My Family and Other Globalizers | Let's talk about sex

Apart from the pleasure to be had from sex, there are myriad “dangers” - including peer pressure, partner exploitation, emotional readiness and of course, safety - that our children need to be aware of. (Representational image: Aedrian EC via Unsplash)

Note to readers: My Family and Other Globalizers is a weekly parenting column on bringing up global citizens.

“So, you actually did it with Papa?” 10-year-old Ishaan asked me, mouth shaped to somewhere between astonishment and disgust. I replied with a throaty cough within which lurked a “yes”.

Ishaan had just returned home from his international school in Tokyo, where all fifth graders had been given their first lesson on “changing bodies”. It was what would have been called sex-ed back in my day, if such a thing had existed in the India of the 1980s. The class was about what children could expect as they went through puberty, both physically and emotionally. And the culmination was an animated video that explicitly answered the question every curious child has: where do babies come from?

When Ishaan had first queried us, at the age of 4 or 5, about how babies managed to get themselves sealed inside the tummies of mummies, my spouse and I had done the usual thing: begun talking animatedly about the laundry.

But Ishaan was not one to be put off. Eventually, his father had trotted out the story about storks flying babies into hospitals, while I came up with a shaggy dog tale that ended with mummies and daddies praying to God.

My first born had always been showily sceptical of these accounts, dismissing the storks as patently ridiculous and pointing out that neither I, nor his father, were big on praying. But since no other explanation was forthcoming, he’d eventually given up, adding parental reticence on the matter to a long laundry-list of adult oddities.

But now he was looking at me with the incredulity of someone who has recently been educated in the facts of life. “So, you did do it?” he asked again. I nodded. There was silence as my son digested the import of this. Then his eyes widened in even greater horror, as he thought about the existence of his younger brother. “But that means you and Papa must have done it twice?!” Once again, I nodded.

Ishaan’s expression turned tender. “Poor mama,” he said. “Was it terrible?” I took a deep breath and, in that moment, decided to dispense with storks and prayers forever. Sex is a life-affirming and important part of being human, and it was ridiculous to obfuscate it in a shroud of shame and secrecy.

“No, Ishaan,” I smiled. “It was wonderful having sex with your father, because I love him very much and that made it feel wonderful.” For once, my son looked at me without his signature scepticism. Children can smell the truth. “Wow,” he finally said, “so two times, huh?”

It is now four years down the line. Ishaan is 14 years old, and we live in Spain where sex is ubiquitous. It’s used to sell everything from hamburgers to cars. My son is at the age where many of his friends are “hooking up” with girls. In general, it’s not an easy time to be a teenager. The omnipresence of social media apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat mean that young people are very vulnerable to exploitation and embarrassment.

I worry about this overly sexualized environment that our kids live in. But what gives me solace is the open line to conversations about sex, relationships, and emotions that Ishaan and I have maintained ever since that day when he first learned about “the birds and the bees”, in fifth grade.

It's surprising how little unease there is between us when we chat about attraction and sex, given this wasn’t something I would ever have felt comfortable discussing with my own parents. But once you strip it of any connotations of “dirty” and reframe it something that is both healthy and natural, talking about sex becomes akin to talking about bullying or nutrition or illness.

Ishaan has asked me how old I was when I first kissed someone and how I handled overtures from boys I wasn’t interested in. I have answered him truthfully in all matters, stressing that as a young woman I never acted sexually out of pressure, but only when I was convinced of both my maturity and desire.

It is a complicated topic and needs to be understood at such. Apart from the pleasure to be had from sex, there are myriad “dangers” - including peer pressure, partner exploitation, emotional readiness and of course, safety - that our children need to be aware of. They shouldn’t have to rely on their friends or the internet for such crucial information. Its parents they need to trust above all when it comes to this most delicate, yet important subject.

Our country suffers from a deep sexual malaise that results in the most heinous acts of sexual violence on an almost daily basis. I cannot but think that the solution lies in normalizing sex as a pleasurable and consensual activity that must be practiced with care for your partner and yourself. Of course, to do so, all of us as parents need to understand this too!