RPI women's wing wants Sunny Leone's 'immoral' condom ads withdrawn

Sunny Leone

The women's wing of the Republican Party of India (A) on Monday demanded the yanking of an advertisement featuring former adult entertainer and Bollywood actress Sunny Leone promoting a condom brand.

"The advertising campaign objectifies the feminine gender and has proved to be a sheer embarrassment for all women viewers... It's a very ugly scene and conveys a very different message," an indignant Women's Wing secretary Sheela Gangurde told IANS.

She pointed out that the ad shown on various television channels has made it awkward for the women in a household -- mother, sister, wife or daughter -- to sit together with the family and watch.

"In fact, we have received scores of complaints from women viewers, women activists and others on the 'undesirable' content of this and even some other advertisements promoting condoms or contraceptives, and these should be banned," Gangurde said.

She claimed that the "shabby, immoral and ugly manner in which the actress seduces or sexually provokes a man in the ad to use condoms is nothing but serving immorality and a bad practice to the Indian audiences, hurting their moral ethos, ethics, religious and spiritual values."

Expressing her "deep anguish", she said India is advanced but not to the extent that such content can be freely aired or viewed on television channels by close-knit families at home.

The party - led by Union Minister Ramdas Athavale - has served a week's ultimatum to the government to initiate steps to withdraw the Suny Leone ad, failing which it would launch an agitation.