This is going to be a long post, I won’t have time to write it all in one day, so please bear with me the next few days ( I am doing 5 subjects this semester and it is a nightmare).
Few days ago, I received a frantic call from one of Yaya’s school mate. It was an unusual call mostly because I don’t really talk to this girl and she doesn’t move in Yaya’s circle of friends.
According to the girl who called me, she was told by another friend of hers who happens to be Yaya’s good friend that the best person to talk to is me and that is why she was phoning me.
Gist of the matter is she is really worried that she is pregnant and wanted to know her options. ( She wanted to know if she could still take morning after pills or where should go for getting help)
There are so many issues associated with this event.
Let us start with the first in my list.
Sex.
Age of consent in Australia is 16. At the age of 16, you are legally allowed to have sex. (https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/age-consent-laws)
I understand it is very hard for Indian/Asian parents to accept that sex is nothing but a biological function. In the Indian context, every man wants to marry a virgin and every mother and father wants their daughter to be pure so every man out there will admire the hard work they put in to keep their daughter pure and what a blessed union it would bring forth. ( Have you ever wondered why the reverse is not true? That parents of boys are not really interested in protecting their son’s virginity?)
I am not sure where this classification of simple act called sex in to pre and post marital sex and making premarital sex in to a villain came about. A string of flowers around the neck or whatever you consider legal is all that is required to normalise the sexual act between a man and a woman.
Why should we stop two consenting adults from having sex? Why should the entire society take such an active interest in preventing pre-marital sex?
Interesting set of articles can be found here
https://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/tag/premarital-sex/
Why should we stop two consenting adults from having sex? Why should the entire society take such an active interest in preventing pre-marital sex?
Possible answers.
1) The anti-premarital sex brigade may not have had much sex or fun in their youth and probably is not getting much sex now, so they don’t want young people to have sex and enjoy.
2) They are not happy with their lives, don’t have the guts to go against norms and change it, and hence don’t want others to enjoy. Not just sex, anything fun is bad, and must be prevented.
3) Some religions are against it.
4) Power and control over women.
5) They equate virtue with abstinence and believe they are doing the righteous thing by upholding the moral fabric of the nation.
Given an opportunity, I am sure many of the opponents of sex and decadence and will do the exact same things they are trying to prevent.
Having said all this, I think it is better if people have not only physical maturity, but also the emotional maturity to handle sex before they indulge. Call me silly, but I love this advice Charlie Chaplain is believed to have given his daughter, ‘Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul’.
A: Don’t you think it is a bit rich of Chaplin to give that advice considering the fact that he slept with a child of 15 years of age, got her preg and forced her to have the abortion and then married her because it was easier than going to jail? ( his second wife Leti)
Yep! Far easier to dish good advice than follow it.
A: Typical of men isn’t it?
It’s a topic that really has a broad range of answers and is difficult to determine whether sex before marriage is acceptable. I can only say this though; a few people I know who had pre-marital sex (I’m speaking of my American counterparts) have deep regrets engaging in it and say that’s best to wait until you find Mr/Mrs. Right and then go for it. They had gone through so many issues and are suffering. But then if you think about throw in the concept of divorce after marriage, you’ll see people re marrying and again, have sex. So looking at it, it really shouldn’t matter whether one has sex before or after marriage. However, people who keep breaking up and ending up with new partners, repeating the cycle over and over again will have to suffer dire consequences (risk for STD’s is huge on this). Thinking of it, it’s going to impact the rest of your life, your future and the guilt sense will def be there.
I can understand why Indian society is trying their best to prevent pre-marital sex. But funnily enough it’s not only Indians, American society and I’m sure other societies are very much the same believe it or not as they are seeing the horrors of what teens and those who do it go through. To be honest, I really don’t think a 16 year old is mature enough to engage in sexual acts anyway. If the girl ends up pregnant, will she be able to manage a baby? (or pawn it off to their parents who will end up raising the child? Typical in American society). Will the father assist in helping the raising the child (many young dads refuse to take part of raising their kid,). If there is no mutual support the poor baby will def end up growing up in a broken home and will be miserable (we def don’t need more of that as it’s already problematic). This is so common in American society and is probably why they are for no sex until you are stable and mature enough to do it, while aware of the consequences it can have ( 16 years is def not the age IMO). And believe it or not, there are adults who do not ‘grow up’ and are not capable of taking such responsibility.
I would personally not advertise for pre-marital sex, but again even after marriage there is divorce, it sounds contradictory. I think every society needs to emphasize on how to build good relationships with all people and teach everyone how to resolve those issues when a problem arises. Maybe this will be the solution to a long life lasting marriage because most people do not know how to solve their marital problems.
And yea, Indian society regarding men and pre-marital sex needs to change big time. It’s high time to get rid of that ‘rape culture’.
Just want to add one more thing, I am an avid fan of IHM’s blog :D. Not sure how often you read Priya’s blog, but it gives a lot of interesting discussions 🙂
J1206″ Nope, I don’t read her blog. I googled pre-marital sex and it came up and I thought I would link it.
J1206: When you talk about American counter parts, are you thinking of American ( east) Indians? Because stats from US clearly shows otherwise. (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html)
I think you are confused with the whole idea of marriage, divorce and sex. What has divorce and remarriage got to do with each other? IS it because the woman has a different partner after the remarriage and that is not ok? Is there a law that says you could have only one sex partner?
