A newlywed bride on honeymoon put on her sexiest clothes. Her husband reacted in the obvious way – he went home and filed for divorce, alleging “mental cruelty.” Huh? It may seem illogical, but remember: this is Asia.
At a court in New Delhi, the man’s lawyer told district judge Manmohan Sharma: “During their honeymoon, she dressed herself in a very vulgar manner.” Shocked, the judge granted the divorce at once, visions of full-frontal nude ankles scandalizing his imagination.
I shared this recent news item at an international business conference the other day. Western executives were amazed. “If Asian women want to inflict this type of mental cruelty on you, send them to us,” they said. “We’ll suffer on your behalf.”
But reflecting on this issue later, I realized that we Asians better face the hard truth about ourselves. Deep down, many of us don’t like sex. Our region is ALWAYS last in the Durex global survey of sexual well-being.
Last month, the Mainichi Daily News reported that more than a third of Japanese boys aged 16 to 19 and 59 percent of girls of the same age were “indifferent or averse” to having sex, according to a survey. David McNeill, a journalist working in Japan, was amazed. “Where I grew up in Ireland, teenagers thought about little else.”
The debate reminded me of a case I once reported on in rural China in which a couple complained that they had no children after five years of marriage. The doctor asked: “How often do you have sex?” The couple replied: “Sex? What’s that?”
by The Punjapit Alliance
