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The information we are fed about sex from childhood, all the way to when we reach that age’, is insufficient, inaccurate, confusing and non-inclusive.
It begins with the way we are taught to think and talk about our bodies. As a kid, when you’re naked, parents call it ‘shame, shame’. Deep-down somewhere, that word gets ingrained in our minds while talking about our bodies. Fast forward to the first time we find out about sex—in school from peers or through that elder brother or sister we look up to, while they’ve been looking up to porn.
Funnily enough, my mom recently narrated an incident from my childhood when I confidently and curiously walked up to her, in my hot pink Daisy Duck dress with a cutesy fountain ponytail, exclaiming, ‘I know what sex is! But yeh ‘safe’ kya hota hai (what is safe in it)?’
My mom, like your average desi mom, was dumbstruck. She laughed to herself and brushed the topic aside. When I asked her if she answered the question back then, she laughed out loud and ignored it, again. I am 29 now and the joke was apparently on me.
Sex-ed lessons, just like at many other schools in our country, involved segregating boys in one room and girls in another, giggling their way through as teachers talked about human sexual anatomy. On the contrary, in our tuition classes, the Biology chapters were skipped altogether!
The next piece of ‘Sex-Ed’ I got was when I accessed the dial-up internet at my Dad’s office (hey, I’m talking about Y2K here. Hell, I’m old!), which left an endless trail of endless pop-ups on his computer. My parents innocently scolded my elder brother and in his own guilt, he took the blame. (We later found out that he used to get ‘Sex-Ed’ from my Dad’s dial-up internet connection as well).
As a teenager, I relied on the misinformation I got from friends and porn.
Now that we have touched upon the topic of pornography, I’d love to share my screwed up idea of what porn was. Simply put, it was flawless, white women with perfect bodies and shaved pussies, grinding on men to make them hard. Women were always wet – dripping wet; they never felt the need for lube. Pleasure had one definition—penis-in-vagina sex. Men always initiated the women into doing what they wanted. Women obediently gave in, enjoying everything their partners did or asked to be done, and screamed at the top of their lungs, achieving climax 100/100 times. I failed to understand why there wasn’t enough focus on men pleasuring women or women asking for what they enjoyed. It was shot from a man’s standpoint, with a strong emphasis on BJs and ending with the man ejaculating triumphantly.
At home or at school, I never even heard the ‘V-word’ or the ‘S-word’. It was as if they were forbidden words you dare not utter. That screwed-up idea completely broke for me when I went to watch the play Vagina Monologues with my mom (yes, you read that correctly). For those of you who’re not familiar with it, (neither was my mom) the play starts with these amazing women coming on stage asking the entire audience to stand up and say the word V-A-G-I-N-A—out loud. Now imagine my mother’s horror – she was looking for a space to hide in the pitch dark theatre while I was enjoying every bit of pussy being mentioned. For me, it was the first truly empowering experience I had. I felt like I connected with my body (and my vulva) on such an intellectual level. It was a different kind of energy and power seeing women being so comfortable in their skin, owning their bodies and their sexuality. The idea of celebrating your body, your sexuality just felt so freeing, so real, and so normal.
On the flip side, the only Sex-Ed I got from my mother was after my marriage when she told me, “Keep your husband ‘happy’ and you would both be in a happy marriage.” What she didn’t know was that we were ‘happy’ way before marriage (if you know what I mean ;)).
What I have come to infer is that many parents take it for granted that ‘porn educated’ male sexual partners (in a heterosexual relationship) will know everything there is to know about sex. ‘Bacchon ko to pata hi hoga!’ (parents assume their kids would know it all, magically).
As I jot my thoughts down, I struggle hard to think about the last positive message I received about sex or sexuality, in my formative years.
And it’s no different when you look at popular culture and advertising. The narrative is super-skewed towards men and their pleasure — right from the bikini-clad women you see on condom packaging to hypersexualised underwear ads and the penis-shaped sexual lubricant bottles.
Talking about sexual lubricants, I learnt that when it comes to lube, most women are not aware of how a sexual lube can not only enhance vaginal lubrication but also enhance pleasure. We are conditioned to believe that pain is part of the package, hence the thought of needing a lube becomes a taboo. Women often tend to think that something is wrong with them for needing extra lubrication. And when it comes to owning pleasure, there’s a whole range of emotions like shame and guilt that take centre stage. Consequently, instead of owning pleasure, women end up owning pain.
The unhelpful and judgemental sex education received in school and home fuels the secrecy and shame around sex, making it a foreign and unaccepted conversation all around. And when it comes to discussing female pleasure, the dialogue is a thing of the future.
Sachee is an entrepreneur running a female focused sexual and menstrual wellness brand, thatsassything.com. She studied in India and the US, digs Mexican food and loves having uncomfortable conversations that embarrass the shit out of her mom and husband.
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