The International Herald Tribune reported that sex-related magazines are taboo in India, but can still be found hidden behind other publications at some newsstands.
In a little-noticed milestone for the world of sex-related entertainment, Playboy said last month that it would seek to do in India what it had never done before: publish a magazine with its usual fare, except for its name and its nudes.
"This is quite a departure for us," Christie Hefner, the chief executive of Playboy Enterprises, told reporters in December.
One reason for the plan, still in its initial stages, is the usual emerging-market strategy: when profits flatten in the West, companies pivot to India and China. Whereas Playboy's United States magazine sales shrank by 1 percent in 2004, its foreign revenue grew by 13 percent from 20 overseas editions published in countries from Brazil to Serbia.
Foreign magazines' interest in India is understandable. As media growth flattens in the West, India's is booming. It has nearly 200 million magazine readers and is the second-largest newspaper market in the world, behind China. The print advertising market is $1.5 billion a year and growing.
But there is another story behind Playboy's discovery of India. The magazine once saw itself as America's gateway to a sexual revolution. Now, with that revolution won, Playboy has a chance to renew itself as a magazine of high living in a country that celebrated sex in antiquity, then grew prudish, and is now loosening up again.
Hefner has said that an Indian version of the magazine "would be an extension of Playboy that would be focused around the lifestyle, pop culture, celebrity, fashion, sports and interview elements of Playboy."
But the magazine would not be "classic Playboy," she warned. "It would not have nudity," she said, "and I don't think it would be called Playboy."
Some see India in the 2000's as similar to America in the 1950's: on the cusp of a sexual revolution, with stirrings of changes in private that have yet to gain public acceptability.
In an attitudinal sea change, one-quarter of urban, unmarried women have sex, one-third read erotic literature and half go on dates, according to a survey by ACNielsen and India Today magazine.
Bollywood, a mirror of the Indian spirit, now does what it refused to do five years ago: show a kiss on-screen.
India is not only on the brink of a sexual revolution, it is also overflowing with ambition, as a small but growing class of young, urban, world-traveling men with disposable income find their way to a new upper class.
The democratization of affluence is creating would-be male connoisseurs, keen for tutelage in ways of the high life.
India has yet to have its own 1960's, in which sexual change accompanied broader upheaval. In the city of Madras, the police recently shut down a nightspot after local news media published photographs of clubgoers kissing. Then came a judgment by Mumbai's highest court that films not rated U, for universal, could not be shown on television; among the disqualified films are the "Harry Potter" movies.
More generally, Indian conservatives, including conservative Hindu political leaders, say the country should resist Western sexualization.
Indian law prohibits the sale or possession of material that is "lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest" and that is without redeeming artistic, literary or religious merit. Soft-core pornographic magazines are available in India, but are taboo. They lurk behind other publications at newsstands, available only by whispered request. They also attract few lucrative advertisers.
"There would only be a few brands that would look at these magazines," said Paulomi Dhawan, who runs advertising for Raymond, a leading Indian apparel maker. "We would probably be more in the business or news magazines or the male-oriented serious magazines."
There is another problem: if you are 26, living with prying parents, where do you hide your stash?
"In urban India, the concept of single men living alone is quite new," Radhakrishnan said. "Here, most men, until they're married, live at home. Once you're married, your wife wonders what you're reading."
As Playboy wrestles with how to peddle its content here, some in India are concerned about the magazine's plans.
"They are going to spoil our culture," said Venkatesh Abdev, a top official of the World Hindu Council, a conservative organization. "We are not giving as much importance to sex as them. Free sex is not allowed in our culture."
But India embraced recreational sex in antiquity, producing the famed Kama Sutra and sculpting many-positioned orgies into the facades of Hindu temples. The Indian law against prurient material makes a special exemption for "any ancient monument" or "any temple."
Reminded of the Kama Sutra, Abdev chuckled, reflected for a bit, and then said, "We do not admit to that."
