Posted by Namita Bhandare:
My new column in Mint is on sex education, and why ignorance is not bliss. How did you learn to speak words we dare not speak? What’s your story? Tell me. I want to know.
My formal sex education at an all-girls convent school in New Delhi can be summed up in two words: woefully inadequate.
What passed for it was a brief interlude when one fine day in biology class in std IX, our NCERT-issued textbook opened with that tantalizing chapter, “Reproduction”. A frisson of expectation ran through the class as Mrs Ravindran began reading in her clear lilting voice. Towards the end of the first sentence, however, the voice became hushed as poor Mrs Ravindran (who had by then turned beetroot red) put down the book and said: “Girls, you can read the rest of the chapter on your own at home.”
“On your own at home” pretty much sums up our attitude to sex education. We still hesitate to ask questions, speak “forbidden” words or seek out information. A television ad for Naco (National AIDS Control Organisation) highlights this ingrained reticence as it urges men to boldly say “condom”, a forbidden word if ever there was one. New sexual awakening? Hardly. In India, the urgency for sex education is seen not in the context of sexuality, but of HIV/AIDS.
