Sex And The Classroom
27 Apr 2008, 0438 hrs IST,Jyoti Punwani
The boys in my class often pinch the girls' chests,"
says a seven-year-old to his elder sister. "But
there's nothing there," she replies, trying to sound
normal. "Of course there is, some girls' chests are so
big," says the second-grader.
"He goes under the chair and puts his hands up our
legs," says a nine-year-old, giggling, to her cousin,
referring to her classmate and neighbour. The offender
is asked, "Why do you do that?"
"I was just searching for my eraser that had fallen
under her chair. She refused to move her legs aside,"
he says, looking confused.
"You don't have what we do. You just have a hole
between your legs," gloats an 11-year-old to his
younger sister.
"I dropped my pencil," announces a 12-year-old boy in
class. "You dropped your pencil?" is the echo from his
classmates, accompanied by coughs and sniggers.
Pencil, of course, does mean something else here. "Ok
ok, I dropped my stationery pencil," says the boy. Pen
and pen-cap, pencil and pencil-box, pencil and
sharpener, these objects of everyday use suddenly
become passwords of an exciting and forbidden world.
"Pass the ball" is another line designed to send
everyone on the field into paroxysms.
While boys have been caught masturbating in school
loos, one eighth standard boy who stayed behind in
class during the break to do his homework, received an
education of another kind—the girls in the class drew
a nude female on the blackboard, with a penis coming
out of it.
"My friends would often talk about ejaculation when I
was in the fifth standard, and I used to wonder what
it was. The way they talked, I wanted to move away. It
all felt filthy," recalls a ninth standard student.
"In fact, one of my friends always gets strange dreams
when we talk about all this. She feels really
insecure. But she doesn't know whom to talk to about
it."
'Slut' and 'prostitute' are common abuses that boys
give girls, says a 13-year-old. Why isn't all this
being reported to teachers? "Because you immediately
become unpopular."
Considering the realities of Indian classrooms today,
the recent uproar of Maharashtra's MLAs against the
state government's plans to introduce sex education in
schools is based on an obsolete fear—pollution of
young minds. That the government has now frozen its
ambitious plans is unfortunate in a country where
sexual intelligence is abysmal. A gynaecologist who
has given talks on sex education to school and college
students says that there is an appalling ignorance in
adolescents and even the older youth about
menstruation, pregnancy and contraception. "Science
students at least learn about the reproductive system
at some stage. Arts students are absolutely ignorant."
In her practice, first in KEM hospital and then in her
own clinic, she has seen cases of teenage pregnancy
where the girl, unaware that she is already two months
pregnant, cannot even explain how it happened. "He did
something," is the common explanation.
She has found similar ignorance in newly married
couples, aged 18 or 19, who suddenly find themselves
expecting their first, unwanted child. "No one told us
what to do," they say when questioned about family
planning. Harsh Sadani, founder-member of MAVA (Men
against Violence and Abuse), who, along with other
activists, has been persuading the Maharashtra
government to introduce "sexuality education" in
schools, points to these statistics of the Family
Planning Association of India: 31% of girls and 33%
boys in the age group of 12-19 years get married,
while 60% of married girls (aged 15-19 years) have
unwanted pregnancies. 48% school boys and 39% girls
face some form of sexual abuse (ranging from
inappropriate touch, exposure to pornography or
violent sexual assault). The age of maximum abuse is
between nine and 12 years, according to the National
Study on Child Abuse 2007 by the Ministry of Women and
Child Development. "Children must learn to say NO,"
says Harsh. "Girls, of course, need to learn it, but
so do boys, to resist peer pressure to perform any
sexual act, watch blue films, or to go to sex workers.
They need to learn to respect each other's bodies."
The young have been vocal about their confusion in
sexual matters. "We should have someone to talk to,
who can penetrate our minds," says a 14-year-old. "We
cannot talk about this with our mothers. How do we
frame the question?" As a consequence, Mumbai Mirror's
'sexpert' column is a hit with school kids, who can
barely comprehend the situations being spoken about.
When caught reading the column, schools simply inform
the parents. The uncontrolled sexual energy of
adolescents leads to incidents that ruin lives. MMS
clips of unsuspecting school girls that are passed
around by their classmates and eventually released
into the internet space, is a cruelty that is birthed
in a male adolescent desperation. Schools need to
address such issues.
With sex in the air all around them, every
relationship is seen by schoolkids as unnatural, but
exciting. A seventh standard teacher says that she has
to think really hard when children in her class report
to her that so-and-so 'loves' so-and so. "I've told
them one can love many people; don't we all love our
family? Love is not a bad word." This is probably as
far 'sex education' can go in this country. But,
obviously, children need more guidance than this.
Mumbai's lawmakers simply do not comprehend the
enormity of the issue.
------------------------------------
*****************************************
Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
*****************************************
Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
*****************************************
MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
*****************************************
Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
*****************************************
MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
*****************************************
German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
*****************************************
Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
****************************************************
VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
****************************************************
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:mukto-mona-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:mukto-mona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
mukto-mona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: