“Wow! Then we could make it a threesome!” Seema overheard her 15 year old son, Adi speak on the phone. He was talking to a girl, his classmate who wanted to bring her friend along for a movie they were planning to go to, but Seema couldn’t help wondering where Adi had picked that ‘threesome’ word up from. A little probing revealed that he and his peers often watched porn sites on the net. It seemed to be their source of sex education, inspite of an assigned class to that effect in their school curriculum.
Sex education and pornography are not the same. Sex education aims at educating and making youngsters aware of safe sex. Pornography works to entertain and excite. Teenagers who are the most eager to know more on the subject, should be exposed to sex education. It should be an essential part of their curriculum.
Early exposure to pornography, on the other hand, can harm a teenager. Sex in its idyllic form, is an expression of love and care. It is intimate and works to enforce the bond between partners. Pornography, on the other hand, projects sex as a casual exchange of pleasure. No pornographic video shows men wearing condoms, an essential for safe sex. Further, multiple partners, orgies, anal and underage sex, doctor-patient, teacher-student exchanges, torture and pain infliction are commonplace and partners are seen to comply willingly.
A kid who grows up watching porn could well grow up to believe that casual sex is okay and that perhaps a teacher could be solicited! Then there would be nothing like a bad touch either. This could have a humongous impact on the child’s self esteem, on his or her ability to care, nurture enriching relationships and have strong, lasting family bonds as an adult. Further, if he grows up with the feeling that sex should be the way it is in porn videos, he is in for blatant disenchantment in real life when he discovers that his partner doesn’t comply with his expected standards in shape, size or skills.
Porn is no doubt fiction but it does have its value and place. Often, regular partners do improve their sexual exchanges though cues from XXX videos. A forced bachelor, starved for sex could get some respite from his collection of porn videos and avoid going to an unknown partner for sex. But this is for adults. For teenagers and those in their nascent years of sexual knowledge, guided sex education either in school or from parents is essential to prevent a skewed view of sex.
This knowledge should be all encompassing. All forms and formats should be discussed and their benefits and risks explained. Receivers should be encouraged to ask questions to quench their curiosity. Kids, even in developed countries, have often said that they began watching porn because their questions were not answered in sex education classes.
Given the easy access that the young generation has to information, if formal ex education falls short of meeting their needs of curiosity; youngsters are bound to access erotic literature, sex magazines and videos as their primary source of sex education. This could negatively impact and threaten an entire society.
