Sex In My Country Is A Taboo

An average, respected, middle-class Indian family, or, my country’s majority, doesn’t speak about sex aloud. It apparently isn’t part of our ‘culture’. This, ironically is also the culture that gave the world the Kama Sutra. Most of us don’t get ‘the talk’ and we are taught not to talk about our private parts unless  it’s to a doctor or the same-sex parent. What we do get in bountiful,  is a set of gender-roles, which if not  very rigidly followed, often leads to social ostracization.

See, the kind of upbringing I’ve had, I’m not much bothered by this. But my kind is small in number. A far greater majority of girls grow up indoctrinated with certain specific taboos  and a list of do’s and don’ts, which not only hinder personal growth but deny them a vast sphere of experience. Girls cover themselves, because sweetie, you don’t want to tempt the men. Girls speak softly, because no one likes gregarious women. Girls are soft creatures, too nimble to face the wrath of the world outside. Girls this, girls that.

Girls, enough. It seems as if womankind is equated with traffic in most people’s mind, because, hey, it’s better to be safe than sorry!

Raise your hands if you know what ‘Indoctrination’ means. Indoctrination-n; to teach (someone) to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs. So, not only are girls taught to meet others’ expectations, we’re also taught to not explore other alternatives. In such a condition, we’re all mere puppets, ready to live within and rise up to whatever parameters patriarchy deigns to set for us.

Enter taboos. Taboo- n; a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

As stated earlier, sex in my country is a taboo. We not only don’t talk about it, we’re taught that it’s immoral.  Schools do not provide sex education. The only time we do talk about sex is in our Biology classes, strictly as a biological process. So, we learn “When the male sperm fuses with the female egg…”. We don’t learn, “If the guy isn’t wearing a condom and ejaculates inside you, there’s a chance you’ll become pregnant.” What people fail to realise, is that by not telling us, they’re not protecting us; make no mistake, we have no dearth of sources to learn from, but more often than not, they are not accurate.

Sexuality in India is spoken about in extremely hushed tones, and like for a lot of other things, is more acceptable for boys to explore than girls. While it is allowed for the former to have a far more active sex life in their early to mid teens (covering everything from kissing to having sex), the latter would be subject to name-calling(/slut-shaming) and a lowered ‘moral status’, in a similar scenario.

I’d say don’t get me started on taboos surrounding Indian women and women in general, but I’m already set on my path, gathering momentum. The sheer plethora of taboos I can choose from is hilarious.

1. Women desire?!

While it is true that women are more openly and frequently objectified and in a sense, ‘desired’, it’s a  widely prevalent misconception that women don’t desire. We’re the eye-candy for men to ogle at. Women are thought of as having no desires of their own; they’re there to satiate the man’s hunger. Originating from a system that is strictly patriarchal,  this line of thought re-establishes man’s dominance over woman, where the man is the giver and the woman the receiver.

2. Women don’t watch porn.

Yes, they do. However, due to more social acceptance, boys will admit to it more openly than girls ever will. Mainstream porn is made for male audiences. This is probably why the porn industry never felt the need to make sex-positive porn, thereby perpetuating the myth of the ‘non-desiring woman’.

3. Women don’t masturbate.

Reiterating the sexual dominance of man, this belief finds ground in the fact that only men are thought of as capable of being able to satiate a woman’s needs-to be the cause of any pleasure women feel. Besides, any woman who touches herself is immoral, right?

4. Women don’t lose their virginity before marriage.

This baffles me, a little bit. So, on the one hand we have boys losing their virginity well before marriage, as they are expected to, otherwise, “Kaisa aadmi hai tu?” (“What kind of a man are you?”). And on the other, they want untouched, ‘pure’ girls to marry?

These are just a few that come to mind.

As a society, we have managed to taboo an inherent part of human behaviour and a necessity for furthering our species.  We have also taken the pain to associate various moral values with the act of sexual intercourse. Instead, personally, I think we’d be much better off with proper, comprehensive sex-ed lessons in school.