By Nimaya Harris

Image Credit: Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society 

What do we talk about when we talk about sex online in Sri Lanka? The first thing that would come to mind for most people is an image of a sleazy man behind a computer screen in a dark room, watching enough porn for the country to top the global google search rankings of the word “sex.” Even when we get past the taboo and shame of admitting we know anything about it, frequently, these conversations are framed by the language of censorship and violence online. Mainstream discourse about the internet and sex oscillates between the perils of pornography and its repercussions on society and hardly evaluates whether it serves any other educational or exploratory purpose.

Sri Lanka still enforces colonial-era laws like the 1929 Obscene Publications Ordinance, which render the consumption and creation of any “material deemed obscene” illegal. Under this legislature, pornography is heavily restricted by the Sri Lankan authorities, with regular crackdowns on local websites and online forums. These restrictions and the work of organizations like NCPA are instrumental in addressing child pornography, the non-consensual publishing of videos and pictures, and revenge porn, all of which are serious concerns regarding sex-related content in the country. Yet, while these are undoubtedly important and urgent problems, their discussion has created a one-sided view of sex and sex-related content online. The framing of pornography and sexual content online of all forms as ‘obscene’ within the law has rendered it anti-social and immoral. In almost all cases, women and LGBTQ+ people are entirely left out of the discussion.

When talking about sex between consenting adults is seldom an option. Nothing beyond reproduction-related sex education is ever shared (even then, how is anyone expected to know how to do it???). One has no option but to turn to the internet to discover and explore sex. Despite the preconceived notions about sex online, the internet and social media have broadened the capacity for exploration of sexuality, seeking sex and pleasure, and increased potentials for building communities and safe spaces around different sexual identities and preferences. It plays and can play three critical roles in terms of sex in Sri Lanka: education, entertainment, and support.

Education

For most Sri Lankans, other than the movies you wouldn’t dare watch with your parents, where a couple rolls around under the covers, porn is the first exposure to sex. Those curious about sex are more likely to watch porn to see what this elusive and taboo thing is than refer to written resources on sex and sexuality education available online. And this is true for people of all genders and sexual identities. According to a Bakamoono.lk ‘800 Odd Criminals: Watching Porn in Sri Lanka’ children as young as 13 consume porn regularly and are often their primary source of sex education. This is inherently problematic as safety and consent are rarely brought up in traditional porn films, almost always targeted to cis-male audiences, and perpetuate harmful stereotypes about women’s sexualities and different sexual orientations.

These inadequacies of porn as an effective form of sex education, in terms of addressing consent, realistic depictions of sexual experiences, and conversations about protection, have been recognized recently. Local organizations like Bakamoono.lk and Arka Initiative use their online and offline presence to address these gaps, facilitating discussions with young people on responsible porn consumption and the discrepancies between online and real sexual experiences. However, educational resources for Sri Lankans largely revolve around increasing consent, STDs, and anatomical awareness, rather than emotional and explorative conversations about sex. Conversations about pleasure, intimacy, masturbation, sex toys, or kinks are often not discussed on these platforms in detail and are discovered (poorly) through the lens of porn. Watching porn, however, is unlikely to teach any young woman about how to masturbate and the complexities and intricacies of the female body. As a result, so many women feel uncomfortable engaging in solo sex, and conversations about it even if they do are practically non-existent. Platforms like Sex School, a Berlin-based platform, uses pornography and videos as a way of education that “includes natural fumbling, vocal consent, and boundary-checking,” which are overlooked in traditional pornography. ‘Feminist porn,’ which is a product of a movement to include more women, trans and non-binary people in the narrative of porn, is a genre of porn focused on moving the lens of porn away from the male gaze. (Bellesa, Crashpad Series, Indie Porn Revolution, and Bright Desire are some platforms dedicated to this type of porn-, and no, they aren’t free because sex workers should be paid for their work just like everyone else).

Aside from porn, the educational resources available in Sri Lanka are not very sexually empowering. Rather than encouraging the exploration of sexual desire and pleasure, they end up being more overwhelming than liberating. As much as the resources on sex education targeted to Sri Lankans are significant, they seem to adopt a  clinical and medical tone and exclude education on exercising sexual pleasure, like references to orgasms, masturbation, and different techniques are practically non-existent. Non-Sri Lankan sex-positive content online is predominantly made by and for cisgender, white, and Western audiences. Initiatives like Agents of Ishq, an Indian-based platform, Gal-Dem, and HOLAA Africa are attempting to broaden the conversations around sex to include the empowerment of POC and queer individuals in their narratives. In Sri Lanka, platforms like Pulse and Shhh Talk Show have discussed sex and pleasure beyond a male, heteronormative lens. Yet, it is a far cry from the sex-positive, liberating content we desperately need. Another persistent problem is the resources available are primarily in English.

As long as sex education shy away from educating about sexual pleasure, we will continue to lock out women and LGBTQ individuals from being sexually empowered. We will continue to make them feel like they are not entitled to their sexuality in this country. Conversations about sexuality, orgasms, how to have sex in more ways than the heteronormative depictions of porn, how to navigate conversations about consent, safety, different types of bodies and preferences that are accessible to a broad audience in Sri Lanka is desperately needed to change the archaic perceptions of sex.

