A
Giant Leap Backwards
By Anindita Sengupta
05 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
State
governments in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have banned
sex education in schools. This is despite the central government's attempt
to make it compulsory from standard six, next academic year onwards.
The explanations for this ban rest on the usual pillars of obscenity
and objectionable material. The minds of young children can be irreparably
harmed if they learn about sex, according to our esteemed ministers.
In Karnataka, RSS leader and former MLC K Narahari backed Basavaraj
Horatti, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, saying students
would be better off attending classes on moral education than sex education.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan feels that youngsters
need yoga lessons instead. Never mind that these youngsters are hurtling
into puberty, eager for information on sex and quite willing to look
for it elsewhere.
Engaging in sexual encounters
without appropriate knowledge and guidance can lead to a host of physical,
emotional, and psycho-social problems ranging from unhealthy attitudes
towards the opposite sex and repression to unwanted pregnancy, sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV. In the absence of adequate and
proper sex education from school or family, many young people turn to
peers, friends and pornographic magazines and websites for information.
Especially among boys, porn is circulated like cigarettes or small change.
According to data, 75% of Indians learn about sex from friends and porn
films[1]. The result is another generation of Indians with half-baked
knowledge about sexual matters, very little awareness about their bodies,
and warped or misguided notions about the opposite sex and sexuality.
They have little choice really.
At home, parents are tight-lipped about sex. They neither provide sex
education, nor demand that it be offered at school. In fact, many are
probably relieved by the state governments’ decision, safe in
the erroneous belief that their children are blissfully disinterested
in sexual matters. Except that, this is not the truth—and the
next generation will have to pay a monstrous penalty for this lie.
The truth is that more and
more young people are indulging in premarital sex and some of them are
starting as early as 16. According to available data, 17% of teenagers
and 33% of college-going students have premarital sex[2]. Last year,
India Today and AC Nielsen conducted a survey of men in the age group
of 16 to 25 across 11 cities. Nearly half (46%) of the single males
had experienced sex, 37% of single young men had experienced a homosexual
experience and 49% of young men had experienced sex with sex worker.
The survey further stated that the average age of the first sexual encounter
is dropping, with most men having initiated sex between 16 and 20[3].
Clearly, young people are experimenting with sex earlier and are often
doing so in risky situations such as with a sex worker. Not equipping
these people with information about STDs and HIV is perilously irresponsible.
But politicians and self-appointed moral policing groups continue this
foolish charade, risking the lives and health of young people at the
altar of their paranoia.
The sex education manuals
for schools were prepared by the National AIDS Control Organization
(NACO) as part of their effort to combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS. With
more than 4.5 million people who are HIV positive, India is home to
the world’s second-largest population of people with HIV. Horrifyingly,
half of all Indians do not use condoms. In other parts of the world,
research has revealed that a balanced approach to educating young people
about HIV and AIDS has been effective in lowering infection rates[4].
In India, this remains a distant dream because of the huge setback that
this unthinking ban has wrought.
There are other compelling
reasons for sex education as well. Increasingly, women in India are
not opposed to premarital sex. Without proper education about their
bodies, young girls are prey to dangerous misconceptions ranging from
the fact that they can practice withdrawal as contraception to “oral
sex cannot lead to HIV infection”. Their engagement with sex is
furtive but precarious because they are never quite sure where the real
dangers lie and how their bodies will react to something. Their precautionary
measures are based on fragments of information pieced together. Sometime,
the pieces do not add up and one unknowing mistake can heft them over
the edge towards destruction.
Unwanted pregnancies can
have disastrous effects because being an unwed mother is not a viable
option for most women in India. Scared of parental censure and peer
ostracism, girls turn to hastily managed abortions (often in small,
unhygienic clinics) and in extreme cases, to suicide. Sex education
can not only empower them with an understanding of their own bodies,
it can also provide them with reasons to delay the age of first sex.
It is unfortunate that many parents do not realize that by giving their
daughters knowledge and control over their bodies, they are not corrupting
them morally; and they may just be saving their lives.
Lack of proper sex education
has insidious but large-scale effects on society as well. Experts in
other countries have already realized that sex education is not just
about physiology, conception, procreation or puberty but also a tool
to enlighten youngsters about sexual ethics and behaviour, gender consciousness,
love and marriage.[5]
In a society where sex is
taboo, men are susceptible to high levels of repression and frustration.
Misguided and ignorant, they are prone to unhealthy attitudes about
sex. Those who base sexual knowledge on pornography are more likely
to objectify women. Unable to accept either themselves or women as healthy
sexual beings, such men often have disjointed notions about sex, relationships
and marriage. This also reflects on the way they treat the women in
their lives—with a strange, schizoid mix of worshipful reverence
(goddess, mother), domineering protectiveness (wife, daughter) and callous
objectification (colleague, stranger).
Because many Indian men derive their ideas about women and sex from
ill-informed peers and pornographic magazines and receive no guidance
during the age when these notions are being formed, they are unable
to have a healthy view about women’s sexuality. Even in urban
areas, women are judged based on what they wear and labeled easily with
sexist terms such “slut”, “easy”, “fast”
and “loose” if they display awareness of themselves as sexual
beings. Women are routinely harassed on the streets and in offices.
Rape is devastatingly common. Rape and harassment cases are often viewed
through the jaundiced eyes of prejudices based on what the victim wears,
how she behaves, and whether she is considered ‘virtuous’.
A repressed school system that does not encourage men and women to interact
in a free, healthy and equal manner is largely responsible for these
regressive and dangerous mindsets. But it will be a while before we
can address these attitudes because the roadblocks have piled up during
the first mile itself.
A repressive society in which sex remains shadowed by doubt, guilt,
shame and fear can only lead to people seeking outlets in the wrong
ways. A healthy respect towards the body and a more realistic and complete
understanding of its implications, problems and complexities is crucial
as we move into a world where children do grow up faster—whether
we like it or not.
1 Sex Survey Essay, India
Today, November 13, 2006 p. 36-76
2 NDTV.com “Sex education:
India can learn from West”, March 28, 2007; Available at http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/
story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070007117
3 Sex Survey Essay, India
Today, November 13, 2006 p. 36-76
4 Advocates for Youth, “HIV
Prevention in Developing Countries”, May 2006
5 People’s Daily, “Sex
Education Urged to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy”, September 3, 2003;
Available online at
http://english.people.com.cn/200309/
03/eng20030903_123634.shtml
Anindita Sengupta is an independent writer, journalist
and poet. She is interested in marginalization, women's rights and sexual
rights and is involved in research and communications for development
organizations. She lives and works in Bangalore. She can be contacted
at [email protected]
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