Speaking to news persons in Mumbai, General Secretary of the AIYF Nikhil Fernandes said, `An unknown model drapes a flag around a waist and within a week she is a celebrity interviewed by all top TV channels. Another girl poses nude claiming that she wants to feature in Playboy and she makes headlines.
Sunny Leone whose only claim to fame is her porn career is glorified as though she has won an Oscar for her performance. Why do Indian organizers, TV channels and film makers invite porn stars for their work? It is just another short cut route to instant publicity. We have become a nation of short cutters (sic).
Our politicians want a short cut route to make money and our youth follow suit. We have become a nation obsessed with porn and sleaze as every day porn stars like Sunny Leone and Sherlyn Chopra are reported in glowing terms by the Indian media.`
Meanwhile the AIYF released data to show that thousands of Indians have subscribed to porn websites like that of Sunny Leone thanks to her popularity in India. Pramila Sharma of the research cell of the AIYF said that according to figures available over 80,000 Indians used the services of payment gateways to access and pay subscriptions to porn sites, adult dating sites and other sex chat lines or sex websites during the year 2012.
Sunny Leone has got over 10,000 paid subscriptions to her porn website from India alone, according to data collated from various sources in India and the United States. Pramila Sharma blasted film maker Mahesh Bhatt and Ekta Kapoor and held them responsible for the `porn culture` spreading in India.
`If respected film makers like Mahesh Bhatt and Ekta Kapoor who have deep pockets can resort to cheap tricks to promote their films, what can we expect of lesser individuals. Why do we blame one or two persons? Why doesn't society introspect and look inside. Lakhs of youth protested in Delhi, but did anyone bother to look into the actual problem.
Unemployed or semi-employed youth who live away from their wives or homes are exposed to porn which is easily available. Either the government should legalize prostitution or ban surrogate promotion of porn in India,` Pramila Sharma said.