The boys in our class were asked to leave the classroom by our class teacher when a classmate\u2019s skirt got stained. I took her to the washroom, covering her white skirt, and provided her with a sanitary napkin. This was in 2005, when I was in the 8th standard in Guwahati, Assam. I took the initiative to keep the boys away from knowing what actually happened. I did not know why I kept the matter a secret but I knew it was not a matter to be known to everyone. I did not know why I did that but as a na\u00efve 8th standard girl in the early 2000\u2019s I knew periods was a topic discussed in corridors and not in public. Like many girls, I too did not know much about periods and the only information that I had was from my immediate surroundings \u2013 family, school and movies. This experience stayed with me, because in retrospect when I think of it now, before I comprehensively understood the process of menstruation, I unintentionally defined it as a socially shameful phenomenon to be experienced in secrecy and only be discussed in whispers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the early 2000\u2019s, we mostly learned the concepts or words associated with sexuality in school from seniors, scribbles\/ doodles on the washroom doors with words written on them, and from movies. Drawings of middle fingers on the washroom doors and walls made adolescents curious, and scribbles on tuition tables and secret messages made it easier for adolescents to create an informal network that invited chats about sexuality outside the school campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, as a sexuality educator myself, I have observed that \u201ctrying to fit in\u201d becomes very important for adolescents, and language becomes their medium to do so. Expressions such as \u201cFuck you\u201d or \u201cBitch\u201d were some of the earliest introductory exposures to being \u2018cool\u2019 and of being \u2018grown up\u2019 for us. It has not changed much for adolescents today \u2013 the only differentiating factor could be the increase in confidence in the way the words are used. Popular cinema has become a source for them to not only know of these words but also be exposed to content that is age-inappropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exposure to content that adolescents don\u2019t have appropriate knowledge about can contribute to a false perception about sexuality. As I reflect back, one of the earlier sources of sexuality-related information that I had noticed were CD-ROMS. Young boys in our class would download sexually explicit content from the internet, transfer it to CD-ROMS and circulate these amongst themselves \u2013 in Assam they were colloquially called \u201cNeela\u201d CD (\u201cBlue\u201d film \u2013 pornographic\/ sexually explicit videos). This meant that videos with sexually explicit content were circulated by those who had access to the internet, and were watched by many. At a time when access to the internet was aspirational, possessing, and circulating adult content, reflected both a technological entitlement or privilege, and adolescent curiosity at its peak. These materials became mediums not only of information but also collective sites of bonding and learning about sexual desires, specifically for boys. As fellow adolescents, we girls would be curious seeing CDs tucked inside their workbooks, and if we enquired about them, the boys would dismiss us with \u201cYou don\u2019t need to know.\u201d This makes me realise how sexuality-related information was already gendered \u2013 accessible for some and not for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From my own experiences, and years later as a sexuality educator, I have seen that while information about sexuality for children is not only strict but also regulated, one thing that has remained consistent is that children and adolescents continue to find the most amount of information from their informal social networks. One of the differences from then to now is that, earlier, children would consume information passively, just like I did. But currently, most children are caught in a complex loop of wanting to know versus not wanting to know (because of the way sexuality-related conversations have been shaped by their parents and caregivers or the way it is guarded by them). Recently, after a facilitation session, a visibly shaken child drew closer to me and asked what the meaning of sex is, and said if the meaning is inappropriate, he would not like to know as his parents say knowing anything about this word is very bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a related but different note, in a workshop with adults, a participant spoke about having been sexually abused as a child, multiple times across several years, by her first cousin, 18 years after this had occurred. She had not only lacked the vocabulary as a child to articulate her experience, but was filled with shame and struggled to explain the act to her elders because she did not know how to. It transpired that another female cousin was also being abused, and her mother getting to know of it called out the abuser and told the whole family. But the abuse was never acknowledged, the abuser was not held to account, and the survivors were blamed by the extended family. This tellingly shows how the lack of knowledge not only kept the two girls from safety but also denied them an emotional infrastructure