SEX, DRAMA AND EDUCATION

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.