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Ganesh Acharya forced a junior choreographer to watch porn before suspending her. Isn't it time we started talking about the non-touch sexual abuse too?
Ganesh Acharya forced a junior choreographer to watch porn before suspending her. Isn’t it time we started talking about the non-touch sexual abuse too?
Yet another famous Bollywood choreographer is caught in a scandal. But this time around, the accusations are much more serious. Celebrity choreographer Ganesh Acharya was earlier embroiled in a scandal where Tanushree Dutta accused him of spreading malicious rumours against her. And now, another woman has come forward alleging he assaulted her.
The 33-year-old woman wrote a letter to the National Commission for Women (NCW). In the letter, she alleged that the choreographer forced her to watch porn films whenever she visited his Mumbai office.
The woman is an assistant choreographer filed a complaint with the police against Acharya too. In her complaint, she stated that Acharya and two women assaulted her during a function of the Indian Film and Television Choreographer’s Association (IFTCA). The function was held in Andheri, in Mumbai on Sunday, January 26.
Besides Acharya, the she named Jayashree Kelkar and Preeti Lad in her complaint for assault, a police official said. The woman is a member of the IFTCA, of which Acharya is the elected General Secretary.
According to the complaint filed with the police, when the woman reached the IFTCA office on Sunday, Acharya yelled at her and announced that she was being suspended.
She further said that Acharya was so furious after she told him she was a member of the IFTCA, he asked his team member to slap her. “Jayashree Kelkar and Preeti Lad hit me in public view. This was captured on the CCTV,” her complaint states. Police have registered a non-cognisable (NC) offence and are investigating the case.
What this situation brings to light is a kind of assault that is rarely talked about, that of forcing someone to watch adult movies. Harassment doesn’t always have to be physical, including people touching you without consent.
In this day and age, with the internet boom being a major factor in how people take in sexual content, the definition of harassment has broadened. Doing anything remotely sexual without consent is a form of sexual abuse. By now, we are pretty clear that every act that we do with someone else requires for them to consent on it.
Disrespecting a person’s boundaries and making someone watch porn is definitely a kind of sexual assault. It is especially harmful for children and is classified as one of the non-touch forms of sexual assault.
Other things that come under non touch form of abuse is to ask someone to show their sex organs, masturbating in front of the person, asking them to touch your genitalia or even showing it to them without their permission.
In work settings it is more of a danger as one has to comply to one’s superiors or one loses the ability to hold the job. That is where sexual harassment like this gets lost in a war of words. It is a ‘he said – she said’ narrative that is impossible to get out of.
Most of the time porn is made for singular consumption. To force someone to watch it , either as a superior or an adult, violates their right to choose what they want to watch/ignore or even who they want to watch it with.
Other than that, it is completely inappropriate for someone on a more powerful position to force you into situations that are harmful for you. It is inappropriate to force you into doing anything that harms your mental well-being too.
If the allegations are confirmed and the accused is punished it will set a benchmark on how people are treated. Workplace harassment and non-touch abuse often goes unnoticed because it is hard to report or explain.
With reports like these surfacing, conversations are being opened about the types of harassment people are subjected to or are unaware of.
Picture credits: YouTube
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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