Comprehensive Sexuality Education
This post is part of TARSHI’s #TalkSexuality campaign on Comprehensive Sexuality Education in collaboration with Youth Ki Awaaz. The author chose to remain anonymous. I met…
Because the Internet is an integral part of our daily lives, it is important that young people are given the right information so that they can explore the world around them, access information without violating legislations, know their rights in the virtual and physical world and have enjoyable and consensual relationships with whoever they choose.
Now, what you need is a good enough smartphone and sufficient data – these are the real “superstar” in the love affair between Big Tech and CSE.
It is unfortunate that one of the most fundamental processes of human life is shunned to the extent that we’ve been taught, and so we learn to dismiss the natural feelings our bodies produce.
“It’s rather unfortunate that our educational institutions and systems are so reluctant to understand, or they simply ignore, the importance of providing our youth with CSE that can help erase the shame and crippling self-doubt around sexuality, bodies, reproductive rights and wellness.
I wish my elders had told me about more than just bleeding when they talked about menstruation. I wish they…
At 13, I could (correctly!) explain the reproductive system of a plant. I’d been rather intimate with the anatomy of…
This question of appropriateness is, for me, at the heart of all questions around sexuality. Each of us carries within us our own private benchmarks for which expressions of sexuality we find appropriate, and which ones, in turn, have crossed an invisible line. The ones we believe belong across the border, in the land of the inappropriate, of the too much.
Where we are now: In August this year the Supreme Court of India declared that privacy at its core includes…
From my experiences, I find that diversity is not an end unto itself. Instead, it is a tool for reflection, a mirror that shows not only who we, and the society we live in, are in the present, but what we aspire to be in the future.
CSE’s ‘natural habitat’ is often considered to be the classroom, but as our contributors show us, CSE also lives, breathes and thrives in habitats as disparate as neighbourhood parks, jobs-training centres, playgrounds and sports fields, law schools, family discussions, and digital spaces.
Connection is essential for our survival – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. We connect with people, form networks of care and support, and in a sense weave webs of safety and comfort that we can turn to when stressed or simply want to infuse a dose of joy into our day.
In our mid-month issue, we have Mamatha Karollil writing about how she asserted herself after an incident of privacy violation when a nude picture of herself was seen by someone from work without her consent, and how ripping through, or not getting into, the cocoon of shame and dishonour, can prevent much distress…
While there is an oversaturation of information on sexuality, accurate, inclusive and affirming information is few and far between. Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) offers us multiple pathways to address these dilemmas.
Each time a child or adolescent asks a question that may be (even indirectly) related to sexuality, many parents and teachers get squirmy and nervous. This may be because they themselves do not have the information required, but in most cases, it has more to do with the ‘hush-hush’ that surrounds sexuality.