Sex: Tell them truth. Tell then now
Letter from New Delhi
By Kul Bhushan
A New Zealand porn ad designed to shake up parents to talk openly and freely about sex created big news last week. A young naked couple walks to the front door of a house and starts talking about sex.
Parents are exhorted to keep a close watch on their children about what they surf on the net and how they interact with their friends, especially of the opposite sex. Having a discussion with your children is the key to understanding what they are going through.
Last month, a shocking news about some school kids starting a social media group, ‘Bois Locker Room’, raised the heckles of many parents and teachers as to what the teenagers are up to.
A group of school kids started this group with sexual posts and made known their intention to rape a school girl. That post was leaked to the media and it went viral; the kids were questioned by the police. Another shocking case jolted the public when it was reported that the girl had created a fake account to check how the boy she was messaging to would react to the proposed sexual assault plan.
As that piece of news got traction, TV channels went into top gear with discussions about sex education or rather the lack of it and how the teenagers were badly informed about sexuality even today in the age of Internet.
Basically, the commentators urged the parents to start a dialogue with their children on sexuality, especially these days when girls get periods at the age of eleven or twelve and the boys hardly use condoms with their school girl friends.
If you think that four-year old children don’t know a thing about sex, you may be mistaken. Four-year old kids in middle class families grow up playing with a mobile phone; those from lower middle class families watch TV. So their knowledge and awareness is much higher than similar children a generation ago. They are more curious, ask more questions and want honest answers.
Thus if you fob them off with vague answers like new babies are delivered by a stork, they won’t buy it. The story goes that a stork can be seen flying over rooftops with a little cloth bundle before landing at the doorstep of a happy couple who then unwrap their precious, smiling newborn—right? This myth was once a common story to tell to children who were deemed too young to be told anything different. Not anymore.
Now tell them the truth: babies are created in the stomach of the mother and come out at birth. Simple. But not for most orthodox parents and priests. And the children find out soon enough; from older friends, relatives or the Internet. This information becomes even more crucial at puberty for girls as they confide in their mothers about the physical changes they are undergoing.
New Zealand porn ad designed to shake up parents – Photo – content.api.news
Osho says, “Just because children are small, do they have to be fed on lies? Is truth only for grown-ups? Does that mean truth is dangerous for the delicate consciousness of the child? Truth is never dangerous, untruth is dangerous.”
When you don’t tell the truth, they find out by themselves and feel guilty of doing something they have been barred from. Some parents still tell their children that sex is a sin and sex is dirty. This is ridiculous in this day and age. Yes, schools do teach about reproduction in biology during the later years of primary schooling. But this does not talk about the most powerful energy for all humans: sex. The teaching is factual and comes too late when the children are confronting puberty.
Osho is the only enlightened mystic who had the courage to talk openly about sex and removed our guilt about it. He showed us that perversion results from suppressing sex which, in turn, tempts people to go for pornography and, in extreme cases, rape. Only Osho has highlighted the ancient path of transforming sex into meditation and, finally, into superconsciousness.
Let us not sweep talk about sex under the carpet, especially with our children. Why do we force them to whisper, ”Ssssshhhh, do you know about that boy kissing this girl?” Before it starts to stink, let’s get sex out of the secret cupboard.
Kul Bhushan worked as a newspaper Editor in Nairobi for over three decades and now lives in New Delhi
* Published in print edition on 23 June 2020
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