January 13, 2026 • 48 mins
When did "modesty" become a tool for control in South Asia? We often assume that current conservative norms are "ancient tradition," and that nudity or revealing clothing is Western influence. In reality, the actual Western influence is the idea that nudity is a lack of modesty or a moral failing. That is a Victorian belief, not a South Asian one.
In this episode, we trace the timeline of skin exposure from ancient civilizations to the modern day. From the gender-fluid roles of precolonial Kerala to the Mughal and royal courts of Punjab, we explore how the arrival of Victorian morality and the "Colonial Gaze" transformed the female silhouette into a battlefield. We also discuss how these patriarchal shifts continue to negatively impact not just women, but the lives of men and boys today.
In this episode:
In this episode, we trace the timeline of skin exposure from ancient civilizations to the modern day. From the gender-fluid roles of precolonial Kerala to the Mughal and royal courts of Punjab, we explore how the arrival of Victorian morality and the "Colonial Gaze" transformed the female silhouette into a battlefield. We also discuss how these patriarchal shifts continue to negatively impact not just women, but the lives of men and boys today.
In this episode:
- 00:00 Taboos and Stigmas behind Nudity
- 07:19 Ancient civilizations and true modesty
- 14:49 Gender roles in precolonial Kerala
- 20:29 The Mughal era and pre colonial Punjab
- 28:19 When did things start changing?
- 34:07 Patriarchal need for control
- 37:54 The consequences men and boys face
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Who who.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Being topless in South Asia was pretty socially acceptable, even
into the Mogul era when Islam was at its peak
in the subcontinent. What I'm going to do in this
episode is dive into that history. Uncovered breast were a
sign of respect the most influential and powerful woman of
the Mughal Empire. I mean, she's almost pretty much nude.
They're just memory glens. Did you know men could get
(00:36):
breast cancer gets you breast track. The more lover she has,
the greater is her honor. Such a contrast to today,
her breast concealed and they were cut off. Crazy.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Check out ruckus Avenue Radio dot com for our full
schedule and listen to past episodes of Lab major podcast platforms.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
All right, we are officially recording the first episode. Are
we ready to do this? I'm gonna need some water
before I start. Hello, and welcome to Jigney. I'm your host, Problen.
Most if any of you know me as Prebcam because
that's what I go by on socials. It's funny. Actually,
(01:25):
somebody somebody told me that they thought my name was
BROB Gummel because of my handle. So no, actually my
name is problene. If you didn't know, then now you know.
I really need to make that like my slogan or
my punchline or something. It just fits my content so well.
So I originally had planned research, scripted an entirely different
(01:46):
episode for the launch. However, some factors that I will
get into in a second made me reconsider. But before then,
I wanted to announce that Jugney is now a part
of Ruckus Avenue Radio on iHeartRadio, which I'm super excited about.
So you can now find all these episodes on the
iHeartRadio app or on the Ruckus Avenue Radio website. And
(02:08):
for the relaunch of Jugne, I wanted to do a revamp.
I have a new style where I'm alternating between solo
episodes and interview episodes, and I have some dope interviews
already recorded and some lined up, which I'm so excited
for you guys to hear about. I have so many
interesting topics for the solos, like I really feel like
it's where I can dive into my curiosity, like the
(02:29):
one I was originally going to do was about Sufism
and Jugne and Sufi poetry, which will still be released
just you know, a little bit later. I also had
my really good friend Kushika shout out Sika. She is
a super talented designer and she redesigned the logo for me.
Bless her heart. I have someone working on the intro music.
It's been so fun and such a blessing. It genuinely
(02:52):
takes a village, and I'm so lucky to have a
village to lean on. So thank you to everyone that's
been here in supporting me. Genuinely could not have done
it without you, guys. I also did a photoshoot for
the launch, which for me was a very full circle
moment and also the reason for pivoting to this topic.
If you haven't seen the launch announcement, it's on my
(03:13):
Instagram and TikTok. I say full circle moment because I
really started this entire creative journey through self portrait photography.
I would style these unconventional looks, usually incorporating They see
elements with Western influences, because that's just how my brain works.
I am a first gen immigrant kid, frump and job
that was raised in Brampton, Canada, and you know I
(03:36):
absorbed and consumed both parts of these identities from Bollywood.
They see content to like Western pop culture. Like when
Branca Chopra and Nick Jonas got together, it was a
big moment for my parasocial life. It was like, oh
my god, my two worlds are coming together. But self portraite,
photography and fashion was and still is how I express
my creativity. It's my outlet, my art. So it only
(03:59):
felt fitting launch this next chapter of my creative journey
with a shoe concept that I had been sitting on
for a long time, because if you haven't seen it already,
it is much more physically exposed relative to the other
content that I post, and I don't ever really explain
or provide context behind these shoots that I do. I
very much describe to the idea that art is subjective
(04:22):
and up to the viewer's interpretation. However, being a part
of the South Asian community, especially being a woman in
this community, I understand how sensitive of a topic this is,
and as much as I'd rather be talking about Sufism
right now, like it just calms my soul, I do
believe this is an important conversation and dialogue to have
(04:43):
in the community, and I cannot stress this enough. Respectful
conversation and dialogue. I do not tolerate anything less. Take
that somewhere else, please, But the stigmas and taboo nature
around nudity, especially women's nudity in the South Asian community,
it's really hindering our ability to enjoy and create art.
(05:04):
I mean not to mention the obvious toll it takes
on the daily life of South Asian women, especially the
ones navigating multiple cultures. And what we also don't talk
about is the kind of toll that it takes on
the men and the boys in our community. So I
actually I want to look at this from all sides,
all heteronormative sides, Queer and LGBTQ folk definitely deal with
(05:26):
objectification and sexualization in the South Asian community. Honestly, that
could just be a whole topic on its own. However,
the research I did for this episode is mainly from
a heteronormative perspective. The point is there's many negative outcomes
to these taboos, and in the past few months, I've
had so many conversations, unprompted by the way, with creators, academics,
(05:49):
artists about how this stigma is hindering their ability to
create freely, whether it's content around historical art, texts or
even just their creative expression. And that's a sad reality
for our community, especially considering where we come from. And
I think that that's where the problem lies, is that
a lot of us aren't aware of our history, which
(06:11):
to some degree is by design. So what I'm going
to do in this episode is dive into that history
so we can understand how we got here. I want
us to think critically about where all this passionate strong
enforcement of these beliefs comes from, Like, do you understand
why you believe so strongly in this? Do you understand
what other beliefs you're implicitly enforcing when you enforce these
(06:31):
standards around women's bodies. The photoshoot I did was very
much a visual juxtaposition of the modern and traditional South
Asian woman, like you know, she's wearing dress pants and
like black heels, the professional corporate nine to five Western women,
and then on top is the traditional Indian woman with
layers and layers of traditional bulky jewelry, the basubun, the
(06:53):
dark lined eyes, and yes, the bear chest. I took
a break. I got hungry. Honestly, this podcasting thing, it's workman.
I just had a caesidia and a brito. I didn't
finish the hil bredo. I'm not that good for a girl.
All right. Anyways, let's get it, let's get back into this.
You'll hear the argument that, you know, all this nudity
and all this skimpy dressing is just like Western influence
(07:16):
and that like we're all straying away from the traditions
of our ancestors and like forgetting our roots. But actually,
the original influence from the Western world was this idea
that nudity or a lack of modesty was some kind
of moral failing in a woman, a very Victorian belief
that South Asians were shamed into accepting and enforcing due
(07:36):
to can you guess colonization? Yes, everything is colonization's fault.
We're all tired of hearing it, but it is the
unfortunate reality we live in. So let's take it all
the way to the beginning. This is from a twenty
twenty four study published and the aesthetic surgery journal Open
Form called the social area of the breast. Over three
(07:57):
hundred million years ago, mammalia different and treated themselves from
the reptiles and birds by the presence of memory glands
to enable feeding the offspring. So memory glands and breasts
are so innate to us that our entire species is
named after them Eutherian. Eutherian mammals started to display sexual dimorphism,
(08:18):
with only the women having functional breasts. So what that
means is all humans, regardless of biological sex, have memory glands.
That's why men also have nipples and breast tissue. Did
you know men could get breast cancer? Get your breast checked.
A woman displaying healthy breasts capable of feeding the progeny
was viewed as a desired sexual partner by the males.
(08:40):
This evolutionary mechanism of signaling women's sexual competence by memory
display has continued to attract male attention. The scientific and
biological role of breasts were just to feed offspring, and
because that was a desired trait, you know, to be
able to feed offspring so that they can grow and
have more offspring, it quickly evolved into a way of
(09:01):
signaling fertility and health for mating purposes. And that's very
much the case for ancient populations in both the Western
World and South Asia. The paper goes on to say,
in many ancient cultures, female's clothing was often quite revealing,
with little to no coverage of the breasts. This was
especially true where women were considered to be sacred or divine,
(09:22):
which is such a contrast to today, where modesty in
covering up or not showing much skin is what makes
a woman sacred or closer to God. And ancient civilizations
like the Indus Valley civilization, men and women didn't really
cover up much, and that was mainly just what was
appropriate for the climate, but it was also not considered shameful.
(09:43):
Like look at the infamous dancing girl from Mohenjo Daro.
She's wearing bangles all the way up her arms, a necklace,
and the rest of hers naked, including her breasts, and
her being naked isn't an invitation for sex. It's just
her existing as herself a woman, which means a human
being that through sexual dimorphism, just has more developed breasts.
(10:06):
In ancient times, breasts were seen as auspicious, a sign
of fertility divinity, not something to be ashamed of. If anything,
it was seen as empowering. It also wasn't considered immodest.
There's this quote about modesty that I think is really important.
