In our school text-books, we all have 1 chapter which is completed as early as possible with no question entertained. It doesn’t depends on whether you are a CBSE, ICSE or state board school student. Human Reproduction is the chapter which is like a nightmare for all the biology/science teacher in India. What is the reason behind this? How knowledge of sex – a basic biology activity – is considered a sin and a criterion to judge the character in India? Let’s dig deeper.
Sex – A Social Stigma
This is one of the biggest reason for being sexually illiterate. According to social norms, knowledge of sex in youths, not even children, is considered a bad thing. For boys, there is some relaxation but in case of girls, they might kill them if they knew that she is aware of even male reproductive system. There are even incidents of adolescent girls taking emergency pills after just kissing their boyfriend! See the FB post below.
Due to inadequate sex-education, the curiosity increases. It is basic human psychology. The more a person knows that he should not do a thing, the more motivated he become to do that. This curiosity introduces them to the world of porn. Porn gives them basic idea of the process, but corrupts the mind as they start living in an illusion. The illusion and the curiosity keeps increasing. They start visualizing the opposite gender nude. They even build relationships to satisfy their curiosity of sex. This ultimately leads to many ‘real’ problems like, teen pregnancy, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, etc.
The worst part in the above process is that our society is well-aware of it. Yet, they ignore the sex education and discourage schools from teaching it.
Now this was for adolescents. The adults are also frowned upon carrying the knowledge of sex. Even buying a packet of condoms from chemist would invite stares as if one is burying a dead body. People don’t encourage the youths to know about sex till they get married. Pre-marital sex makes the person culprit and marital rape doesn’t exists.
Since society is composed of more than 50% of youths, let’s make an attempt to change the ‘tradition’ of no sex education in schools. We should educate our children about the sex and related topics so that they don’t suffer from the same situation from which we suffered from.
