(Clockwise from top) Payal Rohatgi and Sidharth Koirala in Fun ? Can Be Dangerous Sometimes; Shiny Ahuja and Seema Rahmani in Sins; Diana Hayden in Ab...Bas and Preeti Jhangiani in Chahat ? Ek Nasha

Going by the shabby treatment meted out by audiences to this season?s flesh fests ? Sheesha, Chahat Ek Nasha and Fun: Can Be Dangerous Sometimes ? one a bigger flop than the previous, there?s apparently a steep drop in the audiences? libidinous aspirations in the movie theatres.

?They just don?t want to watch films with semi-naked women and scores of smooches any longer,? marvels Bihar exhibitor Roshan Singh. Until last year, Bihar was seen as a primary market for cheesy films. Singh attributes the Black factor to the sudden change in the audiences? palate. ?A sense of refined entertainment has crept into our cinema. After Black, audiences have lost their appetite to pamper their basic instincts, at least temporarily.? So has Black changed the audiences? profile? ?Not really,? says Singh. ?It?s just a passing phase. There?s a whole lot of sexy films on the way. By the law of averages, one of them will do well, and the sleaze season will start again.? For now, it seems ?sexy? films are putting off the audience.

In fact, last week writer-director Vinod Pande nearly burnt his fingers irreparably when his controversial and deeply provocative new film, Sins, was perceived as one more flesh-in-the-pan concoction. ?I was totally opposed to my film being projected as titillating and sexy. Unfortunately, the projection and marketing aren?t things one has any control over,? Pande regrets. Apparently, Pande was totally opposed to the film?s exceedingly provocative stills that were circulated. These pictures, not reflective of any image within the film, showed the film?s leading man, Shiney Ahuja, supine in bed with the film?s leading lady, Seema Rahmani, both naked and the man covering the lady?s breasts with his arms.

The photo session was conducted in utter secrecy, apparently without the director?s knowledge. Seema sees the stills as part of the endeavour to bring the film?s theme of forbidden love out in the open. ?I completely stand by what you call provocative and vulgar photographs. The film is about love and sex. And you can?t have a story about love and sex without nudity. I certainly don?t find anything wrong in people without clothes in a love-making scene.?

The inherent danger of such aggressive marketing is that the right audience is lost to a sensitive film with a sexual content. It happened 30 years ago to B.R. Ishaara?s Chetna and Rajinder Singh Bedi?s Dastak when the two films? leading lady, Rehana Sultan, shocked the nation?s moralists. In the hoardings of Chetna, Rehana?s parted legs while standing up on a bed were seen with the man (Anil Dhawan) caught between the inverted ?A? (which was also used to hint at the adults certificate). In Dastak, Rehana did a shocking nude scene (in the staid 1970s) where, startled by a mouse, she jumps and drops her bedsheet. The two films with their sexually charged themes (in Chetna, Rehana played a prostitute who cannot come to terms with being with one man; in Dastak she was a housewife who begins to behave like a whore when she and her husband move into a red-light area) finished off the National Award winner?s career.

Seema Rahman isn?t perturbed by the danger of being segregated into the colony of the bold in Bollywood after Sins. However, her more homespun colleagues like Mallika Sherawat, Neha Dhupia and Meghna Naidu are on the look-out for a serious career makeover. While Mallika, unsuccessfully, moved from smooches, moans and adultery in Murder to situational comedy in Kis Kiski Kismat, Neha Dhupia intends to make it contractually clear that she?s steering clear of sleaze. In her next release ? Harry Baweja?s Siskiyan, directed by Ashwini Choudhary, Neha doesn?t have a single moment of skin to show. Will audiences approve of Neha?s makeover plans?

Sridevi started her career in Hindi films as ?Thunder Thighs?. In her first Hindi film, Solva Sawan, she had waded into thigh-deep water with her ghagra hitched nearly up to her waist. Now Bipasha Basu, too, wants to shed light rather than clothes. In Prakash Jha?s new film, Apharan, she?s cast as a demure middle-class girl.

Just how the audience reacts to the makeover of the centrespread queens depends entirely on their attitude to skin flicks in the coming months. The promotional clips of Mahesh Bhatt?s new production, Zehar, show Udita Goswami?s bare back to the camera while a discernibly bored Emran Hashmi looks on. Could this be a symbolic glimpse into things to come? ?Oh, absolutely,? says Anant Mahadevan who after the endearing Dil Vil Pyar Vyar and Dil Maange More!!! wants to continue to reclaim the feeling of innocence lost to man-woman relationships. On the anvil from Mahadevan is, ?a very cute, very innocent and appealing love story? with Sammir Dattani in the lead. ?I do believe Raj Kapoor?s Bobby should be the yardstick of cinematic love.? But will Anant Mahadevan?s arcadian vision kill the zehar of lustful liaisons that has overtaken Indian cinema in recent months?

In Pakeezah, Raaj Kumar fell in love with Meena Kumari?s feet when he chanced upon them uncovered when the lady is asleep in a train. Today, they?ve moved much ahead and above. Quite a feat.