male child is preferred, girls are aborted, rape is everyday news and yet we complain of ‘not enough brides’. Poverty justifies a drunken husband hitting his wife and it usually justifies use of sex workers.

Poverty makes people do a lot of ugly things: sell their daughters, loot a catastrophe hit region, sell your soul. While incidents in Africa have been highlighted by UN and other human rights associations, the problem in India remains a cultural dilemma. The emancipated young woman of today in a poor family knows better than work in a shop for minimum pay. Cities like Mumbai attract jobless across the country but offer no infrastructure to sustain the exodus: the result is a road side, hotel side trade of flesh.

The question therefore is if we are prepared to accept an Indian generation where sex becomes an industry as strong as the real estate one? As lucrative? If 40% of the Indian population is poor and are moving towards a commoditization of the act, then what trends are we going to witness? Small town girls and boys eager to make a quick buck or parents imposing the true Indian value for no money in exchange for virginity?