Sex! I am sure a lot of people are already cringing! But it’s OK, it is not your fault either. Anyway, we all love getting nostalgic, right? Let’s recall an iconic line from our childhood days, which goes something like this- बच्चों को परियाँ पंखुड़ी में लपेट कर आसमान से लाती हैं और माँ की कोख में उन्हें छोड़ जाती हैं! (Babies are dropped into a mother’s womb by angels who carry them wrapped in petals) This or at least something similar to this is what we were told as kids when we would ask anyone how a child was born!
Why on earth could they not tell us the truth!? I know that we were not mature enough to understand all, but even today (now that I am an adult!), if I ask my mom the same question, I’d get the same answer! Why don’t they talk to us openly about it? People never realised and some still don’t realise that this habit of “NOT SPEAKING” has slowly turned sex education into a taboo! Gone are the days of Vatsyayana’ Kamasutra where sex was not considered profane.
When children come to know about the actual process of reproduction, they start cringing! All of my friends including myself were disgusted by our origin! Also, we all remember the unfortunate female teacher trying to teach the 8th standard biology classes that would erupt in chuckles.
Ours is one such country where youngsters are expected to lead a life, absolutely unaware of sex or reproductive health. And if something goes wrong, then, instead of admitting their mistake in not educating us, they start shaming the child. Especially girls are slut-shamed in our society, even to the extent of honour killing!
In our country, many brides are expected to have sexual intercourse with a person who is practically a stranger! And the situation becomes worse when a lot of them don’t even know anything about having intercourse! Some even judge their virginity by the status of their hymen. Let me tell you all once again that sexual intercourse is not the only way which leads to the breaking of the hymen!
Women in our country prefer to stay silent or look for a very close female member to share their problems of excessive bleeding, menstrual cramps etc. Girls get into awkward confrontations with male family members in this context. We all remember the awkward moment in a medical store where we used to say “bhaiya woh dena” (brother, please give me that) or taking the safe option of writing “xyz pad” in a piece of paper. Why can’t girls just say it directly?! And what is with the newspaper wrapping and black polythenes?
The worst part is that the medical store guys also chuckle! No wonder as per the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16), 62% of the girls (15-24 yrs) opt for cloth and 16% depend on locally prepared napkins! The report also shows that dropout rates amongst women have a direct connection with menstruation.
In India, people prefer to have unsafe sexual intercourse or unwanted pregnancies but refuse to talk about these things. Girls hesitate to buy a packet of condoms! Why do they expect that a boy would carry it every time? Shouldn’t they also bear some responsibility for their own safety? The situation is no less awkward for the boys, after all, every time they visit a medical shop to buy contraceptives, they are subjected to judgmental looks!
People prefer itchy skin, rashes, scaly lesions, fungal infections etc. but refuse to talk to someone. They wait for it to deteriorate and then see a doctor! They refuse to discuss or find out about genital hygiene in the very first place. Women don’t dry their lingerie in sunlight because they think it’s embarrassing! But you know what is worse? The infections you may contract by not drying them in the sunlight!
People prefer being childless but refuse to go for modern techniques like sperm donation, surrogacy, IVF etc. People don’t want to talk about sexual dysfunctions! They don’t even want to opt for single parenthood because the “civilised society” can’t digest the fact that a single person can also have a child!
People work hard to find appropriate methods of killing a girl child and harassing the mother but never invest that same amount of hard work in finding out that the sex of a child is determined by the sperm and not the egg, and that it is involuntary.
They are ignorant of homosexuality. They never fail to make a person from the LGBT community uncomfortable by continuously staring at them or by whispering about them.
Some people don’t even know the concept of “consent” when it comes to sexual intercourse. Nor are they aware of the legal age of consent (18 yrs in India).
It’s so ironic that in our society, rape is fine but onanism is not! Smoking is fine, but Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) are a taboo! There are many such things which should have been addressed ages ago by our elders and teachers. The society should also have dealt with these things maturely and properly. I mean, come on! We are living in 2019. We can still make the world a better place for future generations. I urge everyone to sensitise their children about these things. This will only do them good and would lead to a healthy society!
Featured image source -https://www.oneworldnews.com/lets-talk-about-sex-its-really-important-for-all-of-us