And I am sure if you are of ethnic indian background and have had pre-marital sex you might feel a bit jittery if you are having an arranged marriage, because you are expected to be ‘pure’ for your darling. None of my (step) nieces ( Caucasian) are worried about this because it isn’t expected in their society that they ought to be pure.. They are accepted as humans with needs.
^This is why I am saying it can be touchy and difficult to formulate a good perspective because it can go either way.
The message I was trying to point is these views on ‘pre-marital’ sex sounds kind of flawed, hence I brought up marriage/divorce..etc. Because it’s expected to have sex after marriage. People often say that sex before marriage can lead to negative consequences (break ups are common), and there has been truth to it, so it’s better to do it with your spouse after marriage, however people do divorce and remarry, so what’s the point of having huge debates on this concept? And speaking of “American counterparts” (should have used a better term), I meant white Americans and from their experiences they regret because they were young, and jumped into it without thinking about how it can impact them and then when they got slammed in the face with pregnancy, breaking up with their partners..etc and struggling to survive, they felt like they missed out a lot where they would have had better futures by going to school, graduating, getting a good career, travel and explore life..etc, rather than working multiple jobs to feed and raise their kids.
I never said that remarrying and having a different partner is a bad thing as long there is a reasonable explanation for the divorce. But people have the tendency to repeat this cycle several times (remarry and divorce, then remarry and divorce again and again because they no longer love the person) over and that can have a negative impact. Having sex again with them, there is nothing wrong, but if you keep changing partners over and over it can lead to unwanted consequences. I personally believe in a one time marriage and hope to have that if I were to marry, however divorce does happen and it’s not the end of the world. In addition, although I really wouldn’t engage or suggest pre-marital sex (that’s just ME though), it may be ok as long both people are responsible and mature to go through it, being aware of its consequences and not being immature about it. Speaking of that the reason why I think America is conservative on this concept is because a lot of people are sadly boneheads and do things without thinking..hence later on become bitter. They at least admit too that many of the younger people these days do lack common sense lol.
J1206: I am not sure where you are getting your ideas from. When a person has sex ( we are talking about pre-marital sex), they really are not thinking about wedding dress, church bells followed by the baby in the baby carriage. You are thinking about getting an orgasm. Some guys are good in bed, some are not. If you are not physically compatible, you move on. There is no real issue about bad breakup, regrets etc because you didn’t start the whole thing with the life long plans.. Sex before marriage alone doesn’t have negative consequences..I am assuming here that by consequences you mean STD, then it is wrong because there is something called Condom..BTW, you can still get STD from your husband if he fooled around before getting married.
About jumping in to etc you wrote about, have you learned that from your church group? because those are the common terms used by the pathiris and his men in white to encourage women to keep their virginity.
You know what? The biggest side effect of sex is pregnancy. Whether you are married or single.
Divorce is a personal right..you don’t have the right to ask if there is a reasonable explanation. Marriage is nothing but a contract issued by the church/government that allows you to ‘legally’ have sex, it is the way society tries to modify human behaviour. You can get divorced without any reason if you really want to because it is your life, your choice.
You have right to have sex the day you attain the age of consent. ( The church would brain wash you and tell you otherwise). Sex is nothing but a biological function and if you know how to protect yourself from the adverse effects of sex ( Condom), then you can lead a very active sex life.
For me, sex is an act that allows another person into your very private/personal space. If not done for the right reasons, it could ( at least for me ) have negative emotional implications. With my daughter, I never want to prevent her from having sex after reaching the age of consent. But I do want to make sure that she is having sex because she wants to have sex. Not for reasons like peer pressure, to ‘keep’ her boyfriend/girlfriend or as an act of rebellion against us parents. I want her to have sex whenever she feels she is ready ( after reaching the minimum age of course) with as many partners as she desires as long as it is what she is comfortable with and what she wants to do. My responsibility as a parent is to make sure she understands the implications of her choices – that yes, there is a non zero risk of pregnancy and STDs and make sure she has had good sex education and has access to birth control.
That said, if I learnt that my daughter was sexually active – I would still be worried as a parent only because I know how hard being a teenager can be now-a-days where there so much scrutiny and ‘image’ is everything. I would be worried that she might have done it for the wrong reasons and not for herself. Hopefully, she will still be able to trust me enough to talk to me about it.
Clueless: If you really have an open relationship with your child, they will talk to you about sex when they are ready to, My niece talked to her mother about this wonderful guy she met and asked her mother to take her to the doctor for contraceptives, which the mother did.
I really hope so! My daughter started Kindergarten and she already does not want to even tell me what happened at school. She gives me the eye roll and says ‘nothing’ :/
Clueless: Don’t let that stop you. I have had years of “how was your day?” “good”, “What did you do today?” “Stuff” responses.. But I persevered.. I asked them what stuff did you do today? and kept the communication lines open. Now, before I can ask how was your day, they ask me when I get home ” How was your day mom? met any hot guys?”
Clueless: Two years ago, Yaya’s classmates had a party where they played ‘never have I ever’ and a person’s name came up and it was said, never have I ever had sex with this particular person and all the girls and the boys drank. I was really surprised to hear that both girls and boys drank..but the thing is, that is the reality..There is no peer pressure, kids are much more open and know what they are doing.
Your daughter is lucky to have you.