It's like a citation set of a citation. In the
book The Costumes and Textile of India, Damilla Bridge Bouchon
(10:29):
talks about studies in the psychology of sex and how
Havelock Ellis remarks many races which go absolutely naked possess
a highly developed sense of modesty. Modesty is in its
origins independent of clothing. Physiological modesty takes precedence of anatomical modesty,
and the primary factors of modesty were probably developed long
(10:50):
before the discovery of either ornaments or garments. What it's
saying is that that core innate human need for privacy
and self respect when it comes to their own body
and you know their person, it's more fundamental and universal
than the culturally variable standards about which body part should
(11:10):
be covered. Like the feeling of modesty is more of
an internal disposition than it is a rule or like
a dress code was like, it's subjective. A really good
example of this is Marilyn Monroe, who was an iconic
sex symbol. Her real name was Norma Jean and Marilyn
was a persona that she put on. There's multiple biographies
(11:32):
done by people close to her that describe her being
able to turn Marilyn on specifically, Amy Green talks about
this one incident where they were out in public in
New York somewhere like Grand Central Station, amongst a crowd,
and she wasn't being recognized because you know, she was
just being herself, Norma Jane. And then without changing her appearance,
(11:52):
without changing her clothes or her makeup, she was able
to become Marylyn. All she did was change the way
that she walked, the way that she carried herself and
presented herself, and suddenly a crowd started forming around her
and people started recognizing her. So modesty is more about
a person's inner mindset and motives. And this is what
always gets me, because when you make it just about
(12:14):
clothing and outward appearance, it's so easy to fake and manipulate,
and that way anyone can embody what a society believes
is modest. But true modesty is internal. It's revealed through
character and how you go about things, and the perception
and definition of modesty is subjective. The way that it's
perceived and defined is different for each person. Greek philosophers
(12:37):
theorized that women should be topless to promote sexual equality.
Some advocated that breasts are not private or sexual parts
at all. Over time, as cultures became more patriarchal, female
clothing began to cover more of the body. They shouldn't
come as a surprise. I think it's widely understood that
ancient civilizations didn't really cover up much. There wasn't stitched clothing,
(12:59):
and nudity wasn't taboo if you look at socially acceptable
breast exposure in time. Comparatively in the Western world in
South Asia, it was deemed unacceptable for women to be
topless much earlier in the Western world than it was
in South Asia. In the Western world it was just
in the ancient time. By the Medieval era, with Christian influence,
(13:21):
it very much shifted towards modesty and the concealment of
women's bodies, so think higher necklines, fitted bodices, and that
pretty much remained the case until about the mid twentieth century.
But in South Asia, obviously, with the understanding that it
differed regionally and based on cast overall, being topless was
(13:41):
pretty socially acceptable from ancient times to the medieval era
and even into the Mogul era when Islam was at
its peak in the subcontinent. Now I'm not saying that
they never covered up, although it was in the mogul
Era that stitched clothing and tailoring was most popular, but
even prior to that, they did have breast bands. They
(14:01):
were known as berta. I don't think I'm saying this right,
berta diti or stana patta, but they were there to
support the breast, not to conceal them. Rashian nol Kazi
in the book Ancient Indian Costume, talks about how stitched
bodices were foreign imports and often worn by dancers and
courtisans because they were the ones that needed breast support
(14:22):
or you know, pregnant women. They had upper garments called uttaria,
which started off being opaque but eventually ended up being
made from like sheer translucent fabrics like fine Muslim even
doolis were made from sheer fabrics, and the breast would
be visible through these fabrics, and sometimes you know, the
othario was just kind of like draped over and it
(14:44):
would cover only half the breasts. Because breasts were just
so integrated into everyday domestic life that people didn't even
blink an eye. If you look at ancient Indian Buddhist
artworks like the Sanchi and Ahmedavati sculptures. Women are tap
helpless in the costumes and textiles of India book I
was talking about earlier, They described the sculptures of women
(15:05):
as always wearing enormous bangles around the ankles and wrists
and generally strings of beads around the neck, but their
body clothing is limited to a bead belt around the
body below the waist, and that was it. In fact,
in the southwest coast of India which is now present
day Guidla, uncovered breasts were a sign of respect. In
the biography of Shadambiswami, who was a Hindu sage and
(15:26):
social reformer, it says the proper salutation from a female
to persons of rank was to uncover the bosom, which
is completely opposite today, especially in South Asian society, where
girls get told to cover up as a sign of respect.
I mean, we've all been told to change because some
random uncle was coming over. And I want to talk
about the way that the society and gerla kind of
(15:46):
function because when it comes to gender especially, it's so
different than it is today.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio Avenue available now on
the free iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
App There's this book by this Portuguese officer named Dwarte Barbosa.
It recounts his time in the sixteenth century in Gerla
(16:33):
because he spends a lot of time there, and he
kind of recounts, you know, the way of life and
the frameworks that they lived in. And I want to
read a part of this. The near women of good
birth are very independent and disposed of themselves as they please.
When they reach the age of twelve years old, their
mothers hold a great ceremony. When a mother perceives that
her daughter has attained that age, she asks for kinsfolk
(16:55):
and friends to make ready to honor her daughter. Then
she asks of the kind and especially of one particular
kinsman or great friend to marry her daughter. This he
willingly promises. Then, like you know, they have the whole ceremony,
and he gives her this jewel that she kind of
wears around her neck for like the rest of her life.
And then she made dispose of herself as she will.
(17:16):
The man departs without sleeping with her, inasmuch as he
is her kinsman, so pretty much, if he's related to
her by blood, he doesn't sleep with her. But if
he's not. He may sleep with her, but he is
not obliged to do so. Thenceforth the mother goes about
searching and asking some young man to take her daughter's virginity.
They must be nairs, and they regard it among themselves
(17:37):
as a disgrace and a foul thing to take a
woman's virginity, which is crazy, because you know, you hear
nowadays about like immature boys, and they kind of boast
about taking a woman's virginity. And when anyone has once
slept with her, she's fit for association with men. Then
the mother again goes about inquiring among other young nares
if they wish to support her daughter and take her
(17:59):
as a mistress, so that three or four narares agree
with her to keep her and sleep with her, each
paying her so much a day. By the way, Naares
is the name of the cast. It's a high ranking
cast in Gedla. The more lover she has, the greater
is her honor. Such a contrast to today, Each one
of them passes a day with her from mid day
(18:19):
on one day till midday on the next day, and
so they continue living quietly without any disturbance nor quarrels.
Among them. If any of them wishes to leave her,
he leaves her and takes another, and she also, if
she is weary of a man, she tells them to go,
and he does so or makes terms with her. Any
children they may have stay with the mother who has
(18:40):
to bring them up, for they hold them not to
be the children of any man, even if they bear
his likeness, and they do not consider them their children,
nor are they heirs to their estates. So pretty much
the heirs to a man's estate is not his kids.
He doesn't like. His kids aren't technically his. They belong
to the women, and the heirs of his estates tend
(19:00):
to be his nephew, so his sister's kids. This whole,
like the kids belong to their mother, not the father.
It was established with a greater and deeper meaning than
the common folk think. For they say the kings of
the Nares instituted it in order that the Naares should
not be held back from their service by the burden
and labor of rearing children. The men of Naares are
(19:22):
groomed for war, so they have to be ready, and
children are looked at as like a burden. But what
I find so interesting and they talk about in the
book is that the men didn't get jealous, Like if
a man was with the woman, then he would put
like his weapons or his sword outside the door. If
one of her other husbands would come around, if he
(19:44):
sees a sword, he wouldn't go inside, like they would
just respect them. This is an indicator that men in
that society didn't define their masculinity through their ability to
possess control or have ownership over a woman. And what's
interesting is that in the book they talk about another
there cast that lived kind of similarly to the way
that we do in like a patriarchal framework where you know,
(20:06):
there's a father and a mother son inherits from the
father and like it's more monogamy, but they kind of coexist,
like they coexist with the Nairs and it's not really
a problem. What a concept, but you know, it wasn't
always sunshine and rainbows. Going back to the biography of
Jathumbi Swami where he talks about how you know, the
(20:26):
proper salutation from a female to a person of rank
was to uncover their bosom. It says the Nare women
used shoulder cloth to cover their breast, but this was
to be removed before temple idols and cast superiors. On
one occasion, a Nair woman appeared before this. I don't
know how to say the Damarin of Girlgut's lady with
her breasts concealed and they were cut off as the
(20:47):
wearing of a bodice before one belonging to such a
higher group was considered immodest, crazy, insane. I want to
make it clearer. I'm not saying that we should do this.
Of course, there were like a million other problems back then,
cast being such a major one. I'm just trying to
one provide contexts on what the norms and sentiments around
(21:11):
women being tap us looked like, and two to show
how easily these things can change in either direction. I
personally don't think women should be forced to expose their
breast if they don't want to, or shamed into concealing them.
They're just memory glands. This goes back to modesty is
more of an internal disposition. But like I mentioned earlier,
concealment of women's bodies didn't really become the norm until
(21:35):
about the Moughal era. I took another break and I
finished that burrito. It was delicious, Okay, back to it.
It was in the mogal Era that the concept of
buda was introduced, thereby introducing the privatization of elite women's bodies.
So buda literally translates to curtain, and it was the
practice where women stayed in separate rooms often called zananas
(21:58):
or behind a curtain, and they were veiled completely in public.
And this was prevalent amongst elite Muslim and Hindu women.
