Lets Talk About You and Me
Okay! So lets do the taboo talk today. Lets talk about Sex.
Wait.
If I had just said all this in a room full of people, I would certainly be tagged a pervert. I can also visualize the silence that would eventually follow with a few being ashamed, or horror struck and the young definitely excited about it exchanging their “Finally!” in hushed tones.
Thinking of a 13 year old myself sitting amongst the most enthusiastic bunch of students in the biology class. I remember the palpable excitement before we were to read the reproductive organs chapter. The chapter that, to our dismay was concisely read by the teacher and ultimately excluded from the syllabus.My first sexuality educator was my fourteen years old, exceptionally confident about-the-subject best friend. While we sincerely attended her enlightenment sessions years back, today we laugh over at the utter gibberish she fed our minds in those days.
But, I had no other source for information and she happened to be my Google for, well relevant information. I remember I was literally gawping at the erotic motifs on the walls of the Khajuraho temples at one of our summer trips. During my growing up years absolutely no one spoke about such things.
But, today technology has made things easier especially in terms of accessing information.
But, there is a major loophole here!
The Internet is flooded with every information right or wrong for the young minds who simply find the idea of anything exciting, more specifically, something that is prohibited to talk about. Just a click of a button, and there you go. Interesting that nowadays you do not even have to learn to type because we have the know-it-all voice assistants that will foster the
curiosity on the subject.
In today’s tech driven society, it is important to raise individuals from inside out. Through my research and by meeting many people from all walks of life, I realized that if one is well aware about the terminology from an early age, one would get a better understanding of one self in adulthood.
There are certain norms that one is raised with as a child and these decide how one would evolve in the future as an individual. To adhere to the fixed set of moralistic beliefs is a struggle for all the generations. Because, certainly with time the attitude and the mindset of the society changes.
I, like many of my friends grew up ignorant about terms like gender, sex, and sexuality and the terminology associated to it, until I started my research. What I fail to understand today as an informed adult is, that why have we been avoiding to talk about something extremely significant. We end up weighing it on a moral and cultural scale, when it is simply a matter of
an individual’s personal choice and identity. I identify myself as a heterosexual cisgender woman. And, the interesting part is that I got to
know about it in my thirties. Wow!
And, I thought I was normal all my life. But, what is normal? Who defines it? What right I had to decide that I was normal and, the one who did not succumb to the normative definition of the same was not!
It is upsetting to know that nothing has changed ever since and there are still only handfuls that are aware of these terms. Four years back, I chose gender and sexuality for my doctoral research and I had anticipated a paradigm shift from then to now. But it was disheartening to know that, despite living in what we call The Modern Era and with rapid globalization, the awkwardness talking about sex or sexuality was distinctly apparent. One still could not explicitly talk about sex let alone sexual orientation or sexuality.
Over the years human sexuality has been deeply researched and analyzed but even today it is perceived as some kind of mystery. Profound reading about the topic made me realize how the terms are highly misinterpreted especially in India. Because, hey! no one talks about these under the sun.
Sex refers to the anatomical disparity between males and females while sexuality is a deeper concept and covers a broad spectrum. It refers to the sexual orientation of an individual. It is extremely personal and plays an imperative role in defining one’s identity and sense of self. You might identify as a heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual etc. As an
individual I feel it is extremely important to discover oneself in terms of sexuality for a healthier sexual approach. We all I feel should be thoroughly aware about our bodies at the right time and should be able to assert our identity. Now, there is no particular definition of what time is right. It is subjective and, depends on when Mother Curiosity comes knocking in and you start looking out for answers pertaining your own body.
It is pertinent to have a healthy and positive relationship with oneself first, rest everything will follow. By unlocking the key to the door of our own realistic well-being and by shedding the insecurities, we can define what pleasure is, in our own terms. The crux of all this is that we must take charge of our own sexuality, respect others and disseminate inclusivity so that the generations to come will not have to fight the battle with what is considered a norm.
