Public discourse on sex or sexuality – Is it immoral?

Cultural argument

• Our culture is replete with vivid depictions of compromised positions through history, from the pages of the Kama Sutra and the walls of the Khajuraho temples to the screens of Bollywood and regionalfilms.

Youth impacted

• The truth is that our continuing inability to be comfortable about the display of affection and the opportunity to love is deeply troubling for the 200 million young people caught, like the proverbial deer in the head-lights, between their desires and the denial of expressions of their sexuality.

1. Under-sexed due to increasing age of marriage

• Our youth are turbo-charged sexual creatures whose animal instincts need authoritarian and paternalistic control, they are, in fact, amongst the most under-sexed in the world.
• But the real existential crisis that the youth are trapped in is unique to our times.
• Over the past hundred years, the average age of marriage has steadily increased from the early teens to the early-20s.
• Yet, during this period of dramatic changes in the lives of young people, social norms prohibiting sexual relations (or, even just hugging) until marriage have remained inflexible.
• As a result, young Indians are now waiting longer than their grand-parents’ generation to enjoy sex, at a stage of life when they are primed, from both psychosocial and biological perspectives, to be sexually active.
• To make matters worse, there is a toxic atmosphere surrounding sexuality education in schools.
• There is an abysmal lack of safe spaces to romance, and there is limited access to information and services regarding contraception.

     2.Easy aceess to pornography

• At the same time, our youth have unrestricted access to a torrent of online pornography which becomes their only source of information, however twisted, about sexuality and we have the ingredients of a perfect storm.

Conclusion

• It is time to reclaim sexuality from the self-appointed guardians of morality and to recognise that being sexual is integral to being human.
• In addition to making comprehensive sexuality education, designed in an age-appropriate way, accessible to all young people from an early age, we need thought leaders, in particular young people, to champion an open dialogue and challenge archaic values about youth sexuality.

Question for Answer Writing

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