So it was more of a signifier of class and
is it which is honor? It was like, look, my
women don't need to go out and labor in the sun,
because barda wasn't really feasible for lower ranking women. They
(22:19):
had to go and work in the fields to earn
their living. But though was meant to protect women from
the intrusive male gaze and like the objectification, but still
it wasn't in like a shameful Victorian way. It was
more that women's bodies became the private treasures of elite men,
which honestly, I'm not saying that's better, but if you
(22:40):
look at mogul Era art, breasts were very normal, even
though it wasn't necessarily the case in like day to
day society. For elite women, women like high ranking women,
are depicted wearing translucent, fine Muslim drapes across their breasts,
sometimes their whole body, and you can clearly see through
(23:01):
these drapes and you can see their breasts, and it
was more of like a show of higher class because
they could afford fine, luxurious Muslim Let's take a look
at month Os Mahal, who was Shajahan's wife who the
taj Mahal was made after her. In this painting, she
has a shawl covering her head, her back, her shoulders,
and the front part of her body is completely exposed,
(23:24):
including her breasts. All she's wearing is like pearl necklaces
and pendants. There's nour Jahan, who was the twentieth and
most beloved wife of the Mogul emperor Jungid. She's known
as the most influential and powerful woman of the Mughal Empire,
and she didn't practice strict buda. She was almost like
the de facto ruler of the empire while Jungid was
(23:48):
like dealing with like a lot of drug addiction and
alcohol abuse, so she was making a lot of these decisions.
She held court. You know how like emperors would you know,
go on a balcony and kind of like way for
greet their subjects, like she would go with him. She
had coinage struck in her name. When Jengi was captured,
she personally led an army on top of a war
(24:10):
elephant to get him released. And if you see her,
she is depicted with her breasts. Even though that's just
a depiction, I think it's telling of how they looked
at breasts because they wanted high ranking women to be
depicted in that way as a celebration of them. There's
another example of Janata Bigham, who is sha Jahan's daughter.
(24:30):
I mean, she's almost pretty much nude. There's this paper
called Imaging Women in Moughal, India Historical Narratives, Paintings and
Medical Texts by Buna Shimar and she puts this beautifully.
She talks about this painting called a Princess. It was
dated sixteen oh five to sixteen ten. I looked for
this painting, I just like I couldn't find it. But
here's a description of it. It's pretty much like a
(24:53):
princess in a transparent veil and a yellow skirt and
she's reclining on a bed and she has like maid
servants massaging her feet as she's like listening to a
vina player who's kneeling beside her. She talks about how
the composition is resplendent with the physicality of feminine form,
the transparent garments revealing the princess's bust and waste, the
(25:16):
calm postural stance of the princess suggesting her pride in
her perfect form, her vanity perceived as such by the
painter and his patron, suggest how women were perceived and
imaged being adorned and massaged as an icon being made
ready for worship, placing the beholder of the painting in
place of the worshiper they're talking about. And you can
see this with the other paintings as well, Like these
(25:39):
women in the nude aren't being depicted in any kind
of sexual way in the paintings, even though their breasts
are visible or they're in the nude. It's depictions of
them in a positive light. It goes on to say,
the composition in question here is in all aspects, a
celebration of the feminine sexual form and feminine sexual desire.
(26:00):
Middle of the composition merely states a princess, the gaze
reveals not even a subtle hint of sinner saying to respectable,
fallen or virgin horror dichotomy that usually attempts to like
lay down the ideal code of conduct for women. If
one goes by the title of the painting, she is
not a mere lover or a concubine or a dancing girl,
but a princess.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
A princess shut up.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
The conduct of princesses had to be above reproach, as
to them was tied the image of the royal house,
which was being royal under greater popular and historical scrutiny
of the contemporary sense of right and wrong, good or bad.
And I think this analysis is true of the other
paintings that I've shown of you know, Manthas Mahal or
noor Jahan. They are being depicted as royal high ranking
(26:48):
women with their nudity and with their breast exposed like
that wasn't despite it, it was because of it or
along with it, you know what I mean. You know,
there's this misconcepent that because Mogul women were practicing by
the they weren't as present in you know, Mogul court
and Mogal life but really, Mogal women were very appreciated
(27:12):
and very present in all aspects of Mogal life. I mean,
their harems themselves were places where you know, they they
learned art, poetry, music, They got like a real full
education there. And nor Jahan wasn't the only woman that
played a big role. A lot of women actually played
a huge role. They generally had influence over the emperors
(27:36):
and the decisions that they made. And if we go
to Mahdajar Ranjitsingh's time, there's that procession painting where he's
going through the bizarre and if you look at it,
women can be seen with like exposed breasts just walking
along normally actually when you look at most of them,
they more of them have their shoulders covered than their breasts.
(27:57):
And then there's that Agulli painting of and a Gulli
husband wife with their child, and you can see that
like she is like half draped. So this wasn't just
the case in like South India or amongst the moguls,
like this was just the norm. There's this book I've
been reading called The Lost Heed by Harlen Singh Women
in colonial Pinjab. I highly recommend it. It is incredibly
(28:19):
detailed and informative, and in it he talks about how
during religious festivals like Pasaki, hundreds of women and girls
took a dip in the Revy River or the Sacred
Tank said Amritzur and Gatta's temples, completely naked and in
full view. It's pretty common knowledge that the sitover at Hermandhersav,
the Sik holy place, was a communal space where men
and women bathed, and when women were in the sitover,
(28:43):
it was pretty normal for them to be bear trusted.
It wasn't always segregated like it is today. And actually
in the Dusm Grunt, which is a piece of sick literature,
there's illustrations of naked women. The author Guru Gobinzingji, who
was the tenth and last living Sikh guru. He was
retelling the story of Chrish and his gopies and the Goldpies,
who were women, were illustrated with their breast exposed bathing
(29:06):
in a river. And the content around the illustration isn't
vilifying their nudity, it's using it allegorically to convey a
deeper meaning. It just shows that like nudity and breast
exposure wasn't really a big deal, then, so when did
this start changing. The book goes on to say women
had been bathing this way for centuries in Punjab, and
(29:26):
the people, it seemed, didn't think much about this practice.
But as the rains have been job shifted from the
six to the British, the naked bathing Punjumpin flouted the
ideas of Victorian morality. This thought slowly permeated into the
educated Bunjumbi man, a product of the colonial education system.
There's a certain kind of freedom a person loses when
their body is constantly sexualized and objectified. Imagine having that
(29:51):
freedom your whole life with your body, like women did
in pre colonial pun job and then these white men
walk in and start shaming you and finding you in compliance,
and then the men of your community join them. Like
there's incidents in the book where they talk about how
they had people spying on these river banks to note
down the names of women and find them. The question
(30:12):
of women bathing naked in Gunjab also made its way
into the Congress meetings when the Indian National Congress under
Da Da Bay Notoji was convened at Lahore in eighteen
ninety three. You have to understand how deeply the colonizers
embedded these beliefs into our societies for them to permeate
so strongly into our generations. It went into congress. This
allowed all men to freely start policing and judging women.
(30:35):
It's systematic and it is not indigenous to us. It
is outside influence, very recent, outside influence. When you look
at our history.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
You're listening to ruck Us Avenue Radio Cheap pas O.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
There's this incident that starts to show the change happening
in Gedla, where Dutch officers would meet with like the queen,
and in this case it was Queen of Uttingle, and
she was from the kingdom of Dravancore, which was a huge,
long lasting kingdom in Gedla. And this Dutch officer was
meeting with the queen and her ladies in waiting, and
he would be like scandalized because they were bare breasted,
(31:33):
all of them. They were adorned with like immense amounts
of gold jewelry. They would have fine silks draped on
the bottom half, but like on the top, they were
bare breasted. And for them they were showing it as
like a sign of respect because covering the upper body
in front of like a social superior or social equivalent
or aditi. It was it was considered disrespectful. When she
(31:54):
metaphor an officer, she would remain topless as a sign
of her own high status and to show that like yo,
like I'm not hiding anything. This really confused these like
Dutch and Portuguese officers because they usually related royalty to
like robes. This concept of like covering up and modesty
was really like an alien concept to the people of Gandala,
(32:16):
especially high ranking women. Like they rejected bodices and joliys
and like upper garments because they just thought that that
was something that like lowercasts would do to mimic and
imitate foreigners, and that it was just like someb compromising
on their culture and their traditions. As you know, the
eighteenth century came along, the British started putting pressure on
(32:38):
the travancor royals to cover up and like wear blouses
or bodices, which you know, they eventually started incorporating, so
it started becoming associated with like higher rank and like
the elite class. The British also had like these Christian
missionaries because Christianity was very much spreading then, and so
they had these Christian missionaries kind of teaching lower classes
(33:01):
about the Christian faith and about covering up. So then
lower class women also started covering up. But the elite
class was like, wait, no, that's a higher rank, elite
thing to do. You can't do that. As a result,
there was a lot of rioting and violence. One major
spurt of writing lasted for about twenty one days. In
the book The Nadars of THUMBLNAD by Robert L. Hardgrave,
(33:25):
he talks about how during these riots, men were seized
on the sabbath for public works. Schools were occasionally interrupted,
the books were thrown into the streets or torn to pieces,
and the women were beaten in the public bazaar for
wearing the upper cloth over their bosoms and the cloths
were stripped from their bodies. Appearing exposed in front of
higher classes was a sign of respect and a class differentiator.
(33:48):
These riots were a response to those traditions in the
class order being disrupted by the British and their Christian missionaries.
They were like, you're ruining our traditions, and the traditions
of our ancestors sound familiar. The exposure of the breast
became a central part of the issue. It became the
focus of all the frustrations in anger and do you
(34:10):
see how easily societies can take something like breast exposure
to either extremes. It wasn't until eighteen fifty nine the
Gender Revolt when the British Governor of Madra finally pressured
the King of Devencourt to allow all women to wear
a cloth, provided it just didn't look exactly like the
royal style, so there was still like differentiation essentially. Yeah,
(34:32):
the change started happening through colonization and the Victorian era
because if you look back at their trajectory for nudity
and breast exposure, like we talked about earlier, it was
done a long long time ago for them, like it
was only in the ancient times. By the medieval era,
Christianity was spreading and they were covering it up. So
to them, breast exposure and nudity is uncivilized, like it's barbarian,
(34:57):
it's savage, and they projected that onto the South Asian
communities that they colonize, and they also used it as
an excuse to colonize us, that we were uncivilized and
we needed them, and especially through the Christian faith. But
that was all very much propaganda, and they have been
spreading that propaganda as far back as you can see.
