People are not open about sex in India because they have never heard of this topic ever openly. Whenever they have to talk about it they need to think thousand times. Considering this scenario, it has caused a lot of difficulties in the life of youngsters. In a survey conducted by the National Institute of Health and Family welfare and suppressed by India’s health ministry said that a quarter to the third of the youngsters indulges in premarital sex without having any knowledge about birth control or STDs.
It is stated that 17% of school children to 33% among young workers indulge in premarital sex in the North Indian population. The average age of Indians having sex is 17.4 years for boys and 18.2 for girls. In Lucknow premarital sex is more common than that in Delhi. In the reports, it was stated that a third of respondents said they lack awareness of unsafe encounters.
Why this scenario is in India?
Well, how often have you heard of sex openly? The problem is here no one talks about it! Our educators, teachers, parents, and governing bodies never considering talking about this sensitive topic which is really important to be discussed. Indian don’t like talking about sex and is considered a taboo, it is considered against our culture, bad for society and corrupts the young people. Indians think that it distracts people from the right path, is a dirty thing, and is something that ashamed people. This ultimately concludes that the reason why people are private about sex.
The next reason after people being characterless if they have sex is that people consider that woman should be almost asexual and if a woman is this then only the woman is good, pure, and chaste. Our culture only demands us to be sexual only if one is married and just in case if it’s not the case then it is lack of morals and harmful for the society as well as for that person too.
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Was this quietness about sex, always there?
Just to surprise you, NO! The ancient texts such as Mahabharata and the Puranas are quite open about sex and portray a liberal society. So what happened to this open and biased society? The Mughal and British Rules made people in India turn this way. Many others say that another reason is the Brahmin priests created draconian rules and these reasons turned India to be so conservative.
Who can probably teach children about sex?
Mainly it’s the school, teachers, parents, or the governing bodies who teach almost everything about life and the basic things that are necessary to know. Well, necessities change with the situations as well as age. So when the children reach that particular stage why don’t they all discuss sex, which in fact is really essential.
Why don’t parents talk about sex?
Parent’s think that the children are innocent and it isn’t the right time to open up this thing but at one stage they will obviously lose their innocence, which can happen anytime, so they make a long delay before telling about sex.
Secondly, they think that it’s ‘too embarrassing’, every parent feels this way but no embarrassment should stop someone to discuss a really important subject. Some parents also feel that the children never asked about it so they never told, if a child doesn’t ask about sex or relationships that doesn’t mean they are not interested, which means that the parents need to start the conversation first.
Some people say that the parents don’t know how to answer but for this thing, you just need to be honest with which your students will feel satisfied. And if you are not sure about the question just analyze it and search just in case and tell it to them honestly. Next, they think that the children will become sexually active which is a major tension of many parents, well if they are guided in the correct manner and withhold all the information they will not be sexually active but it would be the opposite.
Some parents think that they wouldn’t like to hear it from me, well well well children are most comfortable with their parents and they would love to hear it all from you and they will surely trust what you say so go for it. So now when they're all clear why not talk to your kids now? Just give it a try!
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Sex Education in schools: The growing awareness of AIDS has caused people to talk more about sex which wasn’t the case once, though while teaching about sex education it is common to talk about teen pregnancy and HIV but still till now not many people are aware of homosexuality and menstruation. Even the knowledge about safe sex is not complete.
Despite regular news of child sexual abuse, the knowledge of right and wrong touch begins from grade 5th before which a lot of children are already abused. The government of India initiated ‘Adolescent Education Program’ (AEP) in 2007 in collaboration with the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
This was an important initiative that aimed to ‘empower young people with accurate, age-appropriate and culturally relevant information, promote healthy attitudes and develop skills to enable them to respond to real-life situations in positive ways. However, this program considers issues such as body image, violence and abuse, gender and sexuality and STIs, substance abuse, especially drugs and other unhealthy attitudes, the notion of ‘consent’ and ‘attraction’ was neither introduced nor taught in this program. The program was not implemented and was banned by 12 Indian state governments as the program’s content was considered to be ‘inappropriate’. There has been the constant claim that the incorporation of sex education will increase ‘risky behavior’ amongst adolescents and young students.
The government on sex: No
government officer will ever talk about sex, the only way people live in India
is that they pretend that sex doesn’t exist, which is really vague because
ignoring such a huge population should never be a thing. This strategy is of no
use because we are humans first and humans later so people will have sex and it
is powerful so it has the force to bring people together despite all the
progress and other comforts designed, nothing can compete for the force of sex.
Whenever there is a rape case people say that punish or rather kill the culprit and this is what goes all the way round no one ever thinks of debating on this topic or talking about it. A lot of changes are required in the way how sexual criminals should be punished but despite the right to freedom and the right to speak no one ever discusses it.
The major issues causing these problems are:
The first of the major problem is, the repression of sexual desire, and secondly, Indians have no one to discuss it with someone or have a meaningful debate about the same. Talking of the drawbacks of this repression, it affects the youngsters mostly and leads to lies as well as hypocrisy.
The problem which arises when people pretend that sex doesn’t exist is that no one till now knows what the right age of having sex is; thinking of the age consent makes people feel that it is just a license which permit people to have sex.
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What’s the scenario now?
Though technology has brought everyone together and is the biggest tool in hand where the youngsters can talk about this issue openly and freely, then only the anti-sex attitude can change. We need to refresh our societal morals and shift them from the traditional to the modern one and be more suited to the current scenario. People should start talking about sex and start providing the knowledge so that people learn to take precautions and know what is right and wrong. Discussing sex is a significant topic and should be done.