I attended a wedding in a small town in Rajasthan recently - a beautiful, colourful, blissful event. Of course, I spoke to all the girls and also the bride.
The wedding was arranged, the bride came from a traditional background. After the Sangeet, one day before the wedding, I asked the girl whether anyone has spoken to her about sex. She smiled shyly, and said no.
I was shocked! It’s one day before your wedding night, and nobody has spoken to you about sex? What on earth are you going to do? The bride was really afraid of what was going to await her… knowing nothing at all about it.
I spoke to my other friends there, too. They said that people in their community do not speak about sex, and so none of the girls really know what to expect.
A colleague of mine shared with me another anecdote: Her friend is a gynaecologist and once had a couple coming in who had been desperately trying to get pregnant for three years, without success. All the fertility tests were positive. They were helpless!
After some talk, it turned out that nobody had ever spoken to the couple about sex before they got married. She asked the husband to point out where he penetrates on a model of the female body. He pointed to the belly button!
I have heard numerous similar stories, some from close friends. Gosh, 2000 years ago, the Kama Sutra, Tantra and the whole science of sex had their genesis in India. And now, the same country has some people who do not actually know anything about sex.
Of course, many people in India are educated about sex. However, the lack of sex education is a huge problem.
Many girls, like the bride I met, are afraid of marriage because they do not know what to expect. This fear is not a good basis for an intimate relationship. What's more, it seems unnecessary to make anyone go through such fear. Intimate life should be something to look forward to.
Another problem is that young people learn about sex in inadequate and almost dangerous ways: Studies show that many Indian boys who do not receive sex education from their parents, learn about sex through pornographic mediums.
This almost sounds like an oxymoron to me: What kind of image of women and of sex will boys get when they learn about sex through pornography?
Porn mostly displays women in a subjugating positions, objectifying them as “things” who came into existence to please all of man’s sexual desires. It gives a distorted and dangerous image of what sex is supposed to be like.
Sex ‘education’ through porn is no basis for establishing an intimate relationship in which both partners are to be respected.
Other people learn about sex inadequately in school - as a recent YouTube video which went viral vividly portrays. Others do not learn about it all - like my friends from Rajasthan.
HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise too – something which adequate sex education could help prevent.
Despite this, the new Health Minister recently proposed banning sex education in India altogether – which in most cases is insufficient or non-existing anyway. There seems to be a movement from parents in support of this ban – with them being afraid of the sexualisation of culture.
However, the point is that people will eventually have sex anyway – educating them in adequate ways can help prepare them for that and prevent a form of destructive sexualisation through pornography, as also help promote healthy and respectful intimate relationships.
About Jane: Jane von Rabenau, 22, grew up in Frankfurt, Germany. She is studying Philosophy and Economics at the London School of Economics. She has travelled across India and many parts of the world extensively. An Indophile, Jane (pronounced Yana) currently lives in Delhi and is researching tribal land rights in India. She is fluent in Hindi and tweets @Jane_vonRabenau
Source: newsflicks
