Skip to main content

Sex Education in India


SEX EDUCATION IN INDIA

  India – the Land of the Kamasutra. The second most populous nation in the world. India – afraid to talk about sex. These three sentences are, in essence, the issue. These three sentences are, in essence, hypocrisy. There are people both ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ sex education in our country and I shall now move onto their arguments.

  According to me sex education is an important subject that must be gradually introduced in order to reduce the stigma around talking about the same. Many may question why we need to talk about it in the first place. The reason is that to a young, perceptive mind with access to different kinds of media and sources of information, not talking about this could lead to misinformation. Such misinformation could lead to problems like STDs, teenage pregnancy, and in extreme cases, death. Even for young children, it is important to understand their body in order to take care of it. This cannot be done in an environment where even the mention of sex or reproductive organs fills guilt and shame into the person raising the topic. Especially with teenagers who are going through multiple changes, emotionally and physically, awareness of these bodily changes helps with dealing with those very problems and reduces the stress and anxiety they face.

  Those against sex education provide a variety of arguments. Some say that such young children who are only in school, may not even be sexually active and hence, do not need to be educated on the subject. Some even say that due to sexual inactivity, education about reproductive organs and bodily changes are useless and that such a subject could cause an increase in teenage sexual activity.

  Firstly, regardless of whether or not the children are sexually active, this education must be provided. They must be made aware of how to practice safe sex and the contraception options well in advance of actually engaging in such activities. This knowledge is of no use to them after having learnt it the hard way. Bodily changes, on the other hand, take place with or without engaging n sexual intercourse. Educating youngsters about the problems they are, or will be, facing along with their causes and possible solutions, cannot be futile. It can only help them. I also believe that the introduction of this subject will not increase teenage sexual activity, but only make it safer for those who already choose to indulge in it. Even without participating in such activities, problems like UTIs and other genital infections can occur. It is impossible to get treated for these unless one understands them and is allowed to talk about them.

  Hence, I strongly believe that the subject of sex education has more positive than negative arguments and must not only be introduced in schools and colleges, but be made mandatory.

- Hayati Shah

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Review of "The Tale of the Rose" by Emma Donaghue

 A Review of "The Tale of the Rose" by Emma Donaghue - Mayura Bhandari “The Tale of The Rose” is a retelling of the popular children’s fairy tale, “The Beauty and The Beast”. It is one of the short stories in the collection by Emma Donoghue, called Kissing The Witch . The story is narrated from the point of a young woman who describes herself as having an appetite for magic. She doesn’t desire suitors, finery or riches. When her father’s ships get lost at sea, her cushy life disappears. But without despair, she gets to work. She washes her father’s clothes, finding peace and satisfaction in it. When fortune smiles upon their family, her siblings ask for riches and finery, but she desires a red rose bud. Her father returns and hands her the rose, explaining that the price of that flower was that he had sold her to a Beast. Obediently, she heads over to the castle, nervous and excited for a new chapter in her life. She recalls the lore the villagers told her. About a young

Psychological Analysis Of Waiting For Godot

Psychological criticism adopts the methods of "Reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. Here, we are going to apply the same form of criticism on Samuel Beckett’s play, ‘Waiting for Godot.’  Unanswered questions behind the characters behaviour are answered here. We would be looking further to the psychoanalytical approach, Sigmund Freud being the important proponent here. A major focus on the language and how dreams reflect our mental personality are given in his second essay, “Interpretation of Dreams.” The plot clearly states that Estragon has nightmares and Vladimir never addresses them and remains unhelpful towards it, being the one who is aware about their sufferings. The nightmares contain flashbacks and images of a gruesome and horrific event that has hap

Marxism in Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett, the most eminent Irish playwright wrote ‘’Waiting for Godot’’ in French in 1949 and then translated it into English in 1954. This play has been performed as a drama of the absurd with astonishing success in Europe, America and the rest of the world in the post second world war era. For this reason, Martin Esslin calls it, “One of the successes of the post-war theatre” (Esslin, Martin, 1980) In this play, the two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait expectantly to see a man simply known as Godot, a character who does not make an appearance in the play, despite being the titular character. The play begins with waiting for Godot and ends with waiting for Godot. Marxism refers to the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism. Marxism introduced ideas such as Dialectical Materialism, Alienation, and Economic Determination. Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ has a minimalist setting