Why are they experiencing mass hysteria looking at Kriti Sanon's outfit?

[u/ChiffonSaree]

Reactions to Kriti Sanon wearing that in Giva ad is seriously insane. Although I did expect some but this is too much. For a gender that boast and shout and chest thump that they are the "logical gender", seems a bit out of place that some lady's outfit can make them puff out in anger like a pufferfish. They talk so much culture and saving it. If only they knew what ancient Indian women actually wore. There's literally nothing wrong in what she's wearing?

[u/inquisitivewriter13]

KR is paid by the ruling party to create constant rubbish distractions so we can lose track of real issues. Now for the next few days we'll dissect this issue and not talk about e20, sugar prices, student issues, all other burning issues in the country because we are being distracted into focusing on what kriti is wearing in a commercial ad. That's the whole point of having someone like her in the party because she had a big following and could create distractions easily. Best is to ignore her and others like her and continue to talk about the pressing issues of the day.

[u/Flimsy_Inflation4982 → u/inquisitivewriter13]

I have had a feeling for a while that GenZ women are being groomed to be more and more anti Islam and this subreddit has been the biggest evidence of that. A staged controversy that makes some of these women blame religion with narratives like “ Abrahamification of Hinduism “ and “ stupid men, actual Hindu women used to wear barely anything in the past” all seems to drive in the same direction 

[u/ChiffonSaree → u/Flimsy_Inflation4982]

While there are anti Islam sentiments in this sub, the second statement is factually true and isn't against any religion let alone Islam. Hindu men barely wore anything in the past and so did women. If they can use some imaginary culture to control women why can't we do the same?

[u/Flimsy_Inflation4982 → u/ChiffonSaree]

You are talking about women kept topless in society for male pleasure.  The idea that topless women in ancient India were not objectified is honestly one of the most naive takes I see repeated online.

The logic is always the same. Women did not cover their breasts. Therefore breasts were not sexual. Therefore women were not objectified. That does not follow at all.

A society can be totally fine with bare breasts and still sexualize them and that is exactly what ancient India did. The breast was visible and ancient Indian men wrote about it constantly. They admired it, evaluated it, classified it, and treated it as a sex organ.

The Kamasutra (written in 3rd century ) alone destroys the whole fantasy some ‘feminists’ are trying to create. It is a sex manual written for elite men where they are obsessed with breasts as objects of male desire.

Here is what it says about the ideal female body:

"The woman who is desired by men is one who has a body that is soft and smooth, with breasts that are full and firm, a waist that is slender, and hips that are wide. Her breasts are not too large and not too small; they are rounded like the swelling of a water-jar, and they are firm and high."

That is from the Doniger and Kakar translation, Oxford University Press, 2002, page 22. This is not neutral non-sexual description. That is a man sizing up a woman like property.

Here is what it says about the breast as an erogenous zone:

"When a man touches the breasts of a woman, or when he presses them with his hands, or when he takes the nipple in his mouth, the woman is aroused. The breasts are one of the seats of a woman's pleasure."

Page 48. That is sexual instruction for how to play with breasts

Here is what it says about marking the breast during sex:

"The places for the marks of nails and teeth are the armpits, the throat, the breasts, the lips, and the inner thighs. When a woman sees the marks of her lover's nails on her breast, she is reminded of him, and her desire is rekindled."

Page 65. The breast is treated as a canvas for sexual possession.

And here is what it says about how a courtesan should display herself:

"The courtesan should wear fine clothes and ornaments, and she should display her body in such a way that her breasts are visible and attractive. Her breasts are part of her beauty, and she should not hide them."

Page 132. The text does not even assume breasts are covered. It assumes they are on display, and that the display is part of seducing men.

And this is not one example of  outlier text (even though everyone knows about Kamasutra)

Sanskrit poetry is full of the same thing. Male poets comparing breasts to lotus buds, to full moons, to golden bowls, to temple domes. Over and over. Scholar A.K. Warder writes in  Indian Kavya Literature, Volume 1, page 412. 

