There was a time, not so long ago, when a cousin, a friend, and a hushed conversation was all you had to learn about intimacy. The conversations were cryptic and awkward. But the internet and social media have changed all that.
Take, for instance, the term ‘AHgasm’. It is a curious piece of internet slang describing a moment when discomfort is misread as pleasure, highlighting how easily physical unease can be misunderstood. Sexual wellness influencer Seema Anand (@seemaanadstorytelling) discussed it with her 1.9 million followers on Instagram. Other content creators picked it too, and the term went viral.
That’s unusual for a nation that hasn’t been vocal about sexual wellness and intimacy for most of its modern history. Sex carried the baggage of morals and ‘purity’. There were few discussions about sexual compatibility, and expressing displeasure about pleasure was mostly unheard of.
Until recently. New Delhi hosted a sexual health expert’s lecture on intimacy and women’s pleasure at The Piano Man Jazz Club this month. Influencers are seen as sexuality educators. Movies such as Lust Stories, Janhit Mein Jaari and Helmet, (OTT releases), and Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, addressed the need for equal and consensual sexual pleasure.
Feminism has pushed the envelope too. Actors and stand-up comedians now normalize a woman’s desire and self-pleasure. OTT content targeting Gen Z, exemplified by the popularity of Off Campus, has helped make on-screen intimacy a more familiar part of youth-oriented storytelling. The show built an entire episode around consent, and making partners feel safe and secure while being physically vulnerable.
Dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble have also helped. Phrases such as ‘here for a good time’, ‘casual vibes only’, ‘no strings attached’ pop up on a lot of people’s profiles, irrespective of their gender. It’s acceptable online behaviour, which has had a trickle-down offline effect as well. Migration too, for work or education and financial independence have given younger generations more autonomy to explore intimate relationships, experiment even.
The bigger change, however, comes with sexual wellness brands such as MyMuse, Leezu’s, and The Sassy Thing. They use humor and classy aesthetics to push their products and educate people about how to use them. In turn, they have become advocacy platforms for indulging in care and desire. They have also made asking for ‘permission’ and ‘consent’ cool, and promoted the idea of travelling with intimacy aids for a pleasurable holiday.
Therapists and counsellors have also been stressing the importance of clearly communicating one’s expectations. “I urge my clients to take a vacation together before getting married,” says Shalini Singh, founder of Andwemet, a platform that helps singles find their right match for marriage.
These still remain bedroom conversations though. Sexual wellness brands promise discreet packaging; their language revolves around care and wellness. Classy, yes, but also speaks volumes about how we continue to have reservations talking about these subjects. “Sexual intimacy is still tangled in self-imposed moral censorship,” says Neha Vyas, an intimacy director and coach. It’s like being in a complicated relationship. We are in it but can’t own it.
Vyas got a lot of hate for her reel discussing pleasure with her mother. People condemned her for making her mom uncomfortable. “But she wasn’t,” says Vyas. “People just assumed she was because they are.” (A 2021 survey from Adult Products India found that an increasing number of men and women above 65 are buying sex toys). According to her, the prolonged culture of silence about sexual wellness and health is to be blamed for it.
It’s reassuring then to see how more women seem to be taking matters into their own hands. A 2024 study on sex toy usage in India showed that roughly 40.5% of surveyed adults aged 18–45 use intimacy aids, with cisgender women and queer individuals leading adoption rates. That is a remarkable shift in a nation where consensual, adult sexual relationships among people of the same sex was criminalized until 2018. The real win though would be when intimacy becomes public discourse, and when sex education is no longer a contested subject.
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