A Giant Leap Backwards
By Anindita Sengupta
05 April, 2007
Countercurrents.orgState 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=NEWEN200700071173 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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