Recently, Aditya Gautam released a book named “Pornistan: How to Survive the Porn Epidemic in India”. This book deals with how youngsters in India are getting sexual education from pornography, shyness of the parents to discuss sex with their wards, scientific and social impact of pornography on the society, and advisory to parents on how to break the ice on the subject. It also contains interviews with leading experts, latest studies on the subject as well as statements from famous porn stars.
The book, as expected, grabbed both eyeballs and applause. Broad minded youngsters tagged it as a marvel in the recent times as well as liked the content very much. On the other hand, people also ridiculed this book as spoiling youngsters and corrupting their minds.
Some months ago, I&B banned the advertisements for condoms. (Read this: Another blow to sex awareness as I&B Ministry bans the advertisements of condoms ). Before that, government in a misguided crackdown, banned hundreds of porn sites. This further deteriorated the condition of sex education in India. We all are quite aware of the hypocrisy of the censor board in films. The school curriculum has no sex education subject. The reproduction chapter in Biology is taught in hush-voice with a single doubt is seen as the naughtiness of the student. Seldom get punished over that. Relationship is a major turn-off in the society and pre-marital sex is treated as crime. Harassment by police, moral policing by police and citizens of couples is common. It is seen that most of the sexual crimes are due to the female not able to share the troubling element with their parents. Culprits take advantage of that and even after they are caught guilty, either the girls’ are termed as character-less or a compromise is made between them.
It’s time that Indians should understand that awareness of sex won’t increase the sexual crimes. In fact it would decrease it. It won’t corrupt their minds, in fact, it would increase their understanding of the opposite gender and will be able to make decisions wisely.