to feel safe. Sexuality education is important not just for children and adolescents but also for parents and caregivers. We must also recognise how the social construction of shame and privilege guards abuse and keeps parents and caregivers away from truly supporting children. Unless sexuality-related information flows at all levels, children and adolescents will not be safe. This example mentioned above is also important to note, because years later, it is knowledge and information about sexuality that enabled the participant to have the confidence to talk about the abuse without guilt or shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Current Scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How sexuality-related information is transmitted over time and from one generation to the next can lead to a tension between young people and their parents. Today\u2019s adolescents and young children look to informal networks and digital and social media platforms to access information about sexuality, desire, themselves, their bodies, and their related experiences and romantic relationships, while parents regulate children\u2019s accessibility to these networks and platforms within the shame, secrecy and morality framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the boom of digital infrastructure, young adolescents are not just accessing information but are developing worldviews and opinions about sexualities. For instance, a group of 11th standard boys started arguing about how folks from the LGBTQ+ community were not \u2018authentic\u2019 in terms of their sexual orientation \u2013 they based this argument on some research papers they found on digital platforms. Digital platforms provide information from different perspectives and diverse lenses (this provides something for everyone) \u2013 something young adolescents won\u2019t realise of until it is contextually explained to them. Similarly, young couples are forming ideas of relationships and intimacy based on what they consume in the larger digital ecosystem including on YouTube and Instagram, sometimes arriving at confusing ideas about what a good relationship should look like in their own social reality. For instance, at a time when discussions on red flags and green flags in relationships were trending on social media, after a session in Tamil Nadu, an 11th standard boy worried about his behaviour with his girlfriend came up and asked, \u201cWho should we reach out to if we have issues because what we see on social media is very different from what is relevant to our lives?\u201d His question reflects and indicates the intelligence to see the difference in contexts and also points to the emotional vulnerability young adolescents go through if they lack a safe emotional support system that can help them meaningfully navigate their experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Children and young people are not passive consumers of information \u2013 instead, they make meaning of the information they access. In a world driven by data, digital access and artificial intelligence, every site becomes a site of absorbing information about sexuality. Be it digital media platforms like Discord, Facebook, Instagram or X or open AI platforms like Chat GPT or Claude, freely accessible platforms are becoming young people\u2019s informal learning systems. Because these platforms work on algorithms, the users\u2019 biases and emotional insecurities shape their feeds and the information they are exposed to. Artificial intelligence is designed to generate and build conversational outputs without considering who is asking, which means there is no age-appropriateness in the responses and they are also devoid of context. On the other hand, an AI-driven chatbot like SnehAI is ethically developed to provide appropriate sexual and reproductive health information to users. The existence of both responsibly designed AI platforms, alongside those that are not, creates a challenging and confusing information environment for adolescents. It is therefore the responsibility of the wider ecosystem to ensure that sexuality-related information is presented in safe and age-appropriate ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cover image by Alexander Shatov<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Only to be discussed in whispers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":29530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5450,8],"tags":[5452,5455,2517,255,5453,26,4838,4674,5454,1185,2068,25,5131,5451,193,408,2273],"class_list":{"0":"post-29490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-information-and-sexuality","8":"category-voices","9":"tag-adolescents-and-sexuality","10":"tag-ai-and-sexuality-education","11":"tag-caregivers","12":"tag-comprehensive-sexuality-education","13":"tag-digital-media-and-sexuality","14":"tag-gender","15":"tag-lgbtq-inclusion","16":"tag-media-literacy","17":"tag-online-information","18":"tag-parents","19":"tag-secrecy","20":"tag-sexualities","21":"tag-sexuality-education-in-india","22":"tag-sexuality-information-for-adolescents","23":"tag-shame","24":"tag-srhr","25":"tag-young-people-and-sexuality"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29490"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29529,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29490\/revisions\/29529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}