Sex Education in the Schools

brotee mukhopadhyay

Sex education in the schools has become globally demanding in the recent times partly because of the spread of AIDS and partly because of the great increase in teenage pregnancy.

Sex is a three-lettered word with infinite enigma within its fold. Sex has been defined and redefined several times and words of praise and condemnation have been showered over it probably since the pre-historic epoch. Surely at some junction of our ancient history consideration to taboo sexual activities in broad day light has emerged and has gradually become important and unchangeable. Answers for this may be traced in the primitive societies when our forefathers have started to learn strength of personal property. Some individuals since then have faced rudeness and even penalties for their sexual exercises but on many occasions they have displayed disregard to the mandates of religious or legal society.

Let us follow a few headlines in the current printing media of Spain.

a)    Extremadura Promotes Masturbation (El Mundo)

b)   Masturbation Workshops for Adolescents (Que)

c)    Extremadura’s youth may have the highest rates of unemployment, but they’ll be the best masturbators (La Vanguardia)

Extremadura is in the southwestern region of Spain and the regional government of Extremadura of Spain has taken program for sex education in the schools. Workshop on masturbation is a part of the program in which students up to an age of 17 are to take active role. It appears that the Spanish society is still not prepared to get stretched to such an extent in the name of sex education although Spain is not an island in Europe by the parameter of community standard in respect of sexualities. ‘Pleasure Is in Your Hands’ is one of the slogans which the responsible sex-educators in Extremadura have composed for campaign. People cannot invent such phrases unless the concerned society is somehow ready for it. One may not accept it as an example of an over-enthusiast government official. Still it is a fact that sex education in Spanish schools is a little bit new. In Finland, Germany and Holland and in many other European countries teens have been learning masturbation to abortion and oral sex to varieties of sexual postures in sexual exercises from their teachers in the schools. English students get lessons on the use of contraceptives and some schools maintain a regular supply of condoms and anti-pregnancy pills for the girls.

Youth receiving father’s advices in choosing his lover

Sex education is not to teach eroticism and not for involving children in sexual activities. It should be aimed at teaching the children how to take care of their individual private parts and how to escape the curse of teenage pregnancy and how to remain sexually healthy keeping different sex-related formidable diseases including the most fatal AIDS.

HIV

We must not forget that sex is comparable to fire and for that reason combustion cannot be totally avoided. And the most important thing is our attitude towards sex. Sexual desire should not be viewed as any negative quality as it is in the basic nature of human beings. We may not comprehend chemical reactions with all permutations and combinations behind the sexual urge in our body. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to apprehend that history of sexuality and of changes in the sexual orientation point to its evolutionary characteristics. Thus sex is not simply release and exchange of energy. It is something more.

Hence sex education for the children in the schools demands pre-planned departure from conventional community standard of morality and of traditional religious values. In respect of sexual activities I have a personal question from my adolescence. I have not been answered why we have learned and forced to suppress sex and sexual desire. If I am true to myself I must admit that sexual activities have blessed me with the most wonderful experiences of immense joy involving my body and mind together. It is a kind of transcendental feelings which, it is said, a few sages of India can achieve in their life after much endeavor. Explanations in support of suppression of sex for the health of the individual and society are more or less known to all of us and they have never been above the line of debate. Why should our attitude to sex remain deceptive throughout the ages? We are forced to hide the very friendly thing which simply gives us pleasure.

Is it not better to open the windows once for all so that discourses on sex and sexual activities may be allowed anywhere and in presence and in participation of everyone? It is meaningless to fear that the teens may be involved in sexual activities before they are legally married. Many of them have already been in the process of tasting the forbidden fruit despite all kinds of taboos. You can never solve a problem without touching its roots.