For most, the memory of their first so-called sex education class is awkward, if not painful. “I studied in a Catholic school and was shown gory videos of abortion in standard nine as part of our sex education class. And then the nun told us that she’d had to ‘stitch up’ a young lady who had had sex too early,” says Gurmeet Kaur, a resident of Chandigarh. “It made me never want to have sex.”

For Bangalore-based Ravi Kant, it was visuals of sexually transmitted disease blown up on a projector screen. “I was about 12 then and decided I want to keep away from sex for the rest of my life,” he says.

Both Ravi and Gurmeet are now in their late 20s and have gotten over their fear of sex. But teachers across schools continue to scare – almost terrorise – children in the name of sex education. The focus is on what can go wrong rather than how to make sure things go right.

Sex education, in India, generally means banal talks on “personal hygiene” – which involves free distribution of sanitary pads – or the reproductive system. Talking about condoms, masturbation or orgasms is a strict no-no.

Given the state of affairs, perhaps Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was not completely wrong in suggesting that we ban “so-called” sex education. After all, instead of teaching children to embrace their sexuality in a healthy manner, it encourages them to deny it. Sex education, then, is a messy khichdi of morals, values and biology.

“We try and explain to students that the union of two individuals after marriage is pious,” says V Vijayalaxmi, Joint Commissioner, (Academics) Kendriya Vidyalaya. Kendriya Vidyalaya runs 1,090 schools in the country and has a programme called Adolescence Education Programme (AEP) in collaboration with National Council Of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). She adds that they make sure they explain to children that forced sex is a crime.

“We do not use the term ‘sex education’. Instead we call it ‘Adolescence Education Programme’. It is a programme for students from standard nine to standard eleven and tells them about adolescence and changes in their body. We also educate them about personal hygiene and the other emotional changes that they go through during the age of puberty,” she adds.

In order to organise such seminars, project officers of UNFPA train master trainers, who are senior trained graduate teachers (TGTs) and post graduate teachers (PGTs),and then these master trainers prepare the nodal teachers to further educate children. Every year, 125 teachers are trained for the programme. The details of the seminar are prepared by NCERT.

Kendriya Vidyalaya also organises an activity in which the children drop in their queries related to the topic in a box without revealing their identity. The box is then opened and all the queries are answered in a joint session with students.

The Navyug School governed by New Delhi Municipal Corporation also organises counseling sessions separately for girls and then a joint session for boys and girls. Trishla Tripathi, principal of Navyug School in Delhi, said, “We start educating children about adolescence from class four onwards. We talk to them about good touch and bad touch.”

While it is standard practice in schools abroad to educate children about various contraceptive methods like condoms, teachers in India think it is a bit much to show condoms to children and talk about them. Father Carvalho, principal of Father Agnel School, says, “Sex and reproduction are not evils and should be discussed with the children. But in the US, they go overboard when they show condoms to children and talk about it.”

The school organises sessions for the parents also and tells them how to take up the topic with their children.

If condoms mean going overboard, naturally any talk of orgasm or sex toys would be blasphemy. Aman Singh Chauhan, principal of Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya situated in Sadiq Nagar, New Delhi said, “Earlier in 2003-04, there were seminars for teachers and such seminars continued for about five years but later it was discontinued since details like orgasms and sex toys were found unnecessary by most trainees.”

Chauhan though emphasises that they also talk to students about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Principal Rachna Pant of Ramjas School, Delhi said, “In the digital age today the knowledge available outside may be harmful, we just want to make them aware of the right thing in the right manner.”

While Pant’s contention is valid, it is the definition of “right thing in the right manner” that seems like an area of concern.

An educator lamented that the “idea of love has been reduced to relationships between a boy and girl among our youngsters”. “It’s not a good thing,” she remarked. Perhaps, what is worse is that our educators feel the need to moral-coat sex education. There’s a reason it is called sex-education and not moral science – it’s time we realised that.

The author can be contacted at d.saksena09@gmail.com