(35:18):
I actually went to this museum event that talks about
how they did this way back when cameras just started
becoming a thing, and they were pushing that narrative and
that propaganda through images and paintings. I mean, I'll definitely
be talking about it in another episode in more detail,
But in both, you know, the Western world and South Asia,
there's this pattern where that switch to concealing women's body
(35:42):
started taking over with Abrahamic religions. Both Islam and Christianity
are Abrahamic religions. I don't know if there's actually a
correlation in that, but it's a pattern. They're also both
very rooted in patriarchy, and there's this need for men
to be on top, and in order to do that
they had to control, possess and police women. There's this
(36:04):
unseid idea with the way that modesty is defined now
and like people's reasoning for the need for it, that
men are these primitive beings that can't control themselves and
can't control their like thiss innate lust that they have.
But when you think about it, isn't the most civilized
indicator of a man that he can let a woman
(36:25):
exist in all her femininity, in her natural state without
disrespecting her or losing control or sexualizing her, or trying
to control her. And like we've talked about that, it
was the case back in the day in the procession
or just in day to day life, women's breasts were
exposed and men were there and they were fine. I'm
(36:45):
not saying that there weren't men that weren't tempted, and
there weren't men that had trouble controlling themselves. But wouldn't
you say that what is more civilized is the ability
to do that rather than policing and controlling women. Recently
watched this. I think it was a real that was
talking about how women were given meaning innately when they're born.
(37:08):
They have a natural purpose which is to give birth
to create life. So women were enough by just existing,
by just being, but men have to become, They have
to prove themselves through achieving because they didn't have that
natural meaning to their life. And I personally think that
this is like the root of insecurity that all men
(37:29):
have been born with. And to be honest, I also
think it's like the root of the systematic problem in
the male gender that we're starting to see, like this
whole male loneliness epidemic, this whole is it embarrassing to
have a boyfriend? Because men define masculinity relative to a woman.
They created all these roles and this purpose as being
the providers. And now that women don't need them as
(37:52):
providers and their needs are changing to more emotional, holistic needs,
men are struggling. They haven't changed in a because their
masculinity depends on women. There's this paper by Kamala Viswiswaren
that was quoted in another paper I just I couldn't
find her original paper. She says that a woman's modesty
signifies the masculinity of her community. Isn't that insane? This
(38:16):
whole idea of like, oh, you know, if my sister's
like this, or my cousins like this, or my wife
is like this, it means this about my masculinity. The
degree to which the women in a family obey, submit,
and can be controlled defines the masculinity of the men
in that family. And now that women can exercise their
free will and have independent thought, that system that men
(38:39):
created to give themselves. Purpose is failing, it's collapsing. Like
I think men are in an identity crisis. You can
see it, like men are suffering because of this. I
think that what men need to do is be able
to define masculinity and their own masculinity independent of women.
I mean, look at South Asia and look at India.
They are very strict in the way that the divine
(39:00):
modesty and kind of reverse now because the West is
loosening up. And look at the rate of rape cases
in the country. They're like number one. Okay, so they're
not number one for rape cases. It's hard to determine
that due to the lack of reporting. But India was
ranked the world's most dangerous country for women. I mean,
do we even need to bring up India's daughter? This
(39:22):
whole modesty to protect women. It's not protecting women. It's
also not protecting these men. I mean, look at the
men and boys nowadays. They have porn addictions and sex addictions,
and those run rampant, especially with men. As I'm editing this,
all the groq Ai stuff is coming out where majority
men are taking images of normal women and asking Ai
(39:45):
to undress them or put them in a bikini and
if you read the prompts that they're using, it's disgusting.
There's this tweet by jegga Evy that sums it up
really well. There's an abundance of free porn on the internet,
removing men's clothing with ai is something much more sinister.
It isn't about horniness, it's about control. These men find
(40:07):
joy in violating women and taking their agency away. We've
created a society where men think that they have a
right to women's bodies, and it's created this really shitty
rape culture where men use excuses like, oh, she's promiscuous
because she's wearing revealing clothing, or she's asking for it,
as an excuse to violate women. I know women who
(40:28):
are virgins my age, never had sex in their life,
and they wear pretty revealing clothes. It's not a one
to one relationship. It's just an excuse for men to
behave inappropriately. As you can see with the growq Ai stuff,
it doesn't matter what she's wearing. Men think that they
have a right to a woman's body. It's taking the
responsibility off of men to respect an entire gender and
(40:51):
manage their compulsions. I don't want to just shame men.
This is a systematic issue. A lot of these men
have been conditioned, but that condition can be undone. What
frustrates me the most is when people's arguments are, oh, well,
this is just the society we live in. A society
isn't some kind of immutable object that can't be changed.
(41:12):
It's a collection of humans, and humans are known for evolving.
If you can't tell by the very quick way we
went from exposing breasts to it being unspeakably shameful. If
we did that, we can definitely change. It's just not
going to happen if you don't engage in critical thinking
or healthy discussions in the community and start reflecting and
(41:33):
changing your behaviors. This goes for both men and women.
Don't get me started on the pick me problem. In
South Asian communities, women are major enforcers of patriarchy. Honestly,
this goes for myself too. I catch these subtle biases
or assumptions within myself all the time. We've all been conditioned,
and we're all capable of reconditioning a better reality. I
(41:57):
want us to hold men accountable and provide them the
kind of so support and help they need. To get better.
So if you or someone you know is struggling with
compulsive sexual behavior or pornography use, there are so many
resources that you can go to. There's Sex Addicts Anonymous SAA,
hyphen Recovery dot org. There is Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous,
s l AA FWS dot org. In North America, there's
(42:20):
the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals IAP dot
com where you can find a certified sex addiction therapist.
And there's a plethora of resources available online for you
to do this on your own. This whole psychology of
like if someone tells you not to think of an elephant,
you're going to think of an elephant. If you tell
them not to do this, or you conceal it and
(42:43):
hide it, you hyper sexualize it so that they seek
it out, and they almost seek it out in an obsessive,
addictive manner, And I think it creates the reverse effect
than what this modesty was intended for. I think there's
a major problem with just being able to critically think nowadays,
and I think critical thinking and looking at this critically,
(43:05):
it's like it doesn't make sense. The more that you
tell women that they can't dress a certain way and
that it means something about them. They're going to fight
against that because I like we talked about it earlier,
modesty is very much an innate disposition, Like a person
has to be able to feel those things. If you
tell somebody to feel something, that doesn't mean they're going
(43:25):
to feel it. A dress code isn't going to fit
every single person. I also think it's just sad because
then what the result of it is starting to become
is that you can't enjoy art the same way, you
can't create art the same way. And I think more
and more people want to be able to express themselves freely,
and then they're going to express in their art the
(43:46):
things that they're being restricted in outside of it. There
was this famous Indian painter Raja rev Varma, who was
actually related to the Threven Corps royals, and he painted
portraits of the queens in the late nineteenth century, and
he very much had to negotiate the amount of exposure
and breast that he could put in. So he had
(44:07):
to negotiate like the authenticity that he could kind of
create this art with. Because there were a lot of
people developing like Victorian taste they didn't see that, they
didn't think it was tasteful. That's the beginning and the
start of the kind of compromise that South Asian artists
had to start making. Even though the reality and the
authentic truth is that for our people, nunity and breast
(44:28):
exposure innately is not looked at as immodest or moral failing.
It's actually just a very natural way of life. Sensuality,
sexuality was all very human. It's a very human part.
It's like so innate to us. I think the more
important question here is why is it wrong for a
(44:49):
woman to explore her sexuality or have interest in sex
at all. Sex is one of the most normal and
human things beside basic bodily functions like peeing and shitting
her exploring that isn't wrong, Nor is it an open
invitation for men to be uncivilized and disrespectful. It's not
like when rest were part of daily life and they
(45:12):
were exposed that they weren't sexualized. I mean, yeah, they
were sexualized, but wasn't to the extent that you had
to police them and cover them up. If men are
capable of controlling themselves in their lust back then being
able to respect women I think that they can be
capable of doing it now. And what we're doing is
a society in a ways, we're kind of handholding men,
(45:32):
like we're coddling an entire gender because we're like, oh
my god, like they just they can't control themselves, like
boys will be boys. When you poddle a child too much,
they become dependent. They can to actually exercise all of
those things on their own and develop those skills on
their own, and so then they end up being underdeveloped
skill wise, they end up being spoiled. They act out,
(45:56):
and to be honest, everyone suffers. That's kind of all
I have for today. This was like a lot of
research and a lot of work, but I think it's
an important conversation to have. When I started this research,
it was just kind of more me trying to figure out, Okay,
what was the historical landscape looking like, because I had
always heard about it, but I, you know, hadn't dug
into it myself. But the more that I dig into it,
(46:19):
I started realizing how much of problems that I'm dealing
with and the problem that you know, we're dealing with
in terms of the gendered issues that we're having in
the modern world actually kind of like tie back into
this and relate to this so much. That was a
really interesting conclusion to make from this. But I had
a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun
doing this. I want to keep this and respectful dialogue.
(46:42):
I mean, I want to hear maybe about blind spots
that I haven't thought about, things that I haven't considered.
