Expecting a virgin? I have a bridge to sell

What happens if you are a fading star who tries to gain a bit of relevance by advising kids about premarital sex and precautions? The same people who built you temples a few years ago, now come after you with brooms(?) and slippers. Here is my take on this - would the reaction have been the same if it was a male actor talking about girls having pre-marital sex? Would there be any reaction from people at all if it was a male actor talking about men having pre-marital sex? From the idiots raining fatwas on tennis players to those who see themselves as moral arbiters of the dresses college girls wear (thanks for the link, Chinaman!), what is this fundamental obsession of the so-called culture purists with women and their bodies?

Why is it that almost every aspect of culture the purists want to “protect” deals with controlling the womenfolk? Why is it that in a country where a majority worship sensual female goddesses, any sign that women may possess an innate sexuality met with oppression?

As for Khushboo’s ill-fated remarks, what she is really doing here is putting in words the reality of the days we live in. 10 years ago when I was in India, I knew of kids indulging in casual pre-marital sex. Once I left home to do my Masters’, I lived with my husband-to-be for two years before we got married. While neither supporting nor denigrating the arrangement, my point is that premarital sex is as common now as it was at any time and the one way you can prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions is by educating the kids about preventive procedures. Abstinence till marriage is a great thing in theory but tough to practice in an age when most men and women wait until their late twenties or thirties to marry - preferring to get settled in their careers, etc. before getting hitched. It is highly impractical and unreasonable to expect these men and women to not have sex while on the other hand they are being bombarded by graphically sexual images from every kind of media.