Mumbai woman moves Supreme Court over husband’s porn addiction
Mumbai woman moves Supreme Court over husband’s porn addiction
A 27-year-old woman has approached the Supreme Court, saying her husband is suffering from acute porn addiction as a result of which their marriage is on the rocks, and sought a complete ban on online pornography. The woman, a resident of Mumbai, blamed porn sites for her husband’s addiction, which she claimed had “ruined” her matrimonial life. She said that because of this habit, her 35-year-old husband has become so “perverted” that he is ignoring his day-to-day activities and their marriage is in trouble as he is indifferent to her physical and material needs. He has also been insisting on a divorce by mutual consent and has already moved the family court. The woman has moved the court through lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani, seeking to become party to a plea filed by the advocate in 2013 to ban online pornography. In her affidavit, she said: “My husband has been an addict of porn and spends a lot of his precious time watching porn... He is suffering from lack of virility and vitality and thus is unable to initiate sexual intercourse. However, my husband has at times forced me to have unnatural oral sex with him against my wishes. Thus he is exhibiting abnormal behaviour ruining my married life.” The woman said she came to know that her husband has been a pornography addict since his teens. “The easy availability of porn in this country is a serious impediment in the progress of this nation as a whole new generation is adversely affected leading to perversion of youth, loss of moral and spiritual values which if not checked can lead to total lack of productivity, rise in sex crimes, matrimonial disputes and a state of doom...,” she added. Last year, another woman had approached the apex court saying her marriage has been ruined due to her husband’s porn addiction. A Class 12 student had also moved the court seeking a direction to block sleazy sites and cited cases of his friends who were addicted to porn. The Supreme Court has been exploring the possibility of banning watching of pornographic material in any form at public places and has also sought the view of the government on if it can be made a crime. However, the Central government said it only favours banning child pornography sites and not going beyond, considering a citizen’s right to privacy, and also because it does not want to do moral policing.