Bedroom laptops short-circuit Indian libido

CHENNAI: A large number of Indians who are plugging into technological revolution are severing some vital connections on the marital bed. On his return to India from a stint in Europe, Kunal (34), a top executive with a multinational management consultancy, showed his Apple MacBook to his wife Nirmala (30). She looked lovingly at the gadget that had helped Kunal stay in touch with her ‘day and night’.

Today, she stares at it with loathing and despair. Kunal continues to be on the MacBook day and night, ignoring her.

Shibu (37), a Bangalore-based financial consultant, admits that he has regular spats with his partner over the laptop. Shibu thinks he has a case: “When she can read a book in bed, why can’t I browse there?” Feelings have indeed been heightened, but climax is often a cold night on the couch for one of the partners.

“Technology is invading the young Indian’s bedroom,” says Dr Prakash Kothari, sexologist, based in Mumbai. “It started with the TV and then the mobile phone. Laptop is the latest intruder.”

If the desktop prompted people to take work home, the laptop has them taking it to bed. “Luckily, not many have laptops. But with its proliferation, the problem may worsen,” says Dr D Narayana Reddy, a sexologist who practises in Chennai.

A University of Arizona study found that computer addicts were becoming “isolated from a shrinking circle of confidants”. Duke University’s research derived a more worrying conclusion: Internet addicts were “less likely to name their spouse as their first confidant.”

Kothari says such studies have not been conducted in India, but suggests that sexologists now need to keep in mind the probable role of the laptop in marital discord. 

“Between the mouse and the house, many young couples are getting their priorities mixed,” says Reddy. “And the majority of culprits are husbands.”

He says some top management professionals are so focused on work that they forget their love lives. “At my clinic, they make notes about the things they want to ask me - some of them on their laptops - lest they forget,” he says.

Kothari does not want to banish laptops from the bedroom altogether. “The ideal thing is to make your partner the laptop,” he remarks. “But if you need some digital titillation, watching erotica on the laptop could be an aphrodisiac for both partners.”

But the most important four-letter word in the bedroom is 'talk', he says. “And the laptop should not be an impediment to that.” Rachna Kothari, a Mumbai-based psychologist specialising in relationship counselling, says a laptop can turn talk to argument, as in Shibu's case. “The laptop sometimes demands the man's complete attention - and so does the woman,” she says.

“The sad thing is that both want to have a good time, but end up not doing what would have gratified both.”

M Ajith, head of business operations with an oil company, says he knows where to draw the line: “My laptop is switched on 24 hours in our bedroom, but never on our bed.

“I may have to keep track of the company's affairs, but I don't mix work with play.”