No sex ahead: TV actor's open letter on cerebral palsy, 'Margarita, With A Straw' is ignorant and juvenile

What are the chances that a film about a horny young girl releases in India and no one in the country chokes on the morning tea with deep anger and ever deeper revulsion? Slim. And if the said girl suffers from a disability - like Laila, the protagonist in Margarita, With A Straw does - the anger is mixed with disbelief and turns into immense shock. Because, for a majority of Indians, the part of the brain that defines ‘sensitivity’ asks us to treat people with disabilities with a lot of respect aka kid gloves. And sex or sexual desires are just too chhi-chhi. That explains the multiple exclamation marks that conclude sentences in TV actress Sonal Vengurlekar’s open letter to Shonali Bose , the director of Margarita, With A Straw. Not sure whether Bose will get her message, she even resorts to writing entire sentences in the upper case. Saying that she is the ‘accomplice’ of a person with cerebral palsy, Vengurlekar screams in her article, “BUT SEX IS THE LAST THING ON THEIR MIND, I guarantee!! [caption id=“attachment_2226616” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A still from the film.[/caption] The actor says that she went to watch the film with a person suffering from cerebral palsy and was ‘shocked’ and her ‘mind went blank’. She adds that her companion too was furious since Bose chose to talk about the sexual desires of her protagonist, not exclusively her other struggles minus sex. It is perfectly possible that her companion, who suffers from cerebral palsy, found her other struggles more important than that of sexual desire, but it is not necessary that everyone with the disability feels the same way as her. How can Vengurlekar claim to talk on behalf of all people with disabilities, relying on the reaction of one person? Her presumption is quite apparent in her ‘open letter’ when she says, “While in the cinema hall,there were people who were in wheelchair who came to see the film. I’m pretty sure they were left disappointed too.” And why is she so sure about that? Vengurlekar knows, you, see that “(f)or a disabled person, sex is the last thing on their mind as there are so many different things to worry about; their relationship with their close ones, their talent nurturing, their acceptance in society as normal people, and many more.” As it turns out the idea for the film is sparked by a comment made by a person with cerebral palsy, something Vengurlekar either does not know, or blithely ignores. Shonali Bose has extensively spoken to the media about the inspiration behind her film, her cousin Malini Chib, who also suffers from cerebral palsy. Firstpost’s senior editor Sandip Roy spoke to Bose about the film and wrote:  

“When Shonali Bose’s cousin Malini Chib was about to turn 40, Bose asked her what she wanted for the big 4-0. The answer took her by surprise. “She said I just want to have sex,” remembers Bose. Bose’s surprise was not because good Indian girls aren’t supposed to say such things. Chib has acute cerebral palsy. And as a society we almost never think about disability and desire. Or even want to think about it.”

Leaving the anecdotal aside, Vengurlerkar’s argument couldn’t be further from the truth. The report of a research published in NCBI in the US, states: “The period between 12 and 25 years of age is essential for human sexual development: physical changes, masturbation, dating, beginning intimate relationships and sexual experiences. This applies to people with and without physical disabilities or chronic illnesses.” The internationally-vetted research paper investigates the various difficulties faced by people suffering from cerebral palsy, which includes the fear of being slotted undesirable by people without disabilities and the anxiety of having to depend on a partner heavily for everyday activities. The study offers us statistics that expose the hollowness of Vengurlekar’s rant. Stating the findings of the interaction the team had with people suffering from cerebral palsy, the authors say : “Seventy-six percent of the participants had experience with masturbation. Most young adults with CP had reached one or more sexual milestones; 78% had experience with French kissing, 70% with caressing under clothing, 65% with cuddling nude and 54% with sexual intercourse. Twenty percent had no sexual experience with a partner.” That should take care of the writer’s generalised statement that sex is the last thing on the minds of people with disabilities. You can read the fantastic paper here. Interestingly, this is among the several research papers and academic articles discussing sexuality and cerebral palsy, making it very clear that this is not something as unthinkable as Vengurlekar finds it. For example, there is an interesting docu-feature on a 60-year-old man who engages in sexual activities regularly despite his condition, aided by a sex worker who feels disabilities aren’t necessarily a deterrent for sexual desire. Now that we have the factual problem with Vengurlekar’s argument out of our way, we can focus on the misguided expectations the writer has from films. Swearing that she is a die-hard fan of Bollywood, she complains that the film should be more like Taare Zameen Par and ’educate’ people. It’s hardly surprising that she finds that film the benchmark for films on disabilities. Like our editor Sandip Roy noted, “In Taare Zameen Par the dyslexic child has to win that art competition because nothing else counts as triumph enough in our first-class-first society.” Not only that, the film doesn’t stop at showing the boy excelling at just art, it concludes with the reassurance that he does very well in academics. So it ticks off all the little boxes that the Indian society thinks defines success. The film pretends to question what our society considers the norm and then ends up endorsing them. Vengurlekar, in the same vein, seems to be saying that people with disabilities should be portrayed in films the way the ’normal’ society understands, as asexual creatures who have none of the desires the rest of us have, deserving at best of some sympathy and pity, and put aside in a special box. The article which seeks to speak up for the disabled reeks instead of the same stuffy morality that outlaws sex from the precinct of the normal in our country. Every complaint in the letter comes from the idea that sex is dispensable and unnecessary, even evil, something good girls (and boys) don’t do. In the concluding paragraph of the article, Vengarlurkar says, “Finally, I have one humble request for you. In case, if you make a movie in the future do some extensive research on the lead character and how their persona affects the other characters in the storyline.” If only she had followed her own advice and done even moderate research before venting this juvenile ‘open letter’ would not have seen the light of the day.