Stakeholders believe that there is a dire need for formal and informal sex education to deal with misconceptions and ignorance on the subject.Many from different walks of life feel sex education must be included in the school curriculum but the classes should be conducted by professionals and broad-minded people. However, Swami Paramananda, known for his positive education crusade, goes a step further. He thinks sex education should begin from a very early age, a view not shared by Laurent Baucheron de Boissaudy, psychologist, who says that sex education is important but the approach to different age groups should be specific.
“We cannot teach a child below seven about sexuality since at this age they do not have the rational capacity that is required to understand such things. A child should be taught in a progressive manner, step by step,” he says.
He points out that sex education is important else ignorance will lead the youth to start imagining things that are not true and thus they may be misguided.
“We need to have social workers and especially psychologists to present the subject to them. What is happening nowadays is that the youth assume they know about sexuality but that is not necessarily the truth. What they know is only from hearsay and they may be misguided,” he explains, adding, “ providing a class specifically on sex is not what we need. What we need is to hold several meetings in small groups, twice or thrice a year, which are conducted by professionals.”
The Swami says for ages, sex has been considered as a taboo in different societies. As a result, a lack of sexual education has caused many social evils such as rape, passionate crimes, divorces .
“ Why should we behave as if sex is something apart and which should not be discussed. On the contrary, we should discuss about it and inform the youth what they should know so that they can better assume their sexuality. The earlier the better,” he explains.
According to Swami Paramananda, parents and authorities, have shirked their responsibilities and this has resulted into innumerable kinds of problems including pornography, rape, incest and other sexual abuses as well as broken marriages.
The Swami also says that male sexuality and female sexuality differ from each other. In the absence of genuine and profound understanding of sexuality, conflicts are bound to crop up between the two sexes. He takes up the respective cases of male and female sexuality.
“A man, for instance, should not retain his ejaculation. May it be in the animal kingdom or the human arena, sex is for procreation. Retaining the ejaculation is abnormal, and it therefore creates frustration in the man,” he explains.
He adds:“ A woman is multi-orgasmic by nature. No man has been able to sexually satisfy a woman. The man gets sexual satisfaction, but not the woman. And this leads to other subsequent reactions like the woman going for more than one sexual partner.”
According to Swami Paramananda, the fact remains that sexuality has been reduced to either a few minutes of pleasure or a mission accomplished solely for procreation. This, he says, is related to religion having always associated sexuality with something dirty; which also explains why many parents refuse to talk to their children about sex.
“As we all know, children like touching anything and everything. Parents get ashamed if their child happens to touch his/her genitals in front of relatives. Once more, it is because of the taboo associated with sexuality,” he says.
For Swami Paramananda, the concept of sexuality goes beyond the physical act. He believes that sexuality is the combination of male and female energies. And that it provides energy to the seven energy centres which constitute the human body.
“Thus, sex can be known as a pleasure and used as an energy. Sexual pleasure is not fragmented and temporary. The sexual energy is very powerful: a single cell holds the capacity of making a human being,” he says.
Former Minister of Education and Minister of Industry, Dharam Gokhool, agrees that sex education should be imparted to students. However, he says that the programme should be an age-appropriate programme and not a one size fits all one.
“It should be supported by good literature and have trained persons to provide these courses. It should not be a project which has not been well-developed and should cater for all age groups. If all conditions are satisfied, we could start with university students and maybe college students,” he says.
Pravesh Ramphul, president of the Students’ Union of the University of Mauritius, says that there is a need for sexual education among the youth.
He says: “We need such sessions because most of the youth learn the practical side of sexuality and it is only much later that they learn about the theory.”
He adds that these classes should target college students as they are the ones most inclined to be sexually active without understanding what they are doing.
Psychologist Sadasiven Coopoosamy is convinced that taboo on sexuality is a reality in Mauritius, and says that from their tender childhood, children need to be taught about sex.
He believes that religious bodies are not only behind the tabooed image of sexuality, but also thinks that they are responsible for perverted meanings of sexual stimulations like masturbation.
“Religious bodies make believe that masturbation is synonymous with committing a sin which would later bar one’s way to heaven. This leads to the youth having guilty feelings when masturbating,” he says.
And even if someday they get to know that all these were but myths, it would be far too late for those persons, those false beliefs would have already been glued to them. These also have a negative impact on the adult life of the individuals who become unable to enjoy their sexuality fully.
In order to prevent these problems, says Coopoosamy, parents should talk to their children about the fact that their sexuality is intricately linked to their existence. He adds that from a young age, they should be made aware of the facts, impacts and consequences of their sexual life.
Source: http://www.defimedia.info/articles/6440/1/Teaching-sex–in-schools/Page1.html
by News on Sunday
