{"id":5869,"date":"2015-05-01T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T05:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=5869"},"modified":"2018-08-01T16:14:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T10:44:14","slug":"review-family-and-sexuality-on-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/review-family-and-sexuality-on-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Family and Sexuality on the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am attempting to review public conversation for and by the Indian family on Family and Sexuality on the Internet. I tell myself that on the content-rich Internet it should be easy to review this. I Google the search term \u2018Family and Sexuality in India<\/a>\u2019. It\u2019s an oops moment for me.<\/p>\n

Combining the words \u2018Family\u2019 and \u2018Sexuality\u2019 in the same sentence doesn\u2019t work very well.There are academic studies focusing on child sexual abuse, on adolescents and sexuality, swinging couples and sexuality across cultures and historical time periods. More searching yields some films focusing on an aspect of a person\u2019s sexuality and that person\u2019s relationship with their family and with the world. There must be some books too.<\/p>\n

It appears that sexuality is either academic or wild, and most likely personal and private. Family is about community, values and shared things. Family is a safe word and sexuality is a dangerous word. The safest words appear to be ‘parents’ and ‘parenting’. I had better luck with \u2018Parenting in India<\/a>\u2019. ‘Indian parents blog<\/a>‘.<\/p>\n

I discovered that parenting themes in public discourse now include matters such as teaching your daughter about menstruation<\/a> before it ambushes her. In a list of links to news articles, <\/a>I discovered someone writing about a comparative analysis between schoolgirls and schoolboys to see which group is more or less likely to have emotional problems. Girls it seems are more likely to have emotional problems. Now hidden in the haystack is a needle \u2013 \u201cThey said reasons behind this could include a drive to achieve unrealistic body images perpetuated by social media and an increasing sexualisation of young women.\u201d This however was a BBC study being reported in the \u2018Parenting\u2019 section of The Times of India. You can read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These little gems hide amidst school, exam and nutrition talk. You have to explore with great skill and perseverance. There is simply no direct connection made between the words \u2018family\u2019 and \u2018sexuality\u2019. Apparently, they don\u2019t belong together. Does this, in the virtual world, accurately reflect the real world?<\/p>\n

In the real world, families certainly do spend a lot of time and energy on school, stress, nutrition, vacation plans, reproductive health, pregnancy planning, career planning, the parent-child connection and other such crucial life activities and issues. Families discuss, debate and take decisions about these matters. I clicked many web links. They reflect these themes.<\/p>\n

Parents India available at http:\/\/parentsindia.com<\/a> has a community forum where parents discuss many things including hair damage, a link to a petition asking for cr\u00e8ches at the work place to be made compulsory, even something on philately<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Exercise.<\/p>\n

Losing weight.<\/p>\n

The importance of grandparents.<\/p>\n

Father and son bonding over sports.<\/p>\n

Styling and furnishing kids rooms\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 and what appears to be an ad for cloth pads in a post<\/a> that nobody has commented on…<\/p>\n

Reinforcing gender stereotypes through trite statements is an article such as ‘Parenting tips to learn from your man<\/a>‘. It makes familiar inane noises such as moms are overprotective, dads let their kids take risks, and dads\u2019 love goofing around with kids without bothering whether the food is cooked or the clothes are ironed.\u2019<\/p>\n

Immediately after reading this I found the link to the section called New Age Mom<\/a>. In it is a tiny nugget hidden away inside an article<\/a>: “\u2026 it\u2019s important to be a friend to your children than a disciplinarian,\u201d says banker NehaTyagi. \u201cI am happy that my ten-year-old daughter shares everything with me, even if it is about finding a classmate attractive. This way, it\u2019s easier for me to put a check on her through friendly conversation.”<\/p>\n

Attractive. A lovely word for family conversation. Not pregnancy, not periods, not pads, not contraception. Light shines through. Here in the virtual world is the real mother of a real 10-year old girl discussing an attractive classmate with her. There\u2019s not a whole lot of it or about it, but now I\u2019m clutching at every straw.<\/p>\n

So I turn to the Indian parenting website<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0In an article tucked away called ‘Top 10 myths about parenting’<\/a> I find a paragraph exploring the issue of identity. As this word Identity<\/em> leaps up at me, my fingers trip over themselves trying to scroll down the page. I read: “I see many parents start explaining an identity to the child and create boundaries. These identities are normally of religion, nation, caste. It\u2019s being told that you belong to this identity.”\u00a0 So close. Just a hair\u2019s breadth away from talking about other identities. We don\u2019t cross that line.<\/p>\n

Rivo kids<\/a> is a site for parents and kids. Amongst the site sections they have ‘Health and safety’. A question put up on kids safety<\/a> was “Safety when outside house: I have a 13 yrs old girl. I am always worried when she goes alone in the car, can you please advise on any tips on safety which I can share and make her aware.”<\/p>\n

While the question seems incomplete and self-conscious, the answer seems to ignore the question about making the child aware: “SafetyKart is coming out with a very unique products which is a GPS device. You can keep that in your child bags and can track her movement through your smart phones. This is very helpful in case you don\u2019t want to give mobile phones to kids.”Here, a wonderful opportunity for a family based discussion on a family oriented website trots away into the fog surrounding sexuality and turns to technology as a solution. Let us all rush out and buy the GPS device.<\/p>\n

The website of Parentune<\/a> has a section on \u2018value system<\/a>\u2019 in Parent talk. This takes you to conversation threads about schools.<\/p>\n

So, on to \u2018Parenting community on the net<\/a>\u2019. Here I hit pretty much solid gold under the circumstances. I began with ‘Toy Story’<\/a> by Sunita Rajwade, a mother and a grandmother too. Toy story is her experience of the inadequacy of toy concepts that follow the trite, familiar gender norms. Her grandson would rather play with mixers and pressure cookers. She says, “While the rest of us are making buildings out of his blocks or running his cars up and down the furniture, he is making a loud \u2018gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\u2019 sound of the mixer as he is grinding his imaginary food in my very real mixer.”<\/p>\n

I was happy to read Nancy Sharma’s blog piece about three things she won’t teach her daughter<\/a>. One of these things is about taboos associated with menstruation. She says, “I don\u2019t want her to stand outside a temple just because she is bleeding. I want her to believe that it is normal and healthy for a female to bleed every month. And she can do anything and everything during those days.”<\/p>\n

Gauri Venkitaraman writes on gender stereotyping<\/a> and says, “One finds flawless female bodies with emphasis on bust, cleavage, thigh gaps and what have you. On the other hand, there are pictures of buffed up men with 6 packs, 8 packs or how many ever there are nowadays, muscles bulging out of their arms, thighs and God knows where else. These are touted to be the epitome of femininity and masculinity, respectively… For us, it has helped a great deal, talking to Macadamia and Pecan about what their vision is, of femininity and masculinity. What are the aspects which, in their minds, define these concepts?” (Macadamia and Pecan are her sons \ud83d\ude42\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Reviewing this content I am thrilled to read these thoughts written and shared by mothers and grandmothers. I think it is indicative of shifts happening within our families of which perhaps we are unaware.<\/p>\n

Yet I am struck by the lack of material on family, and on family and sexuality. What is family? Is it synonymous with parenting? Are persons in a domestic arrangement, a relationship, or friends sharing a roof, or married without children, not family, not a cohesive or significant group? Nobody seems to sell them anything. Nobody discusses their nutritional needs, vacation plans, career decisions. But wait, the Jabong \u2018Be You\u2019 ad campaign<\/a> approaches this, using the lens of love and romance rather than family. It\u2019s a step.<\/p>\n