Chp 417. Sex Education

It’s a known fact that young girls are advised by their mothers about sex, menstruation and all things related to that at a very early age, because of the obvious reason. But when it comes to young boys, we all know things are not like that.



The other day I was catching up with an old friend of mine who now has a 12 year old son (and no, my friend is of the same age as I am… Dude just happened to get married off early - Arranged marriage), when the topic moved to sex education. When was he planning to tell his son about the birds and the bees?

His immediately reaction? “Hell no, not now. It’s still way too early!”

…which kinda made me chuckle because by the time I was 12, I pretty much knew everything about the forbidden three lettered word. That’s the “advantage” of being brought up in a boarding school. The age of adolescence clearly overlaps the age of innocence in most hostels.

I was in a hostel from Class 1 in Mizoram. And then when my folks felt I was prepared enough, they moved me to a hostel in Calcutta when I was in Class 3. And class 7 onwards I was in a hostel in Tamil Nadu.

So when I was 12 years old, let’s see, that would be the year 1992. Class 6, St. Thomas Boys’ School, Khidderpore. Yup, that was the year our hostel warden (Aunty Rich) raided my trunk and confiscated my collection of debonair and chastity magazines!

And no, I wasn’t the only one who “peaked early”. A lot of my friends had such magazines back then, hidden between their bed sheets and mattresses. I just happened to be the unfortunate one who got caught. With a dormitory shared by boys of different age groups, facts about sex and the female body parts were frequently passed on from seniors to juniors.

Hehe… I was shitting in my pants when my mom flew down from Mizoram to take me home for the summer vacation. Aunty Rich must have told my mom everything, but my mom never said anything to me. Eventually, I changed schools after that incident. We applied for admission at Montfort Anglo Indian School, Yercaud, down in Tamil Nadu and I nailed the entrance tests.

When I was in class 8 there, one of our subjects for English was Macbeth. Our teacher, Sir Aldrin, was just reading the part:

Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

…when I raised my hand because I had a doubt.

“Yes Kima?” he asked.

“Sir… so far we have learnt that… the Macbeths do not have any children…”

“Yes…?”

“So how could Lady Macbeth lactate if she didn’t have a son or daughter?”

The whole class erupted in laughter and Sir Aldrin asked me immediately, “And how DID you know about that?”

…which put me in a really tight spot because I couldn’t exactly tell how I knew (and of course years later I found out some women can indeed lactate even if they haven’t given birth due to stress, hormonal imbalance or pituitary tumor, but that’s a different story).

And in class 9, Stephen, who was the only Mizo classmate I had, his parents gifted him a book called “Boy’s Talk”, which had everything about sex education, advised from a very religious point of view. As we all went through the book, we just laughed and laughed because we already knew all the things the author was trying to tell in a very calm and understanding tone, lest we get shocked or something…

See, that is hostel life. Our folks do not have to give us uncomfortable lectures about sex because we learn about it from our friends and seniors. Of course we usually started off wrong, like when we all assumed women have four holes, one for poo poo, one for pee pee, one for making baby girl, and one for making baby boy. But then our seniors showed us pictures and videos, enlightening us. And then later, we would return that favour by showing the pics and vids to our juniors. And they in turn became the torch bearer of such dark knowledge. Circle of life indeed.

I’m not saying learning about it that way is a good or bad thing. But a hell lot of us graduated without having any proper sex ed, and yet, we all turned out ok.

So how did you learn about sex (and I am not talking about your Biology classes). When was the first time you became inquisitive about the opposite sex and wanted to know about the things adults do to each other in bed? When did you start questioning your sexuality? Did your folks ask you to sit down because they have something important to tell you? Or did you learn about it from a sleazy magazine or Nancy Friday novel on your own? Or was it a senior from school who enlightened you?

Let me know in the comment section below, I’m mighty interested in knowing about your experience.

I’m also tagging all my regular blog friends and you can blog about your experience in your next post with the tag #myfirstsexEd in the topic name, and put a link back to my post in your post and I will then put up your link on this very post (comon, this habit of tagging blog friends and asking them to write about a particular topic was very popular back in 2005-07).

Remember, it’s all in good fun. Plus it will give you something to write about if you have a case of the writer’s block. Cheers.