'Under'Cover Stories - Sex, Lies and Surveys

I stopped reading magazines ever since India Today carried Natasha Singh’s suicide on its cover page. And the way tabloidification of magazines has happened since then, I never had to regret my decision.

A recent edition of The Week (unable to fish the hyperlink) chose to carry on its cover a survey on sex at workplaces. Initially it dint interest me as I neither have sex nor work. You see I have this disastrously repulsive combination of being both ugly and unemployed. And literally, neither lady nor luck, smiles at me.

But then I decided to have a peek hoping against hope to find some alchemical formula to liberate myself from virginity. I remember how few years back I ran to a book shop when I knew a book called 'Losing Virginity' was released. On reaching there, I realized that it had everything other than what was written on the cover. These magazines too are something like that.

India Today did some similar survey and every forgotten female made news by just commenting on what one clumsy female commented in it. So did Outlook and virtually every other magazine except our dear Frontline. They believe in Real Story. Everytime. In case of sex that would be disappointing at its best and depressing at its worst. One common denominator among all these stories (no, I wouldn’t call them surveys) is that they never tell you anything that you dint know.

They would begin talking about the increasing stress in urban life, failing relationships, work pressures and then go on to tell you how sex is fun, stress busting etc etc. Wow! Revelation indeed. I swear I never knew that till I read these stories. I always thought that sex was for artificial insemination in men, and to produce broiler babies in women.

And then a couple of couples in coupled positions. A few bold (I mean the font, not the content) titles about relationships, marriages, divorces, flings, preferences, positions etc etc. But whom are they trying to surprise. Every kid knows that these days sex and infidelity fit as good as six and nine. I know that was gross. But I am happy that I was able to comment on relationships, preferences and positions in one go and that’s what people seem to like these days. Considering the popularity of sex and the falling visits my blog gets, I too plan to have a new section, “Sex”.

To add a technical touch, you would have a sociologist, psychologist and, of course, a sexologist who tries hard to look sexy from the small passport size photo beside his byline. This one in the Week, recommends nipping causal (read sexual) relations in the bud. So now we are going to have two departments in the HR, one to prevent sexual harassment and one to prevent sexual appeasement. The first would ask the guy to take his hands off the girl and the second would ask the girl to take her hands off the guy’s hands so that they can then ask the guy to take his hands off the girl.

The survey itself was crap. 47% were not aware of casual relations. So with close to half of the respondents blissfully unaware of what rocks their cars, tables and lifts, how accurate would the survey be. Another sore was “No Comments”. For god sake, you are not a chargesheeted politician speaking to the media. With anonymity assured, why can’t you open your mouth and speak something which you have been dreaming, speaking and hearing ever since you passed out of your kindergarten. And damn those who make the survey. In a population of 1 crore they can’t find 1000 people who can answer all the 10 questions.

I won’t start preaching the media on socially responsible journalism as I know they are not going to desist from such surveys and news in future. But what I wish is that they should be useful.

For Example:

1) Top 30 Firms (with the full postal address) whose proportion of female employees is atleast 75%

2) Among these, top 20 Firms where the average age of females is less than 25 years

3) And finally, the top 10 firms where the standard deviation from 36-24-36 is less than 1.213

4) Top 5 approach lines

5) Next 5 approach lines

If they fail,

6) Top 5 cover-ups

7) Next 5 Cover-ups

If they too fail,

Repeat the survey with the next 30 companies in the next issue.

Iteration to continue ad infinitum.

For pre-marital sex, please replace firms with schools. And please don’t ask people like Khushboo and Sania for comments. One is too old and the other hardly went to school.

Additionally, annual subscribers should be rewarded with complimentary details. Something like one-year subscription should get you the first names, two year subscription, both first and last names and three year subscription should get you both names and mobile numbers.

Do this and I assure that the editors can laugh their way to the banks and readers to the beds.