UK health booklet's message: Teen sex can be fun

LONDON – Britain's National Health Service has a message for teens: Sex can be fun. Health officials are trying to change the tone of sex education by urging teachers to emphasize that sexual relations can be healthy and pleasurable instead of simply explaining the mechanics of sex and warning about diseases.

The new pamphlet, called "Pleasure," has sparked some opposition from those who believe it encourages promiscuity among teens in a country that already has high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

The National Health Service in the city of Sheffield produced the booklet, which has a section called "an orgasm a day" that encourages educators to tell teens about the positive physical and emotional effects of sex and masturbation, which is described as an easy way for people to explore their bodies and feel good. Like more traditional sex education guides, it encourages demonstrations about how to use condoms and other contraceptives.

Contrast with:

Indian Government: Sex Education “Has Absolutely No Place” in Our Schools - It “Promotes Promiscuity”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2270563/posts

By Hilary White

NEW DELHI, June 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Indian government has rejected western-style sex education programs, saying they do nothing to solve the problem of teenage pregnancy but only exacerbate the problem by promoting sexual promiscuity.

A government report on the matter was issued in response to a citizen-launched petition against a decision by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to start sex-education in schools. The program had been touted as a means of preventing the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Materials for teachers and facilitators in India included explicit details about “alternative methods” of sex, including anal and oral sex, presented as a means of avoiding AIDS.

According to the government, the curriculum prepared with material from UNICEF, had “shocked the consciences” of the country and was described as “quite frightening.” If implemented, the report said, it would “promote promiscuity of the worst kind.” The report was issued in March by a committee of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, and says that the introduction of sex education in India’s schools should at least be delayed until the issue has been fully debated in public.

The Indian government’s reasoning stands in sharp contrast to that of the West, which, in reaction to steadily increasing rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, has invariably increased access to free contraceptives and abortion and exposed ever-younger children to more explicit sex education.

The testimony of witnesses and petitioners upon which the report was based was a stinging critique of the effects that such programs have had in the countries that have embraced them. The petitioners told the committee that the proposed curriculum would “strike at the root of the cultural fabric of our society that had been nourished over the millennia.”

If implemented, the petitioners said, the program would “corrupt Indian youth and lead to collapse of the education system.” Over all, they said, such programs are nothing more than an “education to sell condoms” that will lead to the creation of an “immoral society” and to an increase in single-parent families.

The report accused the HRD ministry, in its efforts to quash the petition, of using “technical jargon and euphemisms” in order to downplay the fears of the petitioners.

So explicit was the material in question that in the process of their submissions to the committee, petitioners had been asked not to give a PowerPoint presentation because the committee was “not comfortable with it and [it] could be embarrassing especially to the lady Members and other lady staff present.”

Petitioners had pointed to the increasing rate of teenage pregnancies in other countries, noting that in France, schools are equipped with nurses to distribute “contraceptive pills” to girls the morning after “unsafe sex.” The report also noted the situation in the UK, in which schools are “connected to abortion centres to terminate teenage pregnancies.”

Pratiba Naitthani, a co-petitioner and teacher, told the committee that “nothing was safer than abstinence till marriage.”

To read the full report, click here.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main29.asp?filename=hub280407Our_lady.asp

CULTURE & SOCIETY

Sex and Society

OUR LADY OF MALADIES

She stalls films, files PILs, gets ads banned. Pratiba Naitthani is best known as Mumbai’s one-woman moral police force. But there’s more to her than reactionary froth, says Shalini Singh

‘I’ve been accused of being affiliated with the Bajrang Dal and the RSS. No one has brainwashed me. I spend a lot of time with youngsters and I feel I can make a difference’

She isn’t quite the dour fogey you expect. As she sits in a coffeeshop, sipping a strawberry milkshake — demure in a mauve salwar-kameez, manicured nails a freshly-painted shade of hot toffee — you could easily mistake Pratiba Naitthani for just another downtown Mumbai 30-something. But this otherwise nondescript lecturer, who teaches political science at her alma mater, St Xavier’s College, is also known as the city’s resident moral cop for the frequency of her very vocal opposition to sex and violence in the media. In 2005, in the course of a single year, Naitthani raised objections to the withdrawal of the case against models Madhu Sapre and Milind Soman who appeared nude in a shoe ad; filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against TV channels for showing adult films; joined a five-day campaign highlighting the cultural exploitation of women; and registered complaints galore against indecent film posters. More recently, just before Maharashtra decided to ban sex education in high schools, Naitthani participated in a press conference held to voice concerns over the CBSE’s proposed Adolescent Education Programme.

Ask her why and her answers are pat. “They should first explain what they mean by sex education — is it gender education, is it information about maturing bodies or is it information on sexual intercourse?” Even though teachers’ reference manuals are the only material so far released, the content is too detailed and explicit, she feels. “None of this was ever done in our country. A syllabus like this needs to be created with a lot of sensitivity.” She cites an exercise she says is included in the handbook to make Class VI students aware of sexual abuse. It apparently entails calling two volunteers from the class, blindfolding one and asking the other to touch him/her at different parts of the body. The teacher then explains the difference between a ‘good’ touch and a ‘bad’ one. “How comfortable will a 10-year-old be standing in front of the class like that, and can another child touch him/her in an abusive way in the first place? You don’t have to commit abuse and say, this is abuse. A simple statement — like, no one can touch you in these parts this way, whoever it may be — should be enough,” she says. Point taken, but why does she always have issues with sex and morality? “The media is saying there’s a BJP / Islamic agenda to the issue. They’re ignorant. Look at Kerala — a hundred percent literate, Communist state, and the first to ban this programme. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka did the same, and now Maharashtra.”

The Naitthanis come from Uttaranchal; Pratiba Naitthani’s father set up Bombay University’s Hindi department. “Though I was brought up in Bombay, I go to Uttaranchal often — it’s important to be connected with one’s roots,” she says. Did she always want to be a teacher? “Yes, I’ve been in this profession for 11 years now.”

Naitthani’s also a trained classical singer who plans to release an album soon. An avid trekker — “I love being close to nature” — she once biked all the way to Leh and back with a male cousin. “We’ve had a fairly liberal upbringing. Our parents didn’t object when we sisters came home from music shows late at night. There have been several love marriages in my family.” Yet, curiously, Naitthani refuses to talk about pre-marital sex or comment on what, according to her, would be the right age to start having sex. “Sex isn’t entertainment, you know,” comes the terse reply. Her take on the recent raids conducted on couples in Mumbai? “Public space can’t be converted into private space. One has to draw a line. No one will arrest you for sitting close and holding hands, but maybe some couple went further and made passers-by uncomfortable.”

Columnist and filmmaker Pritish Nandy, is scathing: “People like her are extremely damaging to a liberal, democratic society. They tend to create conditions where the government can walk in and create dangerous policing methodologies. I wouldn’t want to debate with a person who demands police and state intervention in creative endeavours. The state is the last party who should be summoned, and I’m ashamed that people like this exist in a democratic country.” Her response? “I don’t care, let people say what they want about me. I’ve been accused of being affiliated with the Bajrang Dal and the RSS. No one has brainwashed me. I spend a lot of time with youngsters and, being in this profession, I simply feel I can make a difference,” she shrugs. Then she puts on her shades and bids a hurried goodbye.

Apr 28 , 2006

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