The Love We Learned in the Living Room

Tamil love scripts, Western sex scripts, and what happens when your body is caught between both

If you grew up Tamil in Canada, you already know the moment.

A kiss scene comes on. Everyone suddenly becomes intensely interested in the remote control. Someone coughs like they are auditioning for a lead role. And the fast forward button gets pressed so quickly it deserves its own award.

I still remember how normal that felt. The message was subtle but loud.

Love was allowed. Longing was allowed. Songs in the rain were allowed. But anything that looked too direct, too physical, too honest was treated like a problem that needed to be skipped past.

I once had a photo of me kissing someone during prom and I hid it like it was contraband. A tattoo meant I was unholy, or rebellious, or both, depending on who was speaking. And being a “good Tamil girl” was not just an identity. It was a performance with rules.

Funny in hindsight. But also not nothing.

Because those rules do not stay on the TV screen. They quietly become the template your body uses for intimacy, conflict, and sex in relationships.

We all grow up with scripts

...even when nobody explains them

There is a whole body of research that describes sexuality as “scripted” by culture. Not scripted like fake. Scripted like learned. Culture gives us the storyline for what is normal, what is shameful, what is allowed, and what is never to be said out loud.

So if you grew up in a home where dating was not allowed, vulnerability was rare, and sexuality was taboo, your nervous system learned something like this:

Do not be obvious.

Do not be “too much.”

Do not embarrass the family.

Do not make it easy for anyone to judge you.

And if you grew up also absorbing Western media, you learned a totally different script at the same time:

Be confident.

Be direct.

Be sexy.

Be spontaneous.

Be bold.

So you end up with two competing instructions living in the same body.

Tamil movies taught many of us how to love

...but not always how to be vulnerable

Tamil cinema can be incredibly romantic. There is longing. Devotion. Sacrifice. The love is often intense, poetic, and full of tension. But it is also frequently coded through modesty, respectability, and the idea that a “good woman” must stay within certain lines. Scholarship on South Indian cinema has examined how respectability and stigma shape what heroines can be and how they are judged. So many of us learned love as something you feel deeply, but reveal carefully.

And that brings me to conflict.

When intimacy is taboo, couples fight around it

...instead of through it

A lot of couples I meet are not fighting about sex. They are fighting about dishes, texting, tone, time, “you never plan anything,” “you are always on your phone.”

But underneath, the fight is often about closeness.

I want to feel wanted.

I want to feel safe.

I want to feel chosen.

I want to feel like I am not alone in this relationship.

Emotionally Focused Therapy talks about how couples can get stuck in patterns where one partner pursues and the other withdraws, not because they do not care, but because their attachment alarm is going off and they are trying to protect themselves in opposite ways. EFT is also an evidence supported couple therapy approach.

Now add cultural scripts that say “do not talk about private things.” It makes emotional and sexual vulnerability harder to practice.

So instead of saying, “I miss you,” people criticize.

Instead of saying, “I feel insecure,” people accuse.

Instead of saying, “I want closeness,” people shut down.

This is not a character flaw. It is a learned language.

The secrecy piece nobody talks about

...how hiding can become part of the intimacy blueprint

Many first gen South Asian folks learned early that if you wanted love, you needed strategy.

You lied about where you were going. You created cover stories. You became skilled at hiding.

And yes, for some people, secrecy came with adrenaline. The thrill of getting away with it. The intensity of something forbidden.

That makes sense. It is how the nervous system responds to high stakes situations.

But here is the part worth reflecting on as an adult. Research suggests that secrecy and self concealment in romantic relationships can be linked with lower relationship well being, including satisfaction and commitment. And concealment of a relationship itself has been linked to lower commitment and poorer well being. So if your early love was built in hiding, your adult relationship might carry echoes of that. Not because you are untrustworthy. Because your nervous system learned love equals risk.

Sometimes people carry that into marriage and feel confused when “safe love” feels boring. Or they feel uncomfortable when a partner wants directness, honesty, and emotional exposure. Safety can feel unfamiliar when your first romance felt like a mission.

Interracial and bicultural couples are doing double translation

...and it is exhausting sometimes

In interracial relationships, it is not just two people. It is two cultural instruction manuals, plus the outside world. You might be navigating different expectations about affection, modesty, family involvement, gender roles, or privacy. You might also be dealing with discrimination and social stress as a couple, which research suggests can impact wellbeing. So you can end up arguing about intimacy while also carrying the weight of being watched, judged, or questioned by family, community, and society.

That is a lot for any couple.

The quiet pressure on South Asian women

Pride, modesty, and the modern dating problem

Here is something I hear often from first gen South Asian women.

They want love. They want partnership. They want intimacy. And they also want to keep their dignity, their cultural pride, and their boundaries intact.

But if you did not get to practice dating openly, it can feel like starting late.

How do you read red flags if you were never allowed to date. How do you trust your gut if you were taught to doubt yourself.

How do you choose a partner when you were trained to prioritize reputation over desire

So yes, some families shift into a modern version of arranged marriage that looks more like introductions, setting you up, or gently pushing dates.

Sometimes it helps.

Sometimes it adds pressure.

Sometimes marriage starts to look like an escape hatch.

Not always from family, sometimes from loneliness, judgment, or the constant feeling of being “behind.” And across Canada, people are marrying later than previous generations, which can intensify cultural pressure when family timelines do not match social timelines.

I want to say this clearly. There is nothing wrong with marrying later, or not marrying at all.

But the emotional load on women in conservative cultures can be heavy.

So what do we do with all of this

As adults, as partners, as people who want real closeness

We start by treating intimacy like a skill, not a personality trait.

Research shows that sexual communication is strongly linked with relationship and sexual satisfaction. In a meta analysis, higher sexual communication was associated with both relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. In other words, you do not need to magically become “more confident.” You need language, practice, safety, and repair.

And if you grew up in a culture where sex was taboo, you may need to learn the basics that other people take for granted, like:

How to name what you like without shame.

How to say no without fear.

How to ask for closeness without criticism

How to talk about conflict without becoming a lawyer

How to be seen without feeling exposed

That is not embarrassing. That is growth.

A few reflective questions

If any of this hit a nerve, try these gently

What did my culture teach me about being a “good” partner?

What did Western media teach me about being “desirable”?

Where do those scripts conflict inside me?

When I avoid intimacy, what am I protecting?

When I get critical, what am I really longing for?

Does secrecy still feel like love to my nervous system?

Final thought

There is a way to be proud and modest and still deeply intimate.

There is a way to honour culture without living in silence.

There is a way to desire without shame.

A lot of us did not get models for that. So we learn it now.

Slowly. Surely. Honestly.