The Limits Of Sexuality Education

Sexuality education in schools in urban India today is often perceived as 'promotingpromiscuity', leading to 'experimentation' and being 'detrimental to society'. The State andreligious groups believe that sexuality education is against 'Indian culture and values'. Thisheady cocktail imagines a 'depraved' adolescent - especially adolescent boys - at the centre,one who needs to be taught 'restraint', 'abstinence' and whose 'natural tendencies' are soughtto be controlled. Adolescent boys are imagined to possess 'uncontrollable sexual urges' whileadolescent girls are imagined as victims of these 'urges'. Various organisations haveadvocated for comprehensive sexuality education which includes information about the body,sexual and reproductive health and rights and identities. But is that enough? Can there be away to imagine sexuality education outside the binaries of abstinence/'Indian values'1 andcomprehensive sexuality education? Simultaneously, can there be a way to rethink adolescentmale sexuality outside the 'uncontrollable urges' paradigm? Putting these concerns together, Iask in the dissertation: how can rethinking adolescent masculinities in middle class Mumbaireveal to us the limits of sexuality education as we know it today?I reflect on the limits of sexuality education by examining State, feminist, Christian andsexological materials on sexuality education in Mumbai; by exploring adolescent maleromance and its affective registers; adolescent male sexual knowledge and the regulation ofromance in school spaces. These allow me to point to how the State, feminist, Christian andsexological discourses are limited in their approach; how a discussion of negative affect andlove are missing in the curriculum; how the official sexuality education curriculum is limitedin providing prohibition, secrecy and thrill in sexual learning and how sexuality educationmight be counter-productive if student romance is regulated in school spaces.