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Abstract
This article explores the way sex education for unmarried youth is understood at the national and local levels in India. It begins by describing the dominant political debates regarding the teaching of sex education in central government schools. These discussions are not gender neutral, and reveal some political dissatisfaction with India's participation in a globalizing world. Young people's access to formal sex education in the bustees (urban slums) of Kolkata is related to the construction of hegemonic Muslim femininities and masculinities. The article examines young people's experience with informal sex educators, and reveals that although informal sources are not adequate, young people are ambivalent about learning sex education in a formal context.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the Shastri Indo Canadian Institute and the University of Queensland for funding the research on which this article is based.
Notes
1. Rajalakshmi, ‘A Few State Governments’.
2. Ibid.
3. Sehgal, ‘Sexuality Education’, 2.
4. See Gentleman, ‘Sex Education Curriculum’ and Rajalakshmi, ‘A Few State Governments’.
5. Kurian, ‘Making Sense of Sex Education’.
6. Sinha, ‘Sex Education’.
7. Anon, ‘No Sex Education Please’.
8. The Committee is a federally appointed group consisting of educators, doctors, child psychologists, interfaith leaders, and members of the CBSE. A majority of the panel are male, with only one female on the 10-member Committee. It is headed by BJP Rajya Sabha member Venkaiah Naidu from Andhra Pradesh (he was president of the BJP from 2002 to 2004). Vishnoi and Thacker, ‘No Sex Education in Schools’.
9. Vishnoi and Thacker, ‘No Sex Education in Schools’.
10. Pandey, ‘Sex Education Immoral’.
11. Anon, ‘No Sex Education Please’ and Pandey, ‘Sex Education Immoral’.
12. Vishnoi and Thacker, ‘No Sex Education in Schools’.
13. Biomedicine Online, ‘Indian Minister Laments’.
14. BBC Online, ‘The Great Indian Sex Debate’.
15. Thakurdesai and Bhatt, ‘No Sex Education Please’.
16. Ibid.
17. L'Armand et al., ‘Attitudes toward Rape’, 285.
18. Sehgal,‘Sexuality Education’, 3.
19. Vishnoi and Thacker, ‘No Sex Education in Schools’.
20. See, for example, McManus and Dhar, ‘Study of Knowledge, Perception and Attitude’ and Chandrasekaran et al., ‘Containing HIV/AIDS in India’.
21. NACO, ‘HIV/AIDS Epidemiological Surveillance’.
22. Vishnoi and Thacker, ‘No Sex Education in Schools’.
23. Sehgal, ‘Sexuality Education’.
24. See, for example, Solomon et al., ‘A Review of the HIV Epidemic’.
25. Dhar, ‘Youth Demand Sex Education’.
26. See also Banaji, ‘Loving with Irony’; Banaji, Reading ‘Bollywood’.
27. Like most scholars I understand sex education/information being obtained from formal and informal sources. Formal sources include public health campaigns, NFE classes run by NGOs and government and classes within a school setting based on a standardized curriculum. Some informal sources can include popular culture, information from peers and siblings and pornography. I have discussed in detail elsewhere how Bollywood popular culture is an important source of sexual and romantic knowledge: Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’; Chakraborty, ‘The Good Muslim Girl’; and Beazley and Chakraborty, ‘Cool Consumption’.
28. Courtenay, ‘Constructions of Masculinity’, argues that social practices that undermine men's health are signifiers of masculinity, and, as a result, health-seeking behaviours are related to femininity.
29. See, for example, Bryan et al., ‘Determinants of HIV Risk’.
30. George, ‘Reinventing Honourable Masculinity’, 35.
31. See Verma et al., ‘Beliefs Concerning Sexual Health Problems’.
32. I worked as a sex educator for a local NGO during my time in the field.
33. During my time in the field I worked with a local NGO to develop an NFE class on ‘women's education’. This class was a semi-formal space where young women were invited to discuss contemporaneous issues, including sex and romance. The community, however, were not privy to these discussions.
