Is the sex education needed to be implemented in a general and explicit way?

Sexuality and mankind

1,124 Views Updated: 28 Apr 2018
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Sex is the very origin of life. We all have come through this. Without it, there is no life. But the tragedy is that it has been probably the most unaccepted thing in the civil societies all over the world. It has been condemned. It has been the basic parameter to estimate one’s character and moral level. And this attitude to ignore and condemn has given birth to many perversions and even crimes.

Why this fear?

What is the prime cause for this non-acceptance?

No matter how much we speak against sex, it has been there and would be there. So what is the reason this hypocrisy continues?

All the civil institutions, all the preachers and all our leaders have been unanimous at this very point. It is the point of no conflict!

The reason is straightforward. Sex is the fundamental energy of life and accepting this means accepting the freedom of the human race. If one is sexually satisfied, one would not be interested in battles and wars, nor in meaningless lobbies and constant politics, nor in making huge money with no genuine reason. There is no sense. One would rather sing and compose poetry. Probably one would just like to sit quietly, but not to march for some biassed demand being a part of a procession.This is what the psychologists all over the world are saying. It may seem unrelated, though it is not so.

Much work has been done regarding human sexuality and one big name in the field is that of Dr.Sigmund Freud. When Dr.Freud spoke about his theories about sex, even in the western countries, he was condemned. It was so tough to understand that sex could be deeply rooted in one’s personality having its origin when one was just an infant. It was totally against the ideas of the then accepted social and religious practices. Freud was criticized for all this, but as it happens, eventually, he was understood and accepted.

Dr.Freud says that sexuality has its roots in the early childhood. This is so basic. But gradually the child learns how to modify the sexual urge and also how to suppress it.It is necessary as humans are social beings and a society cannot accept the freedom of sexuality. So a child learns how to hide this attitude, how to reshape it into other constructive things like singing for e.g. and how to suppress this so that it goes behind a veil. But in this process, many psychological problems are probable to occur, some of them could be serious. Freud talks about all this in much detail and suggests remedies too, though his remedies are actually means to reduce the volume of the problem. His well-known book, “Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie”, also called as “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality”, published in 1905, covers the topic under three major aspects: sexual perversions; childhood sexuality; and puberty.

The Gupta era visionary, Vatsyayan is another big name that cannot be sidelined while discussing human sexuality. He lived around the 2nd century AD and wrote a very famous book - the Kama Sutra. A part of this work gives explicit advice about sexual intercourse. The west supposes that the Kama Sutra is nothing but a sex manual. But it is not. Only 20% of the book is about sexual positions. Vatsyayana has been from the Hindu tradition. Hinduism says that the Kama, i.e. desire, is one of the four aspects of life. It is equally important. Naturally, in the Kama Sutra, there is a discourse of love, family, what triggers desire, what sustains it and the values related to desire and other things that relate to the pleasure of life.

The Hindus have been very liberal and open-minded about sexuality and desire. Most amazingly, the Hindus have even used desire as a means of liberation. There is a detailed discussion between lord Shiva and his wife Devi Parvati regarding how this desire could be used as a means of practicing he well-acclaimed faculty of the Tantra. Actually, the fundamental vision is that anything that helps in the invocation of a state of no-mind, can be a means of liberation. Sex leaves the couples in a state of no-mind for some moments and those moments could be used to have a glimpse of the other world and those moments could be elongated, too But the reason is spiritual. But it is not easy. There are many strict rules and one has to follow that, as the Tantra says. And all over the world, there are numerous practitioners of the vision.

If we come to the common perception and significance, we find that sexuality is expressed in numerous events and happenings around us in the society. Be it our movies, advertisements, book covers of magazines, newspapers or the electronic media- if we are ready to analyze and understand, it is very clear that sexuality is being expressed mostly with some intention and sometimes, may be unknowingly. Sexuality has become the means of marketing and promotion. If you need to sell a soap, you need a girl taking a bath..and if you need to market a car, you need a girl to stand in style by the side. Just for example. The advertisers use sexuality in a very subtle way and they use all the aspects of sexuality, even perversion and many other things which cannot be socially accepted, to be frank. But the way is so smart that there is always a way to escape.

Such an important subject and the tragedy is that most of the school going students are grown up with no formal teaching of sexuality. It is a taboo to talk about it publicly. Recently, it has been a hot topic whether the students should be offered sex education or not. But so far no substantial work has been done. Sex is not about postures only, nor about how to prevent sexually spread diseases. Sooner or later our education system must acknowledge this fact and then would start a separate and detailed teaching of sexuality in our schools.

It is because of the lack of sex education and the lack of proper understanding of sexuality that many unsocial industries have grown up around sexuality. Be it prostitution or pornography, at the root, it is just knowing the tip of the iceberg that gives reason to carry such things on and make money. Sex-related crimes have become a potential threat all over the world. And we cannot expect that only the rulings are going to control everything.

Sex and humankind are interrelated. It is the time when we should start to analyze and understand it. It is the time when we should start to culture a vision for it. Otherwise, it is just like fire, it can cook our food, it could burn us too. It is neither good, nor bad, it is just there and would be ever. It is up to us, whether we use it or whether we are used by it. There is no third way!