Let me know. Comment below with your thoughts, what you
guys think. I'm so excited. There's so many more episodes
that are coming through. Like I said, I have that
one in Sufism which will be coming up soon. And honestly, guys,
I'm open to congestions. Let me know if there are
certain topics you guys want me to cover. I am
(47:04):
so excited for this next chapter of journey. There's so
many exciting things coming through. So follow me on Instagram,
on TikTok. I will put them all up on the screen,
and if you're listening, my Instagram is prep dot cam
and my TikTok is PREBCAMT and then of course subscribe
to the YouTube. The full episodes will also be up
on the YouTube. I hope you guys enjoyed this and
(47:25):
I will see you guys, next time, whom, when, well?
Speaker 4 (47:49):
Who you're listening to rock Us Avenue Radio, the world's
most listen.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
To South Asian.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
And podcast network
Speaker 2 (48:06):
M
Who who.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Being topless in South Asia was pretty socially acceptable, even
into the Mogul era when Islam was at its peak
in the subcontinent. What I'm going to do in this
episode is dive into that history. Uncovered breast were a
sign of respect the most influential and powerful woman of
the Mughal Empire. I mean, she's almost pretty much nude.
They're just memory glens. Did you know men could get
(00:36):
breast cancer gets you breast track. The more lover she has,
the greater is her honor. Such a contrast to today,
her breast concealed and they were cut off. Crazy.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Check out ruckus Avenue Radio dot com for our full
schedule and listen to past episodes of Lab major podcast platforms.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
All right, we are officially recording the first episode. Are
we ready to do this? I'm gonna need some water
before I start. Hello, and welcome to Jigney. I'm your host, Problen.
Most if any of you know me as Prebcam because
that's what I go by on socials. It's funny. Actually,
(01:25):
somebody somebody told me that they thought my name was
BROB Gummel because of my handle. So no, actually my
name is problene. If you didn't know, then now you know.
I really need to make that like my slogan or
my punchline or something. It just fits my content so well.
So I originally had planned research, scripted an entirely different
(01:46):
episode for the launch. However, some factors that I will
get into in a second made me reconsider. But before then,
I wanted to announce that Jugney is now a part
of Ruckus Avenue Radio on iHeartRadio, which I'm super excited about.
So you can now find all these episodes on the
iHeartRadio app or on the Ruckus Avenue Radio website. And
(02:08):
for the relaunch of Jugne, I wanted to do a revamp.
I have a new style where I'm alternating between solo
episodes and interview episodes, and I have some dope interviews
already recorded and some lined up, which I'm so excited
for you guys to hear about. I have so many
interesting topics for the solos, like I really feel like
it's where I can dive into my curiosity, like the
(02:29):
one I was originally going to do was about Sufism
and Jugne and Sufi poetry, which will still be released
just you know, a little bit later. I also had
my really good friend Kushika shout out Sika. She is
a super talented designer and she redesigned the logo for me.
Bless her heart. I have someone working on the intro music.
It's been so fun and such a blessing. It genuinely
(02:52):
takes a village, and I'm so lucky to have a
village to lean on. So thank you to everyone that's
been here in supporting me. Genuinely could not have done
it without you, guys. I also did a photoshoot for
the launch, which for me was a very full circle
moment and also the reason for pivoting to this topic.
If you haven't seen the launch announcement, it's on my
(03:13):
Instagram and TikTok. I say full circle moment because I
really started this entire creative journey through self portrait photography.
I would style these unconventional looks, usually incorporating They see
elements with Western influences, because that's just how my brain works.
I am a first gen immigrant kid, frump and job
that was raised in Brampton, Canada, and you know I
(03:36):
absorbed and consumed both parts of these identities from Bollywood.
They see content to like Western pop culture. Like when
Branca Chopra and Nick Jonas got together, it was a
big moment for my parasocial life. It was like, oh
my god, my two worlds are coming together. But self portraite,
photography and fashion was and still is how I express
my creativity. It's my outlet, my art. So it only
(03:59):
felt fitting launch this next chapter of my creative journey
with a shoe concept that I had been sitting on
for a long time, because if you haven't seen it already,
it is much more physically exposed relative to the other
content that I post, and I don't ever really explain
or provide context behind these shoots that I do. I
very much describe to the idea that art is subjective
(04:22):
and up to the viewer's interpretation. However, being a part
of the South Asian community, especially being a woman in
this community, I understand how sensitive of a topic this is,
and as much as I'd rather be talking about Sufism
right now, like it just calms my soul, I do
believe this is an important conversation and dialogue to have
(04:43):
in the community, and I cannot stress this enough. Respectful
conversation and dialogue. I do not tolerate anything less. Take
that somewhere else, please, But the stigmas and taboo nature
around nudity, especially women's nudity in the South Asian community,
it's really hindering our ability to enjoy and create art.
(05:04):
I mean not to mention the obvious toll it takes
on the daily life of South Asian women, especially the
ones navigating multiple cultures. And what we also don't talk
about is the kind of toll that it takes on
the men and the boys in our community. So I
actually I want to look at this from all sides,
all heteronormative sides, Queer and LGBTQ folk definitely deal with
(05:26):
objectification and sexualization in the South Asian community. Honestly, that
could just be a whole topic on its own. However,
the research I did for this episode is mainly from
a heteronormative perspective. The point is there's many negative outcomes
to these taboos, and in the past few months, I've
had so many conversations, unprompted by the way, with creators, academics,
(05:49):
artists about how this stigma is hindering their ability to
create freely, whether it's content around historical art, texts or
even just their creative expression. And that's a sad reality
for our community, especially considering where we come from. And
I think that that's where the problem lies, is that
a lot of us aren't aware of our history, which
(06:11):
to some degree is by design. So what I'm going
to do in this episode is dive into that history
so we can understand how we got here. I want
us to think critically about where all this passionate strong
enforcement of these beliefs comes from, Like, do you understand
why you believe so strongly in this? Do you understand
what other beliefs you're implicitly enforcing when you enforce these
(06:31):
standards around women's bodies. The photoshoot I did was very
much a visual juxtaposition of the modern and traditional South
Asian woman, like you know, she's wearing dress pants and
like black heels, the professional corporate nine to five Western women,
and then on top is the traditional Indian woman with
layers and layers of traditional bulky jewelry, the basubun, the
(06:53):
dark lined eyes, and yes, the bear chest. I took
a break. I got hungry. Honestly, this podcasting thing, it's workman.
I just had a caesidia and a brito. I didn't
finish the hil bredo. I'm not that good for a girl.
All right. Anyways, let's get it, let's get back into this.
You'll hear the argument that, you know, all this nudity
and all this skimpy dressing is just like Western influence
(07:16):
and that like we're all straying away from the traditions
of our ancestors and like forgetting our roots. But actually,
the original influence from the Western world was this idea
that nudity or a lack of modesty was some kind
of moral failing in a woman, a very Victorian belief
that South Asians were shamed into accepting and enforcing due
(07:36):
to can you guess colonization? Yes, everything is colonization's fault.
We're all tired of hearing it, but it is the
unfortunate reality we live in. So let's take it all
the way to the beginning. This is from a twenty
twenty four study published and the aesthetic surgery journal Open
Form called the social area of the breast. Over three
(07:57):
hundred million years ago, mammalia different and treated themselves from
the reptiles and birds by the presence of memory glands
to enable feeding the offspring. So memory glands and breasts
are so innate to us that our entire species is
named after them Eutherian. Eutherian mammals started to display sexual dimorphism,
(08:18):
with only the women having functional breasts. So what that
means is all humans, regardless of biological sex, have memory glands.
That's why men also have nipples and breast tissue. Did
you know men could get breast cancer? Get your breast checked.
A woman displaying healthy breasts capable of feeding the progeny
was viewed as a desired sexual partner by the males.
(08:40):
This evolutionary mechanism of signaling women's sexual competence by memory
display has continued to attract male attention. The scientific and
biological role of breasts were just to feed offspring, and
because that was a desired trait, you know, to be
able to feed offspring so that they can grow and
have more offspring, it quickly evolved into a way of
(09:01):
signaling fertility and health for mating purposes. And that's very
much the case for ancient populations in both the Western
World and South Asia. The paper goes on to say,
in many ancient cultures, female's clothing was often quite revealing,
with little to no coverage of the breasts. This was
especially true where women were considered to be sacred or divine,
(09:22):
which is such a contrast to today, where modesty in
covering up or not showing much skin is what makes
a woman sacred or closer to God. And ancient civilizations
like the Indus Valley civilization, men and women didn't really
cover up much, and that was mainly just what was
appropriate for the climate, but it was also not considered shameful.
(09:43):
Like look at the infamous dancing girl from Mohenjo Daro.
She's wearing bangles all the way up her arms, a necklace,
and the rest of hers naked, including her breasts, and
her being naked isn't an invitation for sex. It's just
her existing as herself a woman, which means a human
being that through sexual dimorphism, just has more developed breasts.
(10:06):
In ancient times, breasts were seen as auspicious, a sign
of fertility divinity, not something to be ashamed of. If anything,
it was seen as empowering. It also wasn't considered immodest.
There's this quote about modesty that I think is really important.