34. Abraham and Kumar, ‘Sexual Experiences and Their Correlates’; Abraham, ‘Bhai–Behen, True Love, Time Pass’; Abraham, ‘Redrawing the Lakshman Rekha’; Jejeebhoy, ‘Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Behaviour’; Jejeebhoy and Sathar, ‘Women's Autonomy in India and Pakistan’; Alexander et al., ‘Romance and Sex’; Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’; and Chakraborty, ‘The Good Muslim Girl’.
35. Papanek, ‘Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter’; Jejeebhoy, ‘Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Behaviour’; Abraham, ‘Bhai–Behen, True Love, Time Pass’; Abraham, ‘Redrawing the Lakshman Rekha’; Sodhi and Verma, ‘Sexual Coercion among Unmarried Adolescents’; Sleightholme and Sinha, ‘Guilty without Trial’; and Rozario, Purity and Communal Boundaries.
36. Hey, The Company She Keeps; see also Ringrose, ‘Every Time She Bends Over’.
37. I have described elsewhere how this allows ‘good girls’ to build a decent public reputation, which elevates their social position in the slum, but often at the expense of same-sex friendships; Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’.
38. Abraham, ‘Bhai–Behen, True Love, Time Pass’; Abraham, ‘Redrawing the Lakshman Rekha’; Jejeebhoy, Citation2000, ‘Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Behaviour’; Jejeebhoy, Citation1998, ‘Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Behaviour’; Mehra et al., ‘Sexual Behaviour among Unmarried Adolescents’; Alexander et al., ‘Romance and Sex’; and Puri, Women, Body, Desire.
39. Abraham, ‘Bhai–Behen, True Love, Time Pass’; Sodhi and Verma, ‘Sexual Coercion among Unmarried Adolescents’; and Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’.
40. Seal et al., ‘From Recall to Redressal’.
41. Ibid., 3.
42. As argued by Kumar, cited in Seal et al., ‘From Recall to Redressal’, 4.
43. See Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’.
44. Sana's mother May 2006.
45. See Nilan et al., ‘Indonesian Muslim Masculinities’; Bennett, Maidenhood, Islam and Modernity; Bennett, ‘Patterns of Resistance’; and Bennett, ‘Zina and the Enigma of Sex Education’.
46. Qur'an 24: 2.
47. Bennett, ‘Zina and the Enigma of Sex Education’ and Sanjakdar ‘Developing Appropriate Sexual Health Education Curriculum’.
48. Sanjakdar, ‘Developing Appropriate Sexual Health Education Curriculum’, 144.
49. Bennett, L.R. ‘Zina and the Enigma of Sex Education for Indonesian Muslim Youth’.
50. Bennett, ‘Patterns of Resistance’.
51. Interrogating South Asian Masculinities: An Inter Disciplinary Dialogue, ‘Exploring Masculinities’ seminar series in India, http://www.southasianmasculinities.org/ (accessed February 12, 2009).
52. Banaji's Reading ‘Bollywood’ is a study of young film-goers in London and Mumbai; Derne's Movies Masculinity and Modernity is an ethnography on male film-going in North India and Madan-Bahel's Sexual Health and Bollywood Films is a Bollywood-based sexual health programme for South Asian young women. These recent works point to the important role Bollywood plays in educating young Indians about romance and sex in modern India.
53. See Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’.
54. See for example Hennink et al., ‘Knowledge of Personal and Sexual Development’; Abraham, ‘Redrawing the Lakshman Rekha’; and Derne, Movies Masculinity and Modernity.
55. Young men would venture into Internet cafes with one or two male peers to view pornographic websites, while one male informant in my work confessed to me that he went alone to view ‘other’ sites, which I took to mean pornography that challenged hegemony, including, but not limited to, homosexual porn. Thus, group viewing was important in sharing the spectacle of heterosexual pornography, and is another way that hegemony was performed in the slums.
56. Basic Instinct, Directed by Paul Verhoven. CA, USA: Carolco Pictures, 1992.
57. Hennink et al., ‘Knowledge of Personal and Sexual Development’, 328.
58. Salmu, female, 20, 2007.
59. Similarly, in his work in Pakistan, Walle also found that embellished claims of sexual expertise was one way young men performed ‘maleness’ amongst their peers.
60. See Chakraborty, ‘The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls’.
61. McManus and Dhar, ‘Study of Knowledge, Perception and Attitude’.
62. Ibid., 4.