The latest controversial headline doing the rounds is “Sex
education should be banned”. Well, here is my 2 cents on the issue:
I was posted in the ultrasonography department during my
internship. I was sitting next to my PG who was explaining the basics of
identifying structures on the computer screen in front of me. He showed me a
gestation sac with a tiny little creature inside. The little heart was beating
on our monitor. Our patient was a 15 year old unmarried girl from a nearby
village who was 3 months late according to the history she gave. She was
referred from the OBGynaec department to rule out pregnancy. She was initially
suspected to have severe anemia which was treated with a pint of blood (Anemia
can be a common cause of missing your period). My PG, being a rather old guy,
asked her if she had indulged in sexual intercourse in the recent past. She
vehemently denied it. And then he posed the question to her, “Then how are you
17 wks pregnant?” She was shocked. Honestly, so was I. She looked like she was
going to cry. But she was trying to be completely brave about it. She begged us
not to tell her parents about it. She being a minor, and this being India, the
PG said he had to inform someone about it. So, her elder sister who had
accompanied her was called inside and informed. Barely 2-3 years older than
her, she was at a loss of words herself. I felt so sad for the little girl. The
consultant radiologist, a lady in her late 50s had nothing nice to say about
it. She thought the girl had no culture and these people are hopeless. I really
hope she didn’t find a well.
This incident made me believe that sex education is such an
important aspect of education in a country with such a huge adolescent
population. This is more so in a rural population where adolescents don’t have
the knowledge or the access to internet and media, in comparison to their urban
counterparts. This girl, all of 15 had no idea that she should be worried about
a missed period after having sex. Had she known that, she would have probably
come to us earlier when it would have been so much safer to terminate the
pregnancy.
Our health minister, himself a doctor, thinks we need to
weed out this western culture of pre-marital sex and extra marital affairs.
Which era are you living in? When was it ever western culture? Our epics are
all about pre-marital sex and multiple sexual partners. (Of course, it had its
fair share of downfall) Banning sex education isn’t going to stop people from
having sex. Let us face it, we are all animals. Our carnal instincts always get
the better of us. The more forbidden something seems, the more you want to
indulge. What can be done instead is to learn the ways to protect our
adolescents from unwanted teenage pregnancies, life threatening sexually
transmitted diseases and a lifetime of hell. Boys and girls are peaking by
12-13 years these days. This is why sex education should be imparted by the age
of 13 – safe sexual practices, personal hygiene, the advantages of monogamy,
awareness about rising incidence of cervical cancers attributable to multiple
sexual partners and earlier age at the time of first coitus, and sexually
transmitted diseases. It’s not just enough if sex education is being imparted.
It should be imparted effectively. If teachers are shy, call upon health
personnel who are ever willing to share their views uninhibited.
Our culture is such that parents also refrain from
discussing these issues. I never got “the talk”. We resorted to books, peer and
the internet. For the less fortunate, the government has to do something, if
they want their adolescent population in safe territory.
Dear health minister, our culture was never
about monogamy. Men have always been men and indulged in what they pleased,
married or not married. Uneducated women, who were barely exposed to the world
never suspected anything and even if they did, put up with it to uphold
traditions. But today, women are educated and hence, it’s a different story. He
said, “Condoms promise safe sex, but the safest sex is through faithfulness to
one's partner. Prevention is always better than cure.” Although it makes sense,
trying to preach this to a million horny people is futile, I believe.
I am not suggesting the adolescents of this generation to be
rabbits. But being prepared and knowing how to tackle a problem can make a difference.
Disaster management demonstrates the steps to tackle situations, should disaster
strike. You can’t just sit back and ask Nature to stop taking its natural
course.
