A few months ago, there was a sexually explicit MMS doing the rounds in all metros, where two adolescents were engaging in some form of sexual interaction. News channels and newspapers spoke for a while about the sexual revolution in urban India, where the age of sexual experimentation is getting younger, and where there are no qualms about engaging in 'casual sex'. Recently, statistics stated that three lakhs teenage abortions were reported in a year in India, with probably an equal number or more remaining unreported. The debate over the across-the-counter sale of the 'morning after' contraceptive pill, as well as vending machines for male and female condoms has brought into focus, the rapidly changing sexual values, attitudes and behaviors in India's youth. With the AIDS endemic staring us in the face and India having one of the highest numbers of HIV cases in the world, we need to give teenage sexuality a serious think.


Most of us are ignorant about human sexuality during our formative years. This results in teenage pregnancies and abortions, which leave a girl psychologically scarred for life; sexually transmitted diseases including HIV, which can alter the course of your life forever; sexual molestation and rape, which changes who you are deep inside and affects your decision-making process; sexual addictions and fetishes, which adversely affect your ability to have healthy and normal adult relationships. Today, when our youth is pounded by sexual messages through every form of the media, television shows which inadvertently propagate 'casual sex', porn sites, party lines, sex chat rooms which stimulate and titillate the youth, or sexually explicit SMS jokes which are forwarded via cell phones which give veiled messages of sexual interest, all create in the Gen Next, an urgency to engage in sexual experimentation.


Along with the exposure to sexual messages and the resultant stimulation, teenagers who are raised in sexually repressive and authoritarian households have a dire need to rebel against all that they have been taught at home. They are more vulnerable to sexual messages, and therefore more prone to early sexual experimentation. Added to this is the global epidemic of 'low frustration tolerance', 'low impulse control' and 'discomfort intolerance' which results from being from the 'quick access' generation of instant coffee, ready-to-eat, fast food, SMS, BlackBerry, Wi-Fi internet access, phone/internet banking, credit card culture, 'enjoy now, pay later' schemes, etc. This generation, therefore, seeks instant gratification in everything including sex. This explains the great number of sexless marriages, where partners do not want to wait for the other to get ready or co-ordinate intimacy or engage in extensive foreplay. They would rather access internet sex or a party line and pleasure themselves or engage in one-night stands with commercial sex partners as and when they want to, and instantly gratify themselves.


Patrick and Jenna, a newly married young, successful and good-looking couple had a sexless marriage. Patrick confessed his preference for porn and self-pleasuring, and Jenna too seemed settled with self-stimulation either manually or mechanically. Both of them had no inclination to co-ordinate their sex life and share intimacy, instead, they preferred instant physical gratification. Their relationship was more of room partners than intimate ones, and there was little or no emotional intimacy between them. They viewed sex as purely a biological need or physical act, and missed the psychological and emotional component of intimacy. Most teenagers have a low EQ (emotional quotient), do not reflect on the long-term consequences of their behavior, and are unwilling to wait till they are able and willing to be responsible for the consequences of their sexual conduct. Freedom and responsibility go together. Those who discern whether their conduct will result in sustained happiness, who decides in favor of delaying gratification if it ensures sustained happiness and who exercise freedom with responsibility, are living life with maturity.


Fourteen-year-old Kevin Mathews stole money from home often and used it to buy prepaid SIM cards to call party lines for sexual chatting, spent huge sums at cybercafés to go on porn sites, and also called a call girl home when his family was out of town. He contracted an STD and had to be treated medically for the disease, as well as for his sexual addiction. Sixteen-year-old Chasey was from an orthodox family with authoritarian parents. Her mother chaperoned her everywhere during the day, and only left her alone in her bedroom at night. Chasey would sneak out at nights across her balcony to her neighbor’s balcony, engage in sex with the neighbor’s son, and sneak back into her room through the same route. She fell pregnant at the tender age of 16, leaving her family aghast and unable to come to terms with what had happened for a long time. She underwent an abortion, the scars of which haunt her and her entire family till date.


Peer pressure also makes one engage in early sexual experimentation, if one seeks approval and validation from one's peers. Nineteen-year-old James was the star at the inter-collegiate festival, having won the maximum number of events. Girls threw themselves at him, and his male friends pressured him to 'make hay while the sun shines'. His initial hesitation gave way, and he buckled under the peer pressure when his friends called him a 'baby', 'scared', 'impotent', etc. An 18-year-old girl invited him to a friend's farmhouse for the weekend. She made experienced moves and he had sexual intercourse for the first time. A few months later, he heard that she was HIV+ and very ill. She had had multiple sexual partners before him and was clueless about when and from whom she had contracted the virus. James was petrified and had himself tested repeatedly for HIV. He developed obsessive compulsive traits and turned from a creative, talented and humorous boy, to a neurotically anxious and nervous wreck.

'Casual sex' is rampant in our youth, and they claim that there are no moral obligations or strings attached to it, as long as it is between two consenting partners who have clearly agreed to such intimacy. However, it is immature to believe that sex can ever be 'casual'. The body-mind mechanism engages as an integrated unit in any act. Any attempt to divide the body and mind can only leave one feeling split and disintegrated, and psychologically destabilized with far-reaching consequences.


So what do we do for our youths who are into urgent sex, and who do not know how to experience the beauty of sharing emotional and physical intimacy in an integrated way? The answer is to provide them with timely, holistic and value-based sex education explaining to them all the aspects of human sexuality. They must be told about the difference between biological sex and an integrated sharing of intimacy, and the difference between responsible and irresponsible sexual behavior. With scientifically accurate knowledge about normal human sexual behavior, they will not fall prey to inaccurate and irresponsible sources of misinformation or imbibe unhealthy and abnormal sexual attitudes and behaviors. Only such timely education in human sexuality can create a generation of mature, responsible, healthy and wholesome individuals who can be honorable citizens of the world, and who lead future generations by example.

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