naila Nayem
Can porn star-turned-Bollywood actress Sunny Leone teach India to be cool about sex?
Bollywood actor, model and former porn star Sunny Leone speaking during an interview on Jan. 22, 2016, in New Delhi. (Waseem Gashroo / Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
For all their bare skin, suggestive dialogue and racy dance sequences, Bollywood movies generally are a marvel of chastity. The world’s biggest film industry is so squeamish about sex that its biggest stars rarely even kiss on screen.Then there’s Sunny Leone.
Anyone with an Internet connection can watch Leone do a lot more than kiss, and many Indians have. She consistently ranks as the most Googled person in the country, less for her roles in a dozen-odd Bollywood B-movies than for her previous career as one of the biggest porn stars in America.
Working in Los Angeles in the 2000s, she was a Penthouse Pet of the Year, starred in such titles as “Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade,” created a line of sex toys and launched a production company called SunLust. At the height of her success, she left adult entertainment behind and found an unlikely second act in India, where her parents were born.
Since cavorting onto Indian screens in a reality TV show in 2011, Leone’s deep hazel eyes and endearingly American-accented Hindi have won over fans, if not critics. But it is her past career — and the sexual freedom it represents — that has elevated her to an object of fascination.
“For someone with my background to cross over to the mainstream, it’s next to impossible,” said Leone, 35.
It seems especially unlikely in India, which is striving to be a sophisticated, modern power but still hews to a buttoned-up public morality. This is the civilization that produced the Kama Sutra, that ancient guidebook to human sexuality, yet today pornography is banned. Cops have been known to arrest couples for making out in public. Sex education in schools is nearly nonexistent, and huge numbers of young people still get married having never laid eyes on their partner.
Enter Leone, who has become something of a national sex ed teacher.
In her early Bollywood movies, relatively low-budget affairs with gossamer-thin story lines, she played exotic, sexually liberated characters — including a porn star, twice. Promoting a brand of condoms called Manforce, she extols the virtues of using protection and undergoing routine STD tests.
Refreshingly direct about her adult film career, she refuses to apologize for what she calls a personal choice, saying she found the women in porn to be beautiful.
“I look at things differently than people do here,” said Leone, sheathed in a floor-length striped dress punctuated by stiletto heels, smiling earnestly across a desk in a Mumbai office. “When I watch a movie, sex and intimate scenes and getting close to someone is the norm. It’s not something abnormal. It happens every day.”
The backlash has been predictable. Some politicians have accused her of threatening Indian culture and even — following one particularly steamy condom commercial — encouraging rape. Many middle-class filmgoers won’t see her movies, and the big-name stars she idolized long kept a polite distance.
But the vast majority of Indians appear to have accepted her.
“She’s part of the sexual revolution in India, where sex is coming out of the closet and people are becoming more curious and accepting of it,” said Ira Trivedi, author of “India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century.”
“Her timing couldn’t be better. I don’t think people would have received her with the same openness five or seven years ago.”
This year, after a cringe-inducing interview with a talk-show host who asked Leone about fears that she would steal women’s husbands — and wondered if he was being “morally corrupted” by sitting with her — fans, commentators and fellow actors ridiculed the host and praised Leone for responding with grace.
“There are a group of people who don’t agree with my choices and are very vocal and don’t like me,” Leone said. “But I’m very fortunate and I have more people that have been supportive….
“I’m not here to preach anything at all. My goal is, I was given a chance to shoot mainstream cinema. OK, it’s not in English. OK, it’s halfway across the world. But it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.” bollywoodfuture.com/2016/08/25/can-porn-star-turned-bolly...
Can porn star-turned-Bollywood actress Sunny Leone teach India to be cool about sex?
Bollywood actor, model and former porn star Sunny Leone speaking during an interview on Jan. 22, 2016, in New Delhi. (Waseem Gashroo / Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
For all their bare skin, suggestive dialogue and racy dance sequences, Bollywood movies generally are a marvel of chastity. The world’s biggest film industry is so squeamish about sex that its biggest stars rarely even kiss on screen.Then there’s Sunny Leone.
Anyone with an Internet connection can watch Leone do a lot more than kiss, and many Indians have. She consistently ranks as the most Googled person in the country, less for her roles in a dozen-odd Bollywood B-movies than for her previous career as one of the biggest porn stars in America.
Working in Los Angeles in the 2000s, she was a Penthouse Pet of the Year, starred in such titles as “Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade,” created a line of sex toys and launched a production company called SunLust. At the height of her success, she left adult entertainment behind and found an unlikely second act in India, where her parents were born.
Since cavorting onto Indian screens in a reality TV show in 2011, Leone’s deep hazel eyes and endearingly American-accented Hindi have won over fans, if not critics. But it is her past career — and the sexual freedom it represents — that has elevated her to an object of fascination.
“For someone with my background to cross over to the mainstream, it’s next to impossible,” said Leone, 35.
It seems especially unlikely in India, which is striving to be a sophisticated, modern power but still hews to a buttoned-up public morality. This is the civilization that produced the Kama Sutra, that ancient guidebook to human sexuality, yet today pornography is banned. Cops have been known to arrest couples for making out in public. Sex education in schools is nearly nonexistent, and huge numbers of young people still get married having never laid eyes on their partner.
Enter Leone, who has become something of a national sex ed teacher.
In her early Bollywood movies, relatively low-budget affairs with gossamer-thin story lines, she played exotic, sexually liberated characters — including a porn star, twice. Promoting a brand of condoms called Manforce, she extols the virtues of using protection and undergoing routine STD tests.
Refreshingly direct about her adult film career, she refuses to apologize for what she calls a personal choice, saying she found the women in porn to be beautiful.
“I look at things differently than people do here,” said Leone, sheathed in a floor-length striped dress punctuated by stiletto heels, smiling earnestly across a desk in a Mumbai office. “When I watch a movie, sex and intimate scenes and getting close to someone is the norm. It’s not something abnormal. It happens every day.”
The backlash has been predictable. Some politicians have accused her of threatening Indian culture and even — following one particularly steamy condom commercial — encouraging rape. Many middle-class filmgoers won’t see her movies, and the big-name stars she idolized long kept a polite distance.
But the vast majority of Indians appear to have accepted her.
“She’s part of the sexual revolution in India, where sex is coming out of the closet and people are becoming more curious and accepting of it,” said Ira Trivedi, author of “India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century.”
“Her timing couldn’t be better. I don’t think people would have received her with the same openness five or seven years ago.”
This year, after a cringe-inducing interview with a talk-show host who asked Leone about fears that she would steal women’s husbands — and wondered if he was being “morally corrupted” by sitting with her — fans, commentators and fellow actors ridiculed the host and praised Leone for responding with grace.
“There are a group of people who don’t agree with my choices and are very vocal and don’t like me,” Leone said. “But I’m very fortunate and I have more people that have been supportive….
“I’m not here to preach anything at all. My goal is, I was given a chance to shoot mainstream cinema. OK, it’s not in English. OK, it’s halfway across the world. But it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.” bollywoodfuture.com/2016/08/25/can-porn-star-turned-bolly...