By John B Monteiro

Sep 18: Sexual impotency which was swept under the carpet and provided grist for fertility clinics, psychiatrists, marital counsellors and even quacks has now surfaced into the public domain. The latest actor on the scene is Swami Nithyananda who approached the Supreme Court to buck an impotency (or is it potency?) test and was denied, on September 3, his prayer. Subsequently, he was made to undergo the test and the leaked results of the test and his threat to sue the doctors on various grounds is sure provide the grist for salacious comments in the weeks to come.

If Supreme Court takes on sexual impotency or potency, can High Court be far behind? But, first the facts, as reported in The Hindu, and the furore it has generated.

In a landmark ruling on September 10, 2014, the Madras High Court bench in Madurai has suggested pre-marital clinical examination of prospective couples to avoid impotency and sexually-transmitted diseases spoiling matrimonial lives. Justice N Kirubakaran, calling it an avoidable human tragedy, said: "If pre-marital clinical examinations by doctors are done, it will prevent not only impotents getting married, but (also) prevent marriages of people suffering from dangerous and incurable diseases. Governments should give first preference to tackling this kind of human problems."

Noting that women were the worst sufferers in such cases, he said it violated the very basic human rights, and right to decent and meaningful life. Underscoring the high rate of impotency-related marriage failures, the judge asked whether state and central governments were aware of the social scourge and whether they were ready to amend marriage laws so as to fast-track disposal of matrimonial disputes. Why not the government prescribe punishment for people who suppress impotency or frigidity at the time of marriage and cheat their would-be spouses, Justice Kirubakaran asked.

It started as a hearing of a husband’s petition to quash an FIR that his wife had filed against him for domestic violence. Justice Kirubakaran, listening to the arguments of the petitioner, veered to the question of “potency.” He deemed it fit to constitute a special sitting to decide whether premarital clinical examination for the bride and the groom should be made mandatory. Naturally, there was outrage. Some termed the move to make potency a precondition for marriage “outrageous”; medical professionals disagreed on whether tests could prove “potency.” But some voices, mostly those of women who had filed for divorce on the grounds of impotency, rang out in favour of the test at the sitting in Madurai.

“This does not exist anywhere else in the world. It is bizarre,” said Vijay Nagaswami, psychiatrist and relationships consultant. “Potency is a legal construct, not medical or psychological. In fact, we consider it a perfectly odious terminology.” The key argument against the move seems to be medical: a semen analysis and Doppler study will be done. “But they cannot tell potency from this. And there is no test available to test the ‘frigidity’ of women.” Dr. Nagaswami added that the majority of such issues are psychiatric in origin. A perfectly “potent” person could have issues in the bedroom; newly-wed couples may be crippled by anxiety. According to D. Narayana Reddy, sexologist, tests under laboratory conditions may not yield accurate results, and issues such as erectile dysfunction could be temporary. Also, technological progress has made effective intervention possible in most sexual problems. Instead of asking for potency tests, doctors suggest that proper sexual education should be made a part of premarital counselling.

Reporting on the subject for The Hindu, Mohamed Imranullah S. noted that claiming to be one of the many victims who had married impotent men due to suppression of facts, a woman lawyer urged the court to make the tests mandatory besides prescribing stringent punishment for such men and their families. Another woman and her aged mother broke down before the judge and cried for help in resolving the issue. Advocates Veera Kathiravan, K.K. Ramakrishnan and C. Ezhilarasu also spoke in favour of the medical test. The two dissenting voices were that of Salem-based advocate V. Ramakrishnan and Virudhunagar-based general physician R. Ashokan. They claimed that having sex was not the only purpose of marital life.

Dismissing criticism that the court was going beyond its jurisdiction, Justice Kirubakaran said: “Whatever may be the criticism, Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure says this court can pass any order as it deems fit to secure the ends of justice. I feel that every case provides a platform for the court to give a message to society.”

It is interesting to note that in an unusual revelation, the Madras High Court’s Madurai bench was informed that it was ‘mandatory’ by custom for men as well as women of the OBC Maravar community in Chinnamannur municipality in Uthamapalayam Taluk of Tamil Nadu’s Theni district to undergo pre-marital clinical examination to ascertain their potency and sexual frigidity besides checking for HIV. S. Arun, a lawyer hailing from Chinnamannur, told Justice Kirubakaran that people from his community will neither give their daughters in marriage nor let their sons marry a woman without subjecting the couple to clinical examination. “Even the marriage hall built by our community people in Chinnamannur insists on production of medical certificates,” he said.

Appreciating such a practice being followed by the people, the judge said: “From morning, we have been hearing arguments of pre-marital clinical examinations being conducted in China, France, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and Syria. But it is heartening to hear that right here at our backyard; there is a model town which has been doing such a great thing.”

It is interesting to note the potency test conducted in days of yore in the Canara Catholic community without the intervention of doctors – who were anyway not available in the rural setting. The prospective groom was taken to the prospective bride’s residence. He was made to walk in a dry tilled paddy field – pissing as he walked. The elders from both the side went and evaluated the impact of his pissing by the penetration the piss had made in the dusty field of tilled loose soil.

Incidentally, after he passed an interim order in the case asking the Centre as well as the Tamil Nadu government to spell out their stand on making pre-marital clinical examination compulsory, the parties to the petition before him filed a ‘compromise memo’ in the court stating that they were ready to obtain divorce on mutual consent as the petitioner’s wife had agreed to.

Readers will note that though the judge and the subsequent discussion on the subject male impotence has been the centre of focus and female frigidity has been referred to in passing despite the fact that both these are inter-related. How else can you explain that a - 90-year-old State Governor was caught playing love-games in his gubernatorial bed and had to resign? Also, another Guru, in his 70s, who had been arrested and now in goal, had been subjected to potency test. So, potency or the lack of it is not a stand-alone issue.

For man to rise to the occasion, you can’t have a dumb doll (or a living cadaver?) lying in the bed. Motivating or stimulating is the key. As Alexander Pope said in Rape of the Lock:

On her breast a sparkling cross she wore,

Which Jews might kiss and Infidels adore.

The setting is important for sexual competence, unless one is looking for sleep in the marital bed, as hinted by Byron:

Come lay thy head upon my breast,

And I will kiss thee into rest.

Author and journalist, John B Monteiro’s latest book, published in USA, titled Corruption – India’s Painful Crawl to Lokpal, priced at $21.5, is available online from Amazon and other major online distributors. His website www.welcometoreason.com also gives access to his general writings in his blog Monty's Cocktails.