Cafe Crackdown

Kerry Howley | February 4, 2005

According to state police, Indian youth are having way too much fun with the internet in public places. Explains one cop quoted in the Asia Times:

Besides watching porn websites, couples also had sex inside the small cabins of these cafes. The cabins have high walls and can be bolted from inside. Also, the entire first floor of these cafes was only meant for couples, with single girls or boys not allowed there. We found condoms strewn all over an empty plot [of land] near the cafes.

The instances are being used justify a series of raids on internet cafes in Uttar Pradesh, as well as proposed new laws to monitor internet usage and require ID cards.

If the internet cafes really are turning into makeshift sorority houses, it speaks more to the difficulty of finding a private space in Uttar Pradesh than any corrupting power of the internet. To a kid who lives in a three room flat with 10 of her relatives and will stay there until she marries, a cabin that can be locked from the inside must be a fairly exciting find.

Comments

|2.4.05 @ 3:18PM|#

God bless them they are using condoms. It is the beginning of the decline of their population.

So they are going to have some social security issues in a few years.

|2.4.05 @ 3:47PM|#

I don't get it. They have small, lockable cabins "reserved for couples"...what the hell do they expect people to do in them? Play "Go Fish"? I'm sorry, but in a country with or without limited space, this idea makes the cabins practically scream "have sex in me!"

I just hope they didn't make the cabins in order to spy on people having sex in them and then post it on the internet for a government profit.

PintofStout|2.4.05 @ 4:17PM|#

Hope they did or hope they didn't, smacky?

|2.4.05 @ 4:26PM|#

I hope they didn't make the cabins for that reason. Did I not make myself clear, or are you just giving me shit? :D

PintofStout|2.4.05 @ 4:27PM|#

just some shit for Friday afternoon. :)

|2.4.05 @ 4:28PM|#

Now if a private citizen made a profit...that would be something.

(Just kidding! sheesh...)

Larry A|2.4.05 @ 4:30PM|#

Well, if people are having unapproved sex the government has to lay the blame on something they can "fix." Preferably something they have other, less savory reasons for "fixing."

Restricting Internet access makes as much sense as banning couples dancing, blaming the availability of private automobiles, cracking down on pornography, preaching the evils of rock and roll (or depending on the era jazz or the waltz), or forcing exotic dancers to wear licenses.

What government never acknowledges is that once males and females hit puberty they don't have to be "led" to sex. It's one of those "pursuit of happiness" things endowed by their creator.

Larry A|2.4.05 @ 4:32PM|#

Well, if people are having unapproved sex the government has to lay the blame on something they can "fix." Preferably something they have other, less savory reasons for "fixing."

Restricting Internet access makes as much sense as banning couples dancing, blaming the availability of private automobiles, cracking down on pornography, preaching the evils of rock and roll (or depending on the era jazz or the waltz), or forcing exotic dancers to wear licenses.

What government never acknowledges is that once males and females hit puberty they don't have to be "led" to sex. It's one of those "pursuit of happiness" things endowed by their creator.

|2.4.05 @ 4:36PM|#

Smacky
"make the cabins in order to spy on people having sex in them and then post it on the internet for a government profit."

That seems like a workable idea, you should sell it to the indian govt

|2.4.05 @ 4:37PM|#

Uttar Pradesh utterly prudish?

|2.4.05 @ 4:41PM|#

Thanks, kwais. But I already gave that idea away. I always give my good ideas away. Need to take a "protecting my intellectual property rights" course or something. {sigh} Maybe I can try to sell it to North Korea instead.

|2.4.05 @ 5:15PM|#

When can we get those cafes over here?

pococurante|2.4.05 @ 5:27PM|#

"banning couples dancing" reminds me of an old (oooold?) joke, or one version thereof:

Q. Why do Baptists disapprove of premarital sex?

A. It might lead to dancing.

(Friday frivolity's getting to me, I guess.)

|2.4.05 @ 5:43PM|#

I think it goes something like, whey to lutherans disaprove of having sex standing up? Because it might lead to dancing.

At least that is the way it was in a Liam Neeson movie about old Scotland or something.

|2.4.05 @ 5:48PM|#

Smacky,
Maybe the injins don't read 'Reason'. You could still sell it. Unless there is a plagerizing thieving poster here other than myself that beat you to it after getting the idea.

|2.4.05 @ 7:45PM|#

If they really lack private space for, um, private encounters, then I imagine one could make a killing by driving around an RV and renting out the back by the hour.

Excuse me, I have to go to India now...

Ruthless|2.4.05 @ 9:25PM|#

Love will find a way.

|2.5.05 @ 7:14AM|#

The important question is whether or not they have condom dispensers inside those little cabins.