Rabat - Rolling my eyes over, with a tight lip smile that’s how I tried to escape the looks of my classmates who looked just as perplexed and confused. It lasted for a while as the natural science teacher was explaining the major features and functions of female and male genital organs. Some girls were brushing and couldn’t wait for the bell to ring while some boys managed to hide their curiosity behind a sudden pretended seriousness translated into staring eyes but subtle smiles.
Rabat – Rolling my eyes over, with a tight lip smile that’s how I tried to escape the looks of my classmates who looked just as perplexed and confused. It lasted for a while as the natural science teacher was explaining the major features and functions of female and male genital organs. Some girls were brushing and couldn’t wait for the bell to ring while some boys managed to hide their curiosity behind a sudden pretended seriousness translated into staring eyes but subtle smiles.
One by one, we left the classroom with one unmistakable fact that we had just scratched the surface, and there is so much to know that was not possible to be said in the classroom. We had lot of questions that we did not dare to ask the teacher and by the same token, they cannot be answered at home. So, how is it possible to crack the hard shell of this taboo?
At home, it is hard for parents to talk with their children about sex, and obviously children are not at ease doing so. So, if is it not taught at home and at school only a very shallow and superficial explanation is provided, then who teaches children about sex? Are they left alone, by their own, to learn it their own way?
What is the chief culprit in our inability to embrace sex as openly as we embrace other natural instinctive needs? Don’t we need to know what is happening inside our bodies, what is the nature and origins of the deep feelings and urges, how to cope with these? What do we do about them? And countless are the other questions that cannot be answered solely from a religious standpoint, or relying only on a cultural background, nor the two combined. No sex intercourse should take place before the marriage inked and declared bond, to cut to the chase, it does not mean that nobody does it.
To blindly believe that things could not be otherwise is to further complicate the situation and gives total freedom for all kind of opposite practices to take place. To tackle sex from exclusively one prospective is what gives rise to a repressive environment that in return would produce a heavy bundle of social problems such as abandoned children, sexually transmitted infections and health problems, sexual harassment, and rape crimes. Sex education is a fundamental issue that requires resilient and flexible tackling starting as early as possible.
While growing up, children undergo psychological changes that the more they understand; the better they handle the situations accompanying the different stages of their development. Children have a number of questions for which they need appropriate answers. They would like, simply, to know.
But most of the time discouraged because adults are cloaked in conservative coats which save them from questions that, most of the time, they themselves cannot answer. Children and teenagers are brought up out of harmony with their inner needs; their feelings are suffocated, and their minds are kept to roam at random, which would not result but in suppression, embarrassment, and confusion.
The number of children born out of the wedlock that is on the rise stands in testimony as one way in which the dysfunction manifests. Despite all crimes and social problems traced back to the lack or the inadequacy of sex education, still sex is a subject that is encapsulated by lot of ambiguities, and shame. Whenever the subject is brought up, or an inappropriate TV seen suddenly pops up, an awful feeling of embarrassment prevails whishing the ground would swallow the one caught guilty.
The need for awareness is immense in this respect, primarily at school and at home, the first seeds of awareness need to be implanted in order to break the ice on this taboo. The more sex is surrounded by silence and ignorance, the hardest it becomes to diagnose the caused disorders. The repressed collective psychology resulting from this mindset would sustain itself through many generations to come and get fortified to cause more serious disorders and therefore more repressed generations. With time, the related social problems would manifest in even unprecedentedly acute forms.
To develop a particular solid discipline in sex education and bring about experts and well trained people on the subject could be a very good start. Sex education is not shameful and it is not an invitation to sex, as some might call it. Sex education is awareness that would open our eyes on something that is part of ourselves. In fact, lack of awareness is not what would prevent somebody from having a sexual intercourse outside the socially defined boundaries. On the contrary, shedding light on the rights aspects of sex is what could save lot of lives from suffering and misery, is what could save a whole society from being trapped at the lowest levels of human consciousness.
Offering the right disciplines, guides, and communication to parents and their children in this respect should be made a priority, as parents also have to get prepared for the questions of their children. By doing this, teenagers can access outlets to vent any frustrations and other emotional charges that could be destructive. Answers have to very accurate encompassing a very broad prospective, in a very simplified and straightforward way.
To teach sex and sex abstinence, lot of material and evidence could be brought including from real life, religious teaching, and scientific research. Also, we could build on some other countries’ experiences that need to be carefully and reasonably matched or just inspired from. However, it is important to be vigilant so that it is not taught from a strongly biased point of view as it would make learning nothing better than learning completely false and biased ideas about sex.
Sex education when taught in good and appropriate manners could yield good results but very harmful when it is the other way around. Let’s have good faith in our children and equip them with the necessary knowledge to understand themselves and their bodies, if they hold good grasp over the functioning of sex, for sure, there would not be such misuse, repression, and violence, or at least not to the extent that we see nowadays. Sex is important for the survival of human beings, thereby, it is a natural gift not a curse.
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