It's like a citation set of a citation. In the
book The Costumes and Textile of India, Damilla Bridge Bouchon
(10:29):
talks about studies in the psychology of sex and how
Havelock Ellis remarks many races which go absolutely naked possess
a highly developed sense of modesty. Modesty is in its
origins independent of clothing. Physiological modesty takes precedence of anatomical modesty,
and the primary factors of modesty were probably developed long
(10:50):
before the discovery of either ornaments or garments. What it's
saying is that that core innate human need for privacy
and self respect when it comes to their own body
and you know their person, it's more fundamental and universal
than the culturally variable standards about which body part should
(11:10):
be covered. Like the feeling of modesty is more of
an internal disposition than it is a rule or like
a dress code was like, it's subjective. A really good
example of this is Marilyn Monroe, who was an iconic
sex symbol. Her real name was Norma Jean and Marilyn
was a persona that she put on. There's multiple biographies
(11:32):
done by people close to her that describe her being
able to turn Marilyn on specifically, Amy Green talks about
this one incident where they were out in public in
New York somewhere like Grand Central Station, amongst a crowd,
and she wasn't being recognized because you know, she was
just being herself, Norma Jane. And then without changing her appearance,
(11:52):
without changing her clothes or her makeup, she was able
to become Marylyn. All she did was change the way
that she walked, the way that she carried herself and
presented herself, and suddenly a crowd started forming around her
and people started recognizing her. So modesty is more about
a person's inner mindset and motives. And this is what
always gets me, because when you make it just about
(12:14):
clothing and outward appearance, it's so easy to fake and manipulate,
and that way anyone can embody what a society believes
is modest. But true modesty is internal. It's revealed through
character and how you go about things, and the perception
and definition of modesty is subjective. The way that it's
perceived and defined is different for each person. Greek philosophers
(12:37):
theorized that women should be topless to promote sexual equality.
Some advocated that breasts are not private or sexual parts
at all. Over time, as cultures became more patriarchal, female
clothing began to cover more of the body. They shouldn't
come as a surprise. I think it's widely understood that
ancient civilizations didn't really cover up much. There wasn't stitched clothing,
(12:59):
and nudity wasn't taboo if you look at socially acceptable
breast exposure in time. Comparatively in the Western world in
South Asia, it was deemed unacceptable for women to be
topless much earlier in the Western world than it was
in South Asia. In the Western world it was just
in the ancient time. By the Medieval era, with Christian influence,
(13:21):
it very much shifted towards modesty and the concealment of
women's bodies, so think higher necklines, fitted bodices, and that
pretty much remained the case until about the mid twentieth century.
But in South Asia, obviously, with the understanding that it
differed regionally and based on cast overall, being topless was
(13:41):
pretty socially acceptable from ancient times to the medieval era
and even into the Mogul era when Islam was at
its peak in the subcontinent. Now I'm not saying that
they never covered up, although it was in the mogul
Era that stitched clothing and tailoring was most popular, but
even prior to that, they did have breast bands. They
(14:01):
were known as berta. I don't think I'm saying this right,
berta diti or stana patta, but they were there to
support the breast, not to conceal them. Rashian nol Kazi
in the book Ancient Indian Costume, talks about how stitched
bodices were foreign imports and often worn by dancers and
courtisans because they were the ones that needed breast support
(14:22):
or you know, pregnant women. They had upper garments called uttaria,
which started off being opaque but eventually ended up being
made from like sheer translucent fabrics like fine Muslim even
doolis were made from sheer fabrics, and the breast would
be visible through these fabrics, and sometimes you know, the
othario was just kind of like draped over and it
(14:44):
would cover only half the breasts. Because breasts were just
so integrated into everyday domestic life that people didn't even
blink an eye. If you look at ancient Indian Buddhist
artworks like the Sanchi and Ahmedavati sculptures. Women are tap
helpless in the costumes and textiles of India book I
was talking about earlier, They described the sculptures of women
(15:05):
as always wearing enormous bangles around the ankles and wrists
and generally strings of beads around the neck, but their
body clothing is limited to a bead belt around the
body below the waist, and that was it. In fact,
in the southwest coast of India which is now present
day Guidla, uncovered breasts were a sign of respect. In
the biography of Shadambiswami, who was a Hindu sage and
(15:26):
social reformer, it says the proper salutation from a female
to persons of rank was to uncover the bosom, which
is completely opposite today, especially in South Asian society, where
girls get told to cover up as a sign of respect.
I mean, we've all been told to change because some
random uncle was coming over. And I want to talk
about the way that the society and gerla kind of
(15:46):
function because when it comes to gender especially, it's so
different than it is today.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio Avenue available now on
the free iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
App There's this book by this Portuguese officer named Dwarte Barbosa.
It recounts his time in the sixteenth century in Gerla
(16:33):
because he spends a lot of time there, and he
kind of recounts, you know, the way of life and
the frameworks that they lived in. And I want to
read a part of this. The near women of good
birth are very independent and disposed of themselves as they please.
When they reach the age of twelve years old, their
mothers hold a great ceremony. When a mother perceives that
her daughter has attained that age, she asks for kinsfolk
(16:55):
and friends to make ready to honor her daughter. Then
she asks of the kind and especially of one particular
kinsman or great friend to marry her daughter. This he
willingly promises. Then, like you know, they have the whole ceremony,
and he gives her this jewel that she kind of
wears around her neck for like the rest of her life.
And then she made dispose of herself as she will.
(17:16):
The man departs without sleeping with her, inasmuch as he
is her kinsman, so pretty much, if he's related to
her by blood, he doesn't sleep with her. But if
he's not. He may sleep with her, but he is
not obliged to do so. Thenceforth the mother goes about
searching and asking some young man to take her daughter's virginity.
They must be nairs, and they regard it among themselves
(17:37):
as a disgrace and a foul thing to take a
woman's virginity, which is crazy, because you know, you hear
nowadays about like immature boys, and they kind of boast
about taking a woman's virginity. And when anyone has once
slept with her, she's fit for association with men. Then
the mother again goes about inquiring among other young nares
if they wish to support her daughter and take her
(17:59):
as a mistress, so that three or four narares agree
with her to keep her and sleep with her, each
paying her so much a day. By the way, Naares
is the name of the cast. It's a high ranking
cast in Gedla. The more lover she has, the greater
is her honor. Such a contrast to today, Each one
of them passes a day with her from mid day
(18:19):
on one day till midday on the next day, and
so they continue living quietly without any disturbance nor quarrels.
Among them. If any of them wishes to leave her,
he leaves her and takes another, and she also, if
she is weary of a man, she tells them to go,
and he does so or makes terms with her. Any
children they may have stay with the mother who has
(18:40):
to bring them up, for they hold them not to
be the children of any man, even if they bear
his likeness, and they do not consider them their children,
nor are they heirs to their estates. So pretty much
the heirs to a man's estate is not his kids.
He doesn't like. His kids aren't technically his. They belong
to the women, and the heirs of his estates tend
(19:00):
to be his nephew, so his sister's kids. This whole,
like the kids belong to their mother, not the father.
It was established with a greater and deeper meaning than
the common folk think. For they say the kings of
the Nares instituted it in order that the Naares should
not be held back from their service by the burden
and labor of rearing children. The men of Naares are
(19:22):
groomed for war, so they have to be ready, and
children are looked at as like a burden. But what
I find so interesting and they talk about in the
book is that the men didn't get jealous, Like if
a man was with the woman, then he would put
like his weapons or his sword outside the door. If
one of her other husbands would come around, if he
(19:44):
sees a sword, he wouldn't go inside, like they would
just respect them. This is an indicator that men in
that society didn't define their masculinity through their ability to
possess control or have ownership over a woman. And what's
interesting is that in the book they talk about another
there cast that lived kind of similarly to the way
that we do in like a patriarchal framework where you know,
(20:06):
there's a father and a mother son inherits from the
father and like it's more monogamy, but they kind of coexist,
like they coexist with the Nairs and it's not really
a problem. What a concept, but you know, it wasn't
always sunshine and rainbows. Going back to the biography of
Jathumbi Swami where he talks about how you know, the
(20:26):
proper salutation from a female to a person of rank
was to uncover their bosom. It says the Nare women
used shoulder cloth to cover their breast, but this was
to be removed before temple idols and cast superiors. On
one occasion, a Nair woman appeared before this. I don't
know how to say the Damarin of Girlgut's lady with
her breasts concealed and they were cut off as the
(20:47):
wearing of a bodice before one belonging to such a
higher group was considered immodest, crazy, insane. I want to
make it clearer. I'm not saying that we should do this.
Of course, there were like a million other problems back then,
cast being such a major one. I'm just trying to
one provide contexts on what the norms and sentiments around
(21:11):
women being tap us looked like, and two to show
how easily these things can change in either direction. I
personally don't think women should be forced to expose their
breast if they don't want to, or shamed into concealing them.
They're just memory glands. This goes back to modesty is
more of an internal disposition. But like I mentioned earlier,
concealment of women's bodies didn't really become the norm until
(21:35):
about the Moughal era. I took another break and I
finished that burrito. It was delicious, Okay, back to it.
It was in the mogal Era that the concept of
buda was introduced, thereby introducing the privatization of elite women's bodies.
So buda literally translates to curtain, and it was the
practice where women stayed in separate rooms often called zananas
(21:58):
or behind a curtain, and they were veiled completely in public.
And this was prevalent amongst elite Muslim and Hindu women.
So it was more of a signifier of class and
is it which is honor? It was like, look, my
women don't need to go out and labor in the sun,
because barda wasn't really feasible for lower ranking women. They
(22:19):
had to go and work in the fields to earn
their living. But though was meant to protect women from
the intrusive male gaze and like the objectification, but still
it wasn't in like a shameful Victorian way. It was
more that women's bodies became the private treasures of elite men,
which honestly, I'm not saying that's better, but if you
(22:40):
look at mogul Era art, breasts were very normal, even
though it wasn't necessarily the case in like day to
day society. For elite women, women like high ranking women,
are depicted wearing translucent, fine Muslim drapes across their breasts,
sometimes their whole body, and you can clearly see through
(23:01):
these drapes and you can see their breasts, and it
was more of like a show of higher class because
they could afford fine, luxurious Muslim Let's take a look
at month Os Mahal, who was Shajahan's wife who the
taj Mahal was made after her. In this painting, she
has a shawl covering her head, her back, her shoulders,
and the front part of her body is completely exposed,
(23:24):
including her breasts. All she's wearing is like pearl necklaces
and pendants. There's nour Jahan, who was the twentieth and
most beloved wife of the Mogul emperor Jungid. She's known
as the most influential and powerful woman of the Mughal Empire,
and she didn't practice strict buda. She was almost like
the de facto ruler of the empire while Jungid was
(23:48):
like dealing with like a lot of drug addiction and
alcohol abuse, so she was making a lot of these decisions.