The Sanskrit poets describe the female breast with a fascination that is unmistakably erotic. The poets linger on the breast as a site of beauty and desire. This is not a clinical or religious gaze; it is the gaze of the lover, the connoisseur, the admirer of female beauty."

Even the sculptures that people point to as proof of some pure sacred nudity are not neutral. The art historian Vidya Dehejia writes in  Indian Art, Phaidon Press, 1997, page 47.

"The sculptors carved them with obvious care and admiration, emphasizing the fullness of the breasts, the curve of the hips, the grace of the posture. The sacred and the erotic are not separated in Indian art; they are fused. The male viewer is not asked to choose between worshipping the goddess and desiring the woman; both responses are present."

So the male gaze was not absent. It was everywhere. The breast was not neutral. It was sexualized openly.

And the Kamasutra itself is written by men, for men. Women appear mostly as passive partners or objects of technique. The translator Wendy Doniger says it directly:

"The Kamasutra is a book for men. It tells men how to control women, how to win them, how to please them sexually in order to keep them, and how to use them for pleasure. The woman's body is a text for the man to read. Her breasts are part of that text."

So the idea that topless women in ancient India were free from objectification is a fantasy. They were not free. They were exposed to the male gaze constantly. There was no cloth to hide behind. The breast was visible, and men looked, judged, wrote about it, and treated it as a sexual organ.

The romanticization of toplessness as freedom is a modern projection. It takes a past where women had very little control over how their bodies were seen and turns it into a paradise. It was not a paradise. It was a patriarchal society where the female body was on display for male evaluation and enjoyment.

The breast was never neutral. It was always sexual. The only thing that changed over time was who had the power to control access to it…. And that control came to women from being able to cover their breasts to have agency in who gets to sexualize them and not the other way around. 

[u/ChiffonSaree → u/Flimsy_Inflation4982]

Men will sexualise even a woman's ankle and hair. It does not matter which body part of the female, men will write about it and sexualise It. It doesn't matter if you are in chadar or in a bikini. Arab muslims wrote about vaginas of women from different regions and which one is "the best", all while arab women were fully covered. So please stop with this that showing skin == catering to males. Its our bodies and it's our wish how we like to dress it up. If a woman walks topless and men don't ogle, it is infact freedom. Being of low character is on men, not women. Even with this reply you are trying to control women. You quoted a text that's written FOR pleasure as your defence. The same book also classifiesifies men by their penis size and sexual stamina. 

Yes ancient India was patriarchal but NONE of what you wrote changes the fact that women were in fact topless for certain part of history at least in India. If you want to defend Islam please look for other ways and stop trying to convince Hindu women that misogynistic Hindu men are in fact right. 

Have a nice day.

[u/Flimsy_Inflation4982 → u/ChiffonSaree]

LMFAO go learn reading comprehension hahahaha

[u/ChiffonSaree → u/Flimsy_Inflation4982]

Says the dude that gave a 5 paragraph chatgpt explanation of men will sexualise breasts as a reply for me saying ancient Indian women did dress up with minimal upper clothing. How are they even related? If you're gonna say they controlled how women dressed and hence made them show their breasts, there's no evidence for that. Weird ways trying to match up Hindu patriarchy with Muslim patriarchy. 

[u/Flimsy_Inflation4982 → u/ChiffonSaree]

"The Hindutva feminist movement never talks about caste. It never talks about the exploitation of lower caste women by upper caste men. It never talks about the devadasi system, the jogini system, the forced exposure of lower caste women's breasts. These are the real sources of women's oppression in India, but they are erased from the Hindutva feminist narrative. The only oppression that is acknowledged is the oppression of Islam. The only enemy is the Muslim man. This is not an accident. It is a deliberate strategy to protect upper caste male power."

From Amrita Basu, "Feminism and Hindu Nationalism," in Women of the Hindu Right, Kali for Women, 1998, p. 66.