I love speaking to teenagers about sexuality. It was during a two weeks long workshop about sexuality with 15 boys and girls. After playing some games and telling them some stories (all in the context of sexuality) for a week, I realised that they were feeling safe enough to talk. So, I told them that they could ask me any question. On request, I had separate sessions for boys and girls.
That’s when a 10 year old boy asked, “Akka, is it true that people have sex to reproduce?” When I said that it indeed was true, the boy said, “If the objective of sex is to reproduce, then why do people use condoms? How can they then reproduce?”
Like most teachers, I was surprised and tongue tied to hear this coming from a child. I almost told him that condom was important and that he will understand when he grows older. But that would not have answered his question.
In a flicker of a moment, all my conversations with parents during my training sessions about a child’s appropriate age to start talking about sexuality came rushing to me. And my belief, that instead of worrying about when, we really should be worrying more about what is spoken during such conversations, strengthened.
So, I said, “It is true that sex is important to have babies. But not everyone who is having sex, may want to have babies. People have sex for different reasons — some people have sex because it is enjoyable for them. Some other people have sex because they feel nice and safe with their partner and they want to feel close to them. Not all of them may want to have babies. Having babies is a big decision that people have to take. So, when people want to experience all of the nice things with a person and want to enjoy having sex with them, without having babies — they use condoms.”
“That’s weird.”, he said. “So, you mean, you can have sex just for fun?”
“Yes”, I said, “but only when both the people having sex are adults and both of them agree to have sex with the other person.”
You may be wondering if I brought up the topic of STI/ STD with this child. Yes, I did. In a way that he could understand. He did not have too many questions on that. But his next questions were all about marriage and sex. Which I had to patiently answer — one by one by one.
To be able to have an open conversation with children about sex does not corrupt their young minds. They do not become experimental. They, instead understand what it takes and with satiated curiosity they feel empowered to take more responsible decisions as they walk into adulthood.
Picture credits: Kiran Joan. Kiran paints, sculpts and illustrates. Get in touch on kiran.joan@gmail.com / www.behance.net/JoanKiran / Instagram: @privatejoanx.
