Perhaps irritating stereotypes of a person begin with the association of colours with babies; pink with girls and blue with boys. Pink is so garish for my taste that I find it offensive both on boys and girls. Then there is another association of pink with love. I wonder how that could be the case. On the contrary, I've an empirical evidence that the colour most likely could be associated with lust instead of love.
The incident happened a decade ago (So, I have reached an age where I talk in decades. Why did I write that previous pointless sentence?) I was browsing through the cloth section of a mall in Hyderabad. I overheard a lady excitedly telling her man in Kannada, "buy the pink one, buy the pink one" and both started giggling. I turned around and found they were standing in front of men's underwear rack. I was scandalized by their loud vulgarity and felt disgusted with their moral degradation in their perceived anonymity in an alien land or in the midst of alien speakers. At that time, I didn't give much importance to the lady's specific attachment to "pink" underwear - not for herself but for her man.
Few years ago, there was a so-called 'pink chaddi campaign' against Hindutva moralists who targetted pub going girls. I think the choice of pink colour in this case too gives credence to the association of the colour with lust. Empirical evidences so far only associate this colour with men when women expect them to be lusty.
The incident happened a decade ago (So, I have reached an age where I talk in decades. Why did I write that previous pointless sentence?) I was browsing through the cloth section of a mall in Hyderabad. I overheard a lady excitedly telling her man in Kannada, "buy the pink one, buy the pink one" and both started giggling. I turned around and found they were standing in front of men's underwear rack. I was scandalized by their loud vulgarity and felt disgusted with their moral degradation in their perceived anonymity in an alien land or in the midst of alien speakers. At that time, I didn't give much importance to the lady's specific attachment to "pink" underwear - not for herself but for her man.
Few years ago, there was a so-called 'pink chaddi campaign' against Hindutva moralists who targetted pub going girls. I think the choice of pink colour in this case too gives credence to the association of the colour with lust. Empirical evidences so far only associate this colour with men when women expect them to be lusty.
Why is this moral degradation? or even for that matter vulgarity? Isn't it simply the personal choices of a man and woman and their private indulgences?
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Nobody should question individual choices of a person. Or collective choices(the consensus of which is difficult to prove in many cases) of consenting couples. That is the reason I didn't try to reprimand them with my personal moral standards or gave an open call to punish them.
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