Entertainment

The internet changed the game for entertainment and sexual pleasure from its inception. According to David Friend in his book Naughty Nineties, Cybersex brought with it the “promise of genuine engagement, not alienation. Strangers typing words to one another—digitally stimulating a partner by writing on a keyboard—could experience real-time interaction on an entirely new plane.” It enabled more accessible access to sex, particularly for those whose preferences fell out of the scope of social norms and conventions. In Sri Lanka, too, were openly seeking sexual relationships or hook-ups is difficult. Social media and dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr have made it easier for individuals to find sexual partners and made conversations about desire and sex much more straightforward. ‘How TikTok Is A Platform For Performance And Play For Women In Sri Lanka’ explains how apps like TikTok have become a platform for gender expression and exploration of sexuality for young women and the queer community as well. For those who feel comfortable leaping to explore it, these platforms are often the only place where people can feel some degree of sexual liberation and can express their sexualities.

These platforms are not perfect, and they tend to enable some predatory behavior, putting women and LGBTQ individuals in Sri Lanka at risk both socially and with the law. These apps and social media groups are a double-edged sword while they facilitate sexual empowerment. Members risk being recognized and outed to friends or family. Of the Women and Media Collective study participants, 44% had pictures exposing their sexual orientation/gender identity posted online or shared with a third party without consent. The abusive and patriarchal strictures that police sexuality in the physical world follow these users to the only alternative, the virtual one.

If we think heterosexual, so-called “vanilla” postmarital sex gets no airtime in this country, sexual preferences that fall outside the norm are treated like they don’t even exist. A google search of “kink communities in Sri Lanka” brings up thousands of links to porn videos, pointing to the problem that for those interested in exploring kinks and fetishes, awareness of it only happens through watching porn. Information about different types of kinks (here’s a non-exhaustive list), what they entail, and how to bring up fetishes or fantasies with partners and safely engage in them are difficult to come by. Furthermore, in Sri Lanka, connecting to other interested people happens either by chance on the internet or through connections and knowing someone who is already in the community. Someone I spoke to who is vocal on social media about their experience discovering kinks and navigating dating in Colombo explained that Instagram had been a valuable medium for exploring and normalization these fetishes through memes and infographics. However, public information about how to practice these is limited. They also found that the pages catered to a local audience were more male-dominated and used derogatory and abusive sexual language in their discussions. They were reinforcing the fact that exploring fetishes in Sri Lanka can seem unsafe and daunting for many.

The Pearlnation Swingers are one of the few couples who are trying to change this environment around sexual fetishes and relay their experiences and lessons swinging in Sri Lanka on a blog, providing information on how to navigate the community and online spaces for newcomers and explaining safety precautions and steps that they can take to participate. Platforms like this make people realize that they are not alone in their sexual fantasies and interests are encouraging to see in Sri Lanka and demonstrate what is hopefully a liberalization of social discourse. As platforms like OnlyFans, a subscription-based platform for sexual content and cyber-sex services, are becoming more popular globally, it will be interesting to see whether this discourse in society and online changes further and whether Sri Lankans both in the sex work industry and otherwise may also choose to open up to a global audience.

Support

In Sri Lanka, the internet has created the space for community and support groups to form, particularly for LGBTQ+ communities. ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ a report by Sachini Perera and Zainab Ibrahim on gender, sexualities and sexual behaviour online in Sri Lanka found that close to 70% of their respondents claimed “that the internet connects them to people more easily” and facilitates a sense of community. The Queer Agenda Sri Lanka, Chathra, Jaffna Sangam, and the Venasa Transgender Network, for instance, also operate on Instagram to increase awareness for and about LGBTQ+ issues in Sri Lanka, as do institutions working on mental health and sexual harassment resources for women, queer and trans people in Sri Lanka like Grassrooted Trust and Delete Nothing, which documents technology-related violence, are important sources of support for local communities. These organizations are able to reach and connect more people because of increasing internet accessibility around the country, and organizations like Equite Sri Lanka, following global trends, have even turned to private groups, and dating apps like Grindr to advocate for HIV awareness and support.

In a country where physically and virtually, navigating sex and having a sex life is challenging at best, these internet platforms are an essential source of information sharing, solidarity and connection. Informal forums, subreddits, closed Facebook groups facilitate a sense of community and provide space for discussion, yet they are not always the safe spaces their members hope for. 62% of the respondents in the ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ study felt that offline violence is reflected online, and findings in ‘Disrupting the Binary Code’ echoed this saying that “the online space, especially social media platforms, can be remarkably hostile to sexuality and gender minorities [..] many LGBTQ Sri Lankans either censor themselves or are forced to resort to pseudonymous profiles in their daily use of online platforms.” Furthermore, even if individuals want to access them despite the risks of harassment, access to these groups is also a challenge. They are not easy to discover for someone who has no prior knowledge of where to look. Although there are very encouraging steps towards making the internet a platform for people to feel understood and free to discuss their experiences and desires, they are not exempt from the toxicities of real life.

When it comes to sex online in Sri Lanka, I think there are many opportunities to make it a more inclusive and supportive space for young people trying to navigate sex and sexuality. The networks, platforms and websites that have emerged recently, recognizing this gap in discourse, highlight the need for open and radically different conversations about how we view and experience sex in this country. Though the legal and social barriers that suppress them in public pervade even on the internet- inhibiting the ability for it to educate, entertain and support- the internet provides us a unique ability to collectivize and disrupt these conventions just by refusing to silence our experiences, desires and frustrations. The changing trends online, about how we talk about all things ‘sex’ and the rejection of its relegation as a taboo, hopefully, indicate an impending overhaul of Sri Lanka’s culture and discourse of sex in the future, online and off.

 

About the Writer 

Nimaya Harris is an undergraduate student at the University of Hong Kong studying Politics & Public Administration and English Literature. She works with Amnesty International Hong Kong’s Digital Verification Corps and has been a research intern at the Center for Poverty Analysis and the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute in the past. She currently runs and edits Kopi Collective, a digital platform for Sri Lankan creative writers, and coaches the Sri Lanka National Debate Team.