Let's talk about sex

My baby sister is pregnant! It's a trying time for our family as we are alternating between phases of joy and horror. When I first heard it, I was over-joyed at the prospect of having a few more furry additions to our family. But my mom - to whom my baby sister is well, still a baby - isn't taking it too well and she's been cursing "the perpetrator" who in her eyes is a sick predator preying on little children. After all, she is only about seven months old and clearly in no state of mental maturity to embrace motherhood. Perhaps she dived in willingly without being armed with all the facts a young adult should have.

She's got a loving family who is going to support her through "the crisis". Not many do.

Sex education and development of one's sexual image in many Asian (and I suspect other conservative) societies fails to prepare young adults, especially girls, for the real world. It is not just a biology lesson; there are emotional, social, cultural, religious and ethical tags attached to it too. Also, when talking about sex education, gender equality and sexual orientation can no longer be factored out. Many find themselves hurled from years of protective embrace from their parents into the real world, armed with nothing but a (badly illustrated) text book knowledge and/or engraved cultural/ religious notions like going to hell for even contemplating about sex before lawful marriage or being non-heterosexual or that the worth of a woman lies in her virginity.

So during that period between first contemplating sex and the lawful marriage, on one extreme, some of these young adults who may not have received a well rounded sex education or developed a healthy sexual image may engage in risky sexual behaviour, have to deal with unwanted pregnancies, become involved in cyber-bullying and sexual violence, catch STDs or worse, contract AIDS. On the other extreme, another group of women naively enter their first lawful marriage to find out that their patriarchal society/culture measures her worth primarily by her chastity yet, none of that applies to her first lawful husband and she can't expect the same of him. And some men in these societies enter their lawful marriage believing it is their right to demand that his wife be a virgin (otherwise he may choose to pay a bride price of less monetary value for her worth).

I'm playing with extremes here, but the truth is a lot of conservative parents don't have the talk of the birds and the bees and the pill and the latex condoms with their children or entertain any questions. Due to their inability to address it, they prefer schools and the Internet to bridge this gap (which in some cases work out). For one thing, conservative parents who didn't receive this lesson from their parents are mostly at a loss to sit down and talk to their curious children about something as personal and taboo as sex. And for another, it's not an easy talk to have for either party when one's cultural/ religious influences stand in the way.

Apart from the technicalities, enough emphasis is not placed on the fact that one's sexuality is a personal choice therefore one becomes solely responsible for the consequences of one's actions relating to one's sexuality. Girls are not told enough that they can say NO to sex if they are not comfortable with it or to fight back when harassed or abused; they learn from an early age to be submissive and keep quiet out of reasons like shame or guilt. Boys often watch how their fathers treat their mothers and go on to treat their wives/ girlfriends in the same way and on the negative extreme, it can lead to generation upon generation of disrespect to the opposite gender and even violence.

I think somewhere among all the extremes, there is a dimension where both male and female children can be properly educated on sex and their rights, encouraged to respect the opposite sex and be empowered to have a healthy sexual image of oneself and one's actions relating to it.

On a related note, the Internet has given a voice to many female rights activists:
https://www.facebook.com/womenbloggers
http://wbsa.wordpress.com/

Though this post wasn't really about my baby sister, I look forward to seeing her get through her term and have a healthy litter!

Borrowed from the Internet

I'm often amazed by how much information is out there on the Internet to be retrieved at the click of a button and at the convenience of not having to move even an inch from the seat.

Today, as I "enjoy" a day off work on medical leave and (unintentionally) keeping up with the last gloomy post, here is a very interesting TED Talk on our ideas of Death:

Here's a funny, yet powerful advertisement on a real social problem:

I face this on a daily basis while working in a construction site with hundreds of male foreign construction workers as I walk out to the public canteen for lunch or walk out to the bus. Not every worker does it, but most of them do. It is not restricted to one type of nationality, though some types are more prone to do it than others. My inherent nature of being hyper-sensitive to external social stimuli, makes the problem a deeply-felt one. It matters little if you are very attractive or not, conservatively dressed or scantily clad, with or without tattoos or piercings; but if you are a young female and a minority gender in the area, the chances of being stared at by certain groups of people increase exponentially.

While the work site is generally safe for female employees to work from any physical harm, the stares don't get any easier or lesser in incidence even after 1.5 years of being on the job. I have been forced to adapt to selective seeing (in other words, avoiding extended eye contact with any one human subject) and mentally blocking some of the anxiety it brings. I've also noticed that it helps greatly to have company going out to lunch as one's thoughts are less focused on the surroundings and more on the conversations at hand. And I suspect, from an evolutionary perspective, we feel safer and bolder being part of a "herd".

From the point of view of a starer, I think it is just a learned habit which most of them pay little attention to. They grow up in societies thinking it is a normal thing to do and are rarely challenged to re-think such habits or put themselves in the shoes of the people they affect, which is why the "mirror" in the advertisement creates a powerful impact. Also, it is not a punishable crime to stare so some take it as further as they can go without getting into trouble themselves.

Speaking of problems, the way some people learn to embrace their problems makes all the difference between achieving what they are capable of doing and achieving a lot less than that. The TED talk below also reminds that having the unwaivering support of family and friends to help us believe in ourselves can be a blessing.