She held court. You know how like emperors would you know,
go on a balcony and kind of like way for
greet their subjects, like she would go with him. She
had coinage struck in her name. When Jengi was captured,
she personally led an army on top of a war
(24:10):
elephant to get him released. And if you see her,
she is depicted with her breasts. Even though that's just
a depiction, I think it's telling of how they looked
at breasts because they wanted high ranking women to be
depicted in that way as a celebration of them. There's
another example of Janata Bigham, who is sha Jahan's daughter.
(24:30):
I mean, she's almost pretty much nude. There's this paper
called Imaging Women in Moughal, India Historical Narratives, Paintings and
Medical Texts by Buna Shimar and she puts this beautifully.
She talks about this painting called a Princess. It was
dated sixteen oh five to sixteen ten. I looked for
this painting, I just like I couldn't find it. But
here's a description of it. It's pretty much like a
(24:53):
princess in a transparent veil and a yellow skirt and
she's reclining on a bed and she has like maid
servants massaging her feet as she's like listening to a
vina player who's kneeling beside her. She talks about how
the composition is resplendent with the physicality of feminine form,
the transparent garments revealing the princess's bust and waste, the
(25:16):
calm postural stance of the princess suggesting her pride in
her perfect form, her vanity perceived as such by the
painter and his patron, suggest how women were perceived and
imaged being adorned and massaged as an icon being made
ready for worship, placing the beholder of the painting in
place of the worshiper they're talking about. And you can
see this with the other paintings as well, Like these
(25:39):
women in the nude aren't being depicted in any kind
of sexual way in the paintings, even though their breasts
are visible or they're in the nude. It's depictions of
them in a positive light. It goes on to say,
the composition in question here is in all aspects, a
celebration of the feminine sexual form and feminine sexual desire.
(26:00):
Middle of the composition merely states a princess, the gaze
reveals not even a subtle hint of sinner saying to respectable,
fallen or virgin horror dichotomy that usually attempts to like
lay down the ideal code of conduct for women. If
one goes by the title of the painting, she is
not a mere lover or a concubine or a dancing girl,
but a princess.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
A princess shut up.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
The conduct of princesses had to be above reproach, as
to them was tied the image of the royal house,
which was being royal under greater popular and historical scrutiny
of the contemporary sense of right and wrong, good or bad.
And I think this analysis is true of the other
paintings that I've shown of you know, Manthas Mahal or
noor Jahan. They are being depicted as royal high ranking
(26:48):
women with their nudity and with their breast exposed like
that wasn't despite it, it was because of it or
along with it, you know what I mean. You know,
there's this misconcepent that because Mogul women were practicing by
the they weren't as present in you know, Mogul court
and Mogal life but really, Mogal women were very appreciated
(27:12):
and very present in all aspects of Mogal life. I mean,
their harems themselves were places where you know, they they
learned art, poetry, music, They got like a real full
education there. And nor Jahan wasn't the only woman that
played a big role. A lot of women actually played
a huge role. They generally had influence over the emperors
(27:36):
and the decisions that they made. And if we go
to Mahdajar Ranjitsingh's time, there's that procession painting where he's
going through the bizarre and if you look at it,
women can be seen with like exposed breasts just walking
along normally actually when you look at most of them,
they more of them have their shoulders covered than their breasts.
(27:57):
And then there's that Agulli painting of and a Gulli
husband wife with their child, and you can see that
like she is like half draped. So this wasn't just
the case in like South India or amongst the moguls,
like this was just the norm. There's this book I've
been reading called The Lost Heed by Harlen Singh Women
in colonial Pinjab. I highly recommend it. It is incredibly
(28:19):
detailed and informative, and in it he talks about how
during religious festivals like Pasaki, hundreds of women and girls
took a dip in the Revy River or the Sacred
Tank said Amritzur and Gatta's temples, completely naked and in
full view. It's pretty common knowledge that the sitover at Hermandhersav,
the Sik holy place, was a communal space where men
and women bathed, and when women were in the sitover,
(28:43):
it was pretty normal for them to be bear trusted.
It wasn't always segregated like it is today. And actually
in the Dusm Grunt, which is a piece of sick literature,
there's illustrations of naked women. The author Guru Gobinzingji, who
was the tenth and last living Sikh guru. He was
retelling the story of Chrish and his gopies and the Goldpies,
who were women, were illustrated with their breast exposed bathing
(29:06):
in a river. And the content around the illustration isn't
vilifying their nudity, it's using it allegorically to convey a
deeper meaning. It just shows that like nudity and breast
exposure wasn't really a big deal, then, so when did
this start changing. The book goes on to say women
had been bathing this way for centuries in Punjab, and
(29:26):
the people, it seemed, didn't think much about this practice.
But as the rains have been job shifted from the
six to the British, the naked bathing Punjumpin flouted the
ideas of Victorian morality. This thought slowly permeated into the
educated Bunjumbi man, a product of the colonial education system.
There's a certain kind of freedom a person loses when
their body is constantly sexualized and objectified. Imagine having that
(29:51):
freedom your whole life with your body, like women did
in pre colonial pun job and then these white men
walk in and start shaming you and finding you in compliance,
and then the men of your community join them. Like
there's incidents in the book where they talk about how
they had people spying on these river banks to note
down the names of women and find them. The question
(30:12):
of women bathing naked in Gunjab also made its way
into the Congress meetings when the Indian National Congress under
Da Da Bay Notoji was convened at Lahore in eighteen
ninety three. You have to understand how deeply the colonizers
embedded these beliefs into our societies for them to permeate
so strongly into our generations. It went into congress. This
allowed all men to freely start policing and judging women.
(30:35):
It's systematic and it is not indigenous to us. It
is outside influence, very recent, outside influence. When you look
at our history.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
You're listening to ruck Us Avenue Radio Cheap pas O.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
There's this incident that starts to show the change happening
in Gedla, where Dutch officers would meet with like the queen,
and in this case it was Queen of Uttingle, and
she was from the kingdom of Dravancore, which was a huge,
long lasting kingdom in Gedla. And this Dutch officer was
meeting with the queen and her ladies in waiting, and
he would be like scandalized because they were bare breasted,
(31:33):
all of them. They were adorned with like immense amounts
of gold jewelry. They would have fine silks draped on
the bottom half, but like on the top, they were
bare breasted. And for them they were showing it as
like a sign of respect because covering the upper body
in front of like a social superior or social equivalent
or aditi. It was it was considered disrespectful. When she
(31:54):
metaphor an officer, she would remain topless as a sign
of her own high status and to show that like yo,
like I'm not hiding anything. This really confused these like
Dutch and Portuguese officers because they usually related royalty to
like robes. This concept of like covering up and modesty
was really like an alien concept to the people of Gandala,
(32:16):
especially high ranking women. Like they rejected bodices and joliys
and like upper garments because they just thought that that
was something that like lowercasts would do to mimic and
imitate foreigners, and that it was just like someb compromising
on their culture and their traditions. As you know, the
eighteenth century came along, the British started putting pressure on
(32:38):
the travancor royals to cover up and like wear blouses
or bodices, which you know, they eventually started incorporating, so
it started becoming associated with like higher rank and like
the elite class. The British also had like these Christian
missionaries because Christianity was very much spreading then, and so
they had these Christian missionaries kind of teaching lower classes
(33:01):
about the Christian faith and about covering up. So then
lower class women also started covering up. But the elite
class was like, wait, no, that's a higher rank, elite
thing to do. You can't do that. As a result,
there was a lot of rioting and violence. One major
spurt of writing lasted for about twenty one days. In
the book The Nadars of THUMBLNAD by Robert L. Hardgrave,
(33:25):
he talks about how during these riots, men were seized
on the sabbath for public works. Schools were occasionally interrupted,
the books were thrown into the streets or torn to pieces,
and the women were beaten in the public bazaar for
wearing the upper cloth over their bosoms and the cloths
were stripped from their bodies. Appearing exposed in front of
higher classes was a sign of respect and a class differentiator.
(33:48):
These riots were a response to those traditions in the
class order being disrupted by the British and their Christian missionaries.
They were like, you're ruining our traditions, and the traditions
of our ancestors sound familiar. The exposure of the breast
became a central part of the issue. It became the
focus of all the frustrations in anger and do you
(34:10):
see how easily societies can take something like breast exposure
to either extremes. It wasn't until eighteen fifty nine the
Gender Revolt when the British Governor of Madra finally pressured
the King of Devencourt to allow all women to wear
a cloth, provided it just didn't look exactly like the
royal style, so there was still like differentiation essentially. Yeah,
(34:32):
the change started happening through colonization and the Victorian era
because if you look back at their trajectory for nudity
and breast exposure, like we talked about earlier, it was
done a long long time ago for them, like it
was only in the ancient times. By the medieval era,
Christianity was spreading and they were covering it up. So
to them, breast exposure and nudity is uncivilized, like it's barbarian,
(34:57):
it's savage, and they projected that onto the South Asian
communities that they colonize, and they also used it as
an excuse to colonize us, that we were uncivilized and
we needed them, and especially through the Christian faith. But
that was all very much propaganda, and they have been
spreading that propaganda as far back as you can see.
