NEW DELHI — Softcore porn — India style, that’s long on female aggressiveness and short on skin — is on the rise again in India thanks to more acceptance of sexuality by local cinemas.
Before Internet porn put a dent in India’s sex movie business, theater’s were thriving with “morning shows” that regularly screened sex films like "Innocent Wife, Cheating Sister-in-Law" and "Principles of Sex."
Although the films were tame by regular porn standards, focusing more on the cleavage of voluptuous stars than sex acts, aggressive female sexuality titillated audiences and was considered porn.
Now, according to GlobalPost, India’s rethinking its attitude about sex and porn, and slowly assimilating softcore porn back into the mainstream.
“This December, TV soap opera magnate Ekta Kapoor will release ‘The Dirty Picture,’ a mainstream Bollywood biopic about Silk Smitha — a skin-show specialist from the '80s who crossed over to perform sensuous so-called 'cabaret' numbers in mainstream films," the report said.
And a New Delhi ad agency executive, V. Suni, is presenting his personal collection of softcore porn posters as “art” at a "Morning Show" exhibition this week.
“School kids, college students and even grown up men used to go to these movie halls just to see a glimpse of a woman bathing or a random love-making scene,” Suni said.
Some Indian movies from the ‘70s and ‘80s considered too tame had theater owners splice in some nudity and even hardcore scenes. But since the Internet has amped up the appetite for porn it remains to be seen just how "soft" India’s new wave of softcore porn will be.