3.4 Governments

In the previous activities, we have thought about social and personal values and norms that influence if and how we talk about sexual pleasure. However, in just about every country in the world, government places restrictions on our ability to talk with young people about sexuality and pleasure.

Activity 3.4: Do governments play a role in making it difficult to talk about sexual pleasure?

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes to do this activity

Watch the following video clip where Dr Vinay Mishra, an expert on sexuality, based at the Bhopal School of Social Sciences in India, talks about his experiences.

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DR VINAY MISHRA
I teach psychology at a college in central India. I've also been a practicing psychologist and Antarctic expeditioner and do voluntary work with the Family Planning Association of India. In a country like India, we have eight states that have banned sex education. And that includes the state in which I reside, which is Madhya Pradesh, or MP for short.
There is a lot of political pressure on the academicians, who may want to bring it up, and also with the non-government organisations, where they may want to implement certain CSE-related work. And there is enough evidence about the requirement of doing so. However, the politics part makes it a little difficult. And therefore, even now, we actually do not get an opportunity to implement sexuality-related education, even in its simplest form.
Let me start with an example. Working with the Family Planning Association of India, I was invited to write a book on human sexuality which is meant for adolescents in the state that I reside in. However, as I finished with the book, which was in the local language, I submitted it, and I was promptly told that, no, there is no such information that can be imparted at school level. And was then requested to change the book into something that was related to family life education, very, very remotely bringing in sexuality. And that too, just in the form of HIV/AIDS. So that's all that the state could tolerate at that particular point of time.
Other than some NGOs which work in this particular sector, there aren't too many people doing work because of the fact that the state really doesn't allow it.

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In the text box below, write some notes in response to the following questions:

  • Does the government in the region, state or country you work in place any restrictions on sexual education for young people? If yes, what are these restrictions?
  • Why do you think governments place restrictions on sexual education?
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Discussion

Peter, one of the writing team, who has worked in Ireland, says:

Ireland is an economically advanced country at the heart of the European Union with liberal laws on things like contraception, divorce and gay rights. However, sex education in schools and elsewhere is still very restricted. This is because the majority of schools in Ireland are run by the Catholic Church, which traditionally holds very conservative views on sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, contraception, divorce, etc.

Although the government of Ireland is now very liberal, the laws governing sex education are over twenty years old and allow schools to follow their own religious ethos in educating young people about sex, even if they are funded by the government. This means that it is really difficult to carry out proper sex education in most school or youth settings. There is increasing pressure in Ireland to change these laws.

Further thoughts

In this second clip, Dr Vinay Mishra gives some suggestions for working within the restrictions imposed by government. Watch the clip if you’d like to know more.

Download this video clip.Video player: nc_ippf_2019_vid004.mp4
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DR VINAY MISHRA
We probably would begin about sharing information related to puberty and information related to how relationships unfold with the same sex or with members of the opposite sex. It's also been my experience that as we move on in this particular area, we could incorporate issues that revolve around self-esteem and assertiveness and are basically talking about the self in very clear ways.
The reason why I say that is because if we come straight away into sexuality-related information, it just has people have their guards go up, particularly parents. And therefore, there's a lot of resistance. However, when you talk about self-esteem and self-respect and assertiveness-related skills, they would probably understand it as something that would help their personalities grow and would probably be developing a sense of well-being in their children. And therefore this would just mean at least minimal resistance at school level.
We should then move on to empathy and basically attitudes towards sexual diversity. So when we talk about empathy and attitude towards sexual diversity, we would open up the arena for discussions on many issues which may revolve around homosexuality, the transgender population, and many such things that are really not discussed. And I think in that particular context, while pleasure and pleasure-related information is being imparted, it would be better accepted in that particular context.
So in the context of understanding sexual diversity, I think weaving in the pleasure component is likely to register better with people. And I think towards the end of such information imparting sessions, they should always be an emphasis on communication skills - your ability to express, your ability to talk, your ability to be able to get across to another person.

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3.3 Our own experiences

3.5 Answering questions