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They Forgotten the Kama Sutra? |
| Have They Forgotten the Kama Sutra? These days, sex is a dirty word in India By Mridu Khullar In rapidly modernizing India, the generation gap has become a gaping abyss. More and more young people, especially women, are fumbling for reliable information about sexual choices and contraceptive methods, since pre-marital sex still is considered taboo. Even among the educated, inhibitions surrounding sexuality make information almost inaccessible. "Most parents are governed by a tribal, moral view of all things sexual," says Naina Kapur, cofounder of Sakshi, an NGO working on issues of gender and the courts. "They have naïve assumptions about the kind of information their children have access to today." Such in the controversy surrounding sexual matters that several Indian states banned sex education in schools in 2007, claiming that the course material was too explicit, encouraged experimentation and was against Indian culture. Some Mumbai schools banned physical contact between boys and girls; if found to have accidentally brushed against each other, students would be penalized. This is, some say, hypocritical and unrealistic. Indeed, adolescents are reported to be at the center of India's HIV/AIDS epidemic and, according to the National AIDS Control Organization, one-third of reported HIV infections across India and 50 percent of new infections are in the 15-to-29 age group. But while politicians and self-appointed morality groups denounce sex education as encouraging pre-marital sex, the latest generation of teenagers-- growing up on generous doses of U.S. TV, Internet, movies and global values-- is already experimenting. In 2006, a study by India Today reported that one in four Indian women between ages 18 and 30, interviewed in 11 major cities, had had sex before marriage. "These are individual choices-- sexual activity cannot be framed around post- and pre-[marriage]," says Kapur. "What's important is to empower and enable young people with information that will allow them to make responsible choices." But traditional mores still have clout, as shown in several recent controversies regarding India's moral sensibilities: media hysteria over a kiss Richard Gere planted on Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty during an AIDS awareness campaign, a ban on the broadcasting of Fashion TV for showing models in bikinis, and the prohibition of a vibrating condom deemed a sex toy (and hence illegal in India). Despite a growing need for information and contraception, unmarried teenagers are often too intimidated to visit health providers, who they fear will be judgmental or breach their confidentiality. Consequently, they are susceptible to STDs, genital infections and HIV/AIDS. In the absence of reliable information, a whole generation must turn to the Internet and television for answers. "Unless parents opt to risk being better informed and much more natural about the issue, it will continue to remain taboo, ghettoized and political," says Kapur. "That's a shame." |
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