SEX EDUCATION ???

(Long read but you should read)

Imparting sex education to children as a compulsion has become a huge deal since digitalization hit us, globally. What it has done to you and i, is beyond providing information at a click. 

State board education is a less cared about affair in India. The school I went to was in one of the prominent places of Mumbai. Geography classes have never taken place with a map hanging on the wall. Language was a compulsion. An imposed variant. 

A few teachers explained biology with PowerPoint presentations while others chose to skip the chapter. A few days into seventh grade, a woman explained menstruation to around 200 students.  
Briefly beginning with good touch or bad touch from the time when the child is in third grade and then proceeding forward according to their age. 

Censorship plays a huge role in the upbringing of children. Indian parents switch channels on the television to avoid young ones from watching explicit scenes. Today, the pattern of viewership has changed considerably. 

According to a survey conducted by Ipsos on predictions for global issues, 72 percent of Indians believed it likely that they would watch more TV from streaming services than from traditional TV channels in 2020. Methods of watching television have changed. 

Today, working parents are forced to provide 10-12 year olds a mobile phone in order to ensure safety. 

The mobile phone is a potent device, feeded with streaming applications such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Zee5 etc. that are activated with a meager Rs. 200 per month. The pocket money that children are provided with is almost equal to the subscription charges for online streaming websites. 

Children these days ask for privacy, censorship is the new norm that children will not abide by.

Parents and family members(elders) will be forced to take into course the manner in which the right kind of education is imparted. Physically children could be barred from doing things, but what happens digitally remains unheard off until a problem occurs. 

Filtering content can be done with various methods. Namely, getting to know their devices carefully. Parents that are thorough with the digital era. Parents that are willing to talk about sex education to their children from the beginning itself. 

Using series such as Game of Thrones,Sex Education, Jane the Virgin etc to help adolescent students to learn the relationship of men and women could prove to be helpful. In the Indian context series such as Four More shots please and Made in Heaven could definitely do justice to define various concepts.

Sex Education is a British comedy-drama web television series that airs on Netflix. It talks about an insecure teenager and his mother, a sex therapist. In Sex Education, the character of Eric is portrayed as a gay person. He is the protagonist's best friend who goes to school with him and is no different than the others. With the help of Eric's character one can explain the struggle that the LGBTQIA+ community had gone through. Eric’s sense of dressing up, his relationship with the others in his school. 

With respect to Game of Thrones, the character of Cersei Lannister sheds light on power, incest and the response of the society towards multiple sexual partners. 

Four more shots please is based upon four flawed women who live in millennial Mumbai. The problems that the women go through and how the sexuality of a woman cannot be pushed under the carpet always. 

These series provide an all encompassing idea of sexual relationships, familial responses to homosexuality, incest, responses of the society etc. While they are definitely over exaggerated, it will prove to be more useful than just text book learning and PPT presentations during biology class in school. Visual literacy will make them understand the dynamics of sexual relationships in a better manner. 

In 2020, children need to be informed. They will be studying in the era when their fellow friends will have LGBTQIA+ parents/homosexual parents. 

As stated in the book “Not in front of the Children- Indecency, Censorship and the innocence of the youth”, the simultaneous titillation, anxiety and confused sound by forbidden speech zones may do more harm than good. Certainly healthy upbringing, education, and community values are likelier than taboos to immunize them against violent, degrading or simple-minded ideas. Censorship may also frustrate young people's developing sense of autonomy and self-respect, and increase their feelings of alienation. They need access to information and ideas precisely because they are in the process of becoming functioning members of society and cannot really do so if they are kept in ideological blinders until they are 18. 

Using a series that the children enjoy and love to watch in order to teach could prove to be an easier step.. According to Statista, the estimated streaming revenue for Netflix in India has increased from 25.82 million US dollars in 2017 to 328.3 million US dollars in 2020. 

Censorship could become a yesteryear word if appropriate measures are taken.