(35:18):
I actually went to this museum event that talks about
how they did this way back when cameras just started
becoming a thing, and they were pushing that narrative and
that propaganda through images and paintings. I mean, I'll definitely
be talking about it in another episode in more detail,
But in both, you know, the Western world and South Asia,
there's this pattern where that switch to concealing women's body
(35:42):
started taking over with Abrahamic religions. Both Islam and Christianity
are Abrahamic religions. I don't know if there's actually a
correlation in that, but it's a pattern. They're also both
very rooted in patriarchy, and there's this need for men
to be on top, and in order to do that
they had to control, possess and police women. There's this
(36:04):
unseid idea with the way that modesty is defined now
and like people's reasoning for the need for it, that
men are these primitive beings that can't control themselves and
can't control their like thiss innate lust that they have.
But when you think about it, isn't the most civilized
indicator of a man that he can let a woman
(36:25):
exist in all her femininity, in her natural state without
disrespecting her or losing control or sexualizing her, or trying
to control her. And like we've talked about that, it
was the case back in the day in the procession
or just in day to day life, women's breasts were
exposed and men were there and they were fine. I'm
(36:45):
not saying that there weren't men that weren't tempted, and
there weren't men that had trouble controlling themselves. But wouldn't
you say that what is more civilized is the ability
to do that rather than policing and controlling women. Recently
watched this. I think it was a real that was
talking about how women were given meaning innately when they're born.
(37:08):
They have a natural purpose which is to give birth
to create life. So women were enough by just existing,
by just being, but men have to become, They have
to prove themselves through achieving because they didn't have that
natural meaning to their life. And I personally think that
this is like the root of insecurity that all men
(37:29):
have been born with. And to be honest, I also
think it's like the root of the systematic problem in
the male gender that we're starting to see, like this
whole male loneliness epidemic, this whole is it embarrassing to
have a boyfriend? Because men define masculinity relative to a woman.
They created all these roles and this purpose as being
the providers. And now that women don't need them as
(37:52):
providers and their needs are changing to more emotional, holistic needs,
men are struggling. They haven't changed in a because their
masculinity depends on women. There's this paper by Kamala Viswiswaren
that was quoted in another paper I just I couldn't
find her original paper. She says that a woman's modesty
signifies the masculinity of her community. Isn't that insane? This
(38:16):
whole idea of like, oh, you know, if my sister's
like this, or my cousins like this, or my wife
is like this, it means this about my masculinity. The
degree to which the women in a family obey, submit,
and can be controlled defines the masculinity of the men
in that family. And now that women can exercise their
free will and have independent thought, that system that men
(38:39):
created to give themselves. Purpose is failing, it's collapsing. Like
I think men are in an identity crisis. You can
see it, like men are suffering because of this. I
think that what men need to do is be able
to define masculinity and their own masculinity independent of women.
I mean, look at South Asia and look at India.
They are very strict in the way that the divine
(39:00):
modesty and kind of reverse now because the West is
loosening up. And look at the rate of rape cases
in the country. They're like number one. Okay, so they're
not number one for rape cases. It's hard to determine
that due to the lack of reporting. But India was
ranked the world's most dangerous country for women. I mean,
do we even need to bring up India's daughter? This
(39:22):
whole modesty to protect women. It's not protecting women. It's
also not protecting these men. I mean, look at the
men and boys nowadays. They have porn addictions and sex addictions,
and those run rampant, especially with men. As I'm editing this,
all the groq Ai stuff is coming out where majority
men are taking images of normal women and asking Ai
(39:45):
to undress them or put them in a bikini and
if you read the prompts that they're using, it's disgusting.
There's this tweet by jegga Evy that sums it up
really well. There's an abundance of free porn on the internet,
removing men's clothing with ai is something much more sinister.
It isn't about horniness, it's about control. These men find
(40:07):
joy in violating women and taking their agency away. We've
created a society where men think that they have a
right to women's bodies, and it's created this really shitty
rape culture where men use excuses like, oh, she's promiscuous
because she's wearing revealing clothing, or she's asking for it,
as an excuse to violate women. I know women who
(40:28):
are virgins my age, never had sex in their life,
and they wear pretty revealing clothes. It's not a one
to one relationship. It's just an excuse for men to
behave inappropriately. As you can see with the growq Ai stuff,
it doesn't matter what she's wearing. Men think that they
have a right to a woman's body. It's taking the
responsibility off of men to respect an entire gender and
(40:51):
manage their compulsions. I don't want to just shame men.
This is a systematic issue. A lot of these men
have been conditioned, but that condition can be undone. What
frustrates me the most is when people's arguments are, oh, well,
this is just the society we live in. A society
isn't some kind of immutable object that can't be changed.
(41:12):
It's a collection of humans, and humans are known for evolving.
If you can't tell by the very quick way we
went from exposing breasts to it being unspeakably shameful. If
we did that, we can definitely change. It's just not
going to happen if you don't engage in critical thinking
or healthy discussions in the community and start reflecting and
(41:33):
changing your behaviors. This goes for both men and women.
Don't get me started on the pick me problem. In
South Asian communities, women are major enforcers of patriarchy. Honestly,
this goes for myself too. I catch these subtle biases
or assumptions within myself all the time. We've all been conditioned,
and we're all capable of reconditioning a better reality. I
(41:57):
want us to hold men accountable and provide them the
kind of so support and help they need. To get better.
So if you or someone you know is struggling with
compulsive sexual behavior or pornography use, there are so many
resources that you can go to. There's Sex Addicts Anonymous SAA,
hyphen Recovery dot org. There is Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous,
s l AA FWS dot org. In North America, there's
(42:20):
the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals IAP dot
com where you can find a certified sex addiction therapist.
And there's a plethora of resources available online for you
to do this on your own. This whole psychology of
like if someone tells you not to think of an elephant,
you're going to think of an elephant. If you tell
them not to do this, or you conceal it and
(42:43):
hide it, you hyper sexualize it so that they seek
it out, and they almost seek it out in an obsessive,
addictive manner, And I think it creates the reverse effect
than what this modesty was intended for. I think there's
a major problem with just being able to critically think nowadays,
and I think critical thinking and looking at this critically,
(43:05):
it's like it doesn't make sense. The more that you
tell women that they can't dress a certain way and
that it means something about them. They're going to fight
against that because I like we talked about it earlier,
modesty is very much an innate disposition, Like a person
has to be able to feel those things. If you
tell somebody to feel something, that doesn't mean they're going
(43:25):
to feel it. A dress code isn't going to fit
every single person. I also think it's just sad because
then what the result of it is starting to become
is that you can't enjoy art the same way, you
can't create art the same way. And I think more
and more people want to be able to express themselves freely,
and then they're going to express in their art the
(43:46):
things that they're being restricted in outside of it. There
was this famous Indian painter Raja rev Varma, who was
actually related to the Threven Corps royals, and he painted
portraits of the queens in the late nineteenth century, and
he very much had to negotiate the amount of exposure
and breast that he could put in. So he had
(44:07):
to negotiate like the authenticity that he could kind of
create this art with. Because there were a lot of
people developing like Victorian taste they didn't see that, they
didn't think it was tasteful. That's the beginning and the
start of the kind of compromise that South Asian artists
had to start making. Even though the reality and the
authentic truth is that for our people, nunity and breast
(44:28):
exposure innately is not looked at as immodest or moral failing.
It's actually just a very natural way of life. Sensuality,
sexuality was all very human. It's a very human part.
It's like so innate to us. I think the more
important question here is why is it wrong for a
(44:49):
woman to explore her sexuality or have interest in sex
at all. Sex is one of the most normal and
human things beside basic bodily functions like peeing and shitting
her exploring that isn't wrong, Nor is it an open
invitation for men to be uncivilized and disrespectful. It's not
like when rest were part of daily life and they
(45:12):
were exposed that they weren't sexualized. I mean, yeah, they
were sexualized, but wasn't to the extent that you had
to police them and cover them up. If men are
capable of controlling themselves in their lust back then being
able to respect women I think that they can be
capable of doing it now. And what we're doing is
a society in a ways, we're kind of handholding men,
(45:32):
like we're coddling an entire gender because we're like, oh
my god, like they just they can't control themselves, like
boys will be boys. When you poddle a child too much,
they become dependent. They can to actually exercise all of
those things on their own and develop those skills on
their own, and so then they end up being underdeveloped
skill wise, they end up being spoiled. They act out,
(45:56):
and to be honest, everyone suffers. That's kind of all
I have for today. This was like a lot of
research and a lot of work, but I think it's
an important conversation to have. When I started this research,
it was just kind of more me trying to figure out, Okay,
what was the historical landscape looking like, because I had
always heard about it, but I, you know, hadn't dug
into it myself. But the more that I dig into it,
(46:19):
I started realizing how much of problems that I'm dealing
with and the problem that you know, we're dealing with
in terms of the gendered issues that we're having in
the modern world actually kind of like tie back into
this and relate to this so much. That was a
really interesting conclusion to make from this. But I had
a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun
doing this. I want to keep this and respectful dialogue.
(46:42):
I mean, I want to hear maybe about blind spots
that I haven't thought about, things that I haven't considered.
Let me know. Comment below with your thoughts, what you
guys think. I'm so excited. There's so many more episodes
that are coming through. Like I said, I have that
one in Sufism which will be coming up soon. And honestly, guys,
I'm open to congestions. Let me know if there are
certain topics you guys want me to cover. I am
(47:04):
so excited for this next chapter of journey. There's so
many exciting things coming through. So follow me on Instagram,
on TikTok. I will put them all up on the screen,
and if you're listening, my Instagram is prep dot cam
and my TikTok is PREBCAMT and then of course subscribe
to the YouTube. The full episodes will also be up
on the YouTube. I hope you guys enjoyed this and
(47:25):
I will see you guys, next time, whom, when, well?
Speaker 4 (47:49):
Who you're listening to rock Us Avenue Radio, the world's
most listen.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
To South Asian.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
And podcast network
Speaker 2 (48:06):
M
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.