Authors: Prithvi Vatsalya, Manisha Rani, Sachit Sarang Ganla and Arpit Arpit Chhikara (IUIF 2020)

Sex education has been widely misunderstood in India, partly because the term has ‘sex’ in its name. Imparting age and context-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education are often misperceived as adults greenlighting children to sexually engage with each other. This unintended clash with Indian norms has resulted in vehement opposition from all quarters – parents, teachers and policymakers. However, we need to listen to the most important voice in this conversation – children. They need a safe space for their curiosity: to explore consent, setting boundaries, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), menstrual hygiene among other things. Sex education is vital to equip them with scientific and culturally-relevant knowledge. It will go a long way into promoting healthy attitudes and behaviours during adulthood, by enabling them to make responsible and informed choices. A 2013 study (Sahay, Nirmalkar, Sane, Verma, Reddy, & Mehendale) involving more than 900 adolescents of a vernacular school in Maharashtra showed that “students who were NOT exposed to the scientific literature on SRHR were more likely to have initiated sex early.” Several acts and policies have failed to understand the imperativeness of this area. Both the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009) and the National Education Policy (2020) have neglected the role of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) as a means to understand one’s world better. Stories from the ground reveal the consequences of this.

How do uninformed teenagers resort to learning about sex and sexuality? They do so in unhealthy ways. Pune-based scholar Sachit, who studied in an all-boys boarding school, experienced it firsthand. He says, “One day, while walking towards the school bus, I saw many of my classmates hanging around the gates of the neighbouring school. They were staring at the girls whilst making lewd comments. This culture was even furthered by the local rivalry between the principals of the neighbouring schools. Random requests were sent to girls on social media without ever meeting them. Boys around me wanted to be a part of the ‘cool’ and famous gang. The trend, therefore, in a nutshell, was strongly similar to that of an American high school. If you were able to date or have sex with a girl, that was a brag-worthy achievement. It didn’t matter how you reached this useless landmark. Fame among one’s batch mates was a matter of pride. It isn’t surprising that most of my school friends today will consider you a ‘homo’ if you support the queer movement. At least, that’s what they say in their social media posts. They don’t know what feminism means, but you’re definitely woman-ish if you believe in that word. Their lewd jokes and stereotypes exist till date. I wish we had someone in school to teach us how to get rid of this toxic masculinity, someone who could tell us when boys share things, they don’t suddenly become gay.”

A dark truth about India is that patriarchy and heteronormativity are robust social forces here. Mumbai-based journalist Prithvi’s childhood was tainted by these forces. He started out by being curious about sex, like every other youngster. He says, “I remember stealing a condom from a supermarket along with a friend. We were 13-years-old and curious about sex, except we were teenagers who were too shy to buy condoms over-the-counter. We knew no one would sell it to us. I had questions and fears, but no safe space where useful knowledge could reach me without any judgment. I wore a baniyan unlike other girls in my class who were developing breasts. I got slut-shamed as a result. Nobody cared to ask me about my internal struggles as a trans* my classmates reduced me to my body and it was the body of a girl. When I got my periods during a school trip, I was bullied for not knowing how to take care of myself, as girls are supposed to. In a desperate bid to find alternative information, I embraced the Internet with open arms. I asked all kinds of questions and found lots of relevant information.” Should a teenager struggle so hard to access such information? The answer is no because everything on the Internet isn’t safe for a child to explore by themselves. This is where the role of an informed teacher begins. Prithvi had to teach himself everything he knows about the LGBTQIA+ community, his body as well as his sexual and reproductive health. Prithvi managed to do it, not all kids can.

This brings us to the cultural aspect of a child’s development. Here, the Bollywood model of consent comes in (‘ladki ki na mein haan hoti hai’). This, of course, doesn’t take into account what consent actually means. Manisha, a social worker from Haryana, says, “When youngsters learn the notions of romance from mainstream films, they normalize catcalling. A woman’s choice to refuse sexual advances is considered to be shy, feminine behaviour. No wonder there are crimes against women in families, educational institutions and workplaces. If this isn’t unfortunate enough, when teenagers go down the spiral of porn culture, they end up imbibing even more unhealthy ideas about girls and women. Bodies, especially that of women, become commodities to use and discard. I used to teach in a school and that’s how I came to believe that knowledge is power. Without having CSE in school, we’re raising adults who don’t know the difference between sexual assault and consensual pleasure. During my work as an educator, children were able to share experiences related to sexual abuse. That’s because they were encouraged to reflect upon safe and unsafe touch.”

Delhi-based writer Arpit says, “In my school, there was no such thing as sex-positivity. Girls and guys didn’t sit together. That was an unsaid rule. No wonder I didn’t feel comfortable around women when I reached college. It always felt like I didn’t know anything about half the world out there. Can I blame my school entirely? Not really. Even at home, there was no guidance to help me navigate puberty. A blend of both these factors led me to not know about my body, desires and feelings. Our school was good in other ways. We had workshops on specific issues:  on menstruation for girls, on manliness for guys and on HIV-AIDS for all. But they were more or less one-sided. Nobody asked anything fearing what others might think. Only after finishing college, I understood the value of knowing my body. Before that, it was all biology. There wasn’t any social intelligence to help understand that biology. A mix of empathetic communication and theoretical knowledge is what will help raise conscientious adults.” Is our model of education taking a leap in that direction? The answer is not what you would expect.

The NEP (2020) has been drafted a decade after the RTE (2009). Despite that, it still neglects one crucial aspect of education – CSE. We’re focusing on retributive justice by introducing legislations like POCSO as well as the Juvenile Justice Care and Protection Act. But the important question is whether these legislations put a halt to sexual offences against children. Any newspaper or NGO will tell you how far we are from achieving that on a ground level. The above stories convey the need for CSE very well. Working on preventive measures will help raise informed children who grow up to become responsible adults. A journey of exploring, unpacking and questioning as well as preconceived notions is the need of the hour. We have to un-taboo sex education. Surely, we can change as individuals, but monumental changes can happen when we come together. It is time the NEP sows the seeds of community-level change by including CSE in its framework.

(Image Credit: DFID)