LET’S SEX IT UP!

“When a sexagenarian asks where did I come from? The answer lies in philosophy. And when a teenager asks, where did I come from? The answer lies in sex.”

Life’s exciting. More exciting is the way it is created. Yes, you thought it right. Sex! Ok let me ask you some really general questions, of which I want some really personal answers.

1. When did you first come to know about sex?
2. How did you first come to know about sex?
3. What were your first thoughts on sex? (Before & after knowing about it.)
4. When did your first sex happen? (Na..na..i won’t get that personal to ask you “how or with whom”)

You can read this column only if you have answered atleast 3 of them. Because, while I have been given the license to be controversial, I cannot afford to make it a ‘sex education’ column & get CENTRESPREAD ‘banned’.

I will tell you my answers.

First: I came to know about sex at the age of 13.

Second: I came to know when I watched my first ever adult film at a friend’s place whose parents were out for a couple of days.

Third: Before I knew, all I thought was the mother goes to the hospital and a child is born after an operation. After I knew, I thought, what the heck was so dirty or guilty about such a pleasurable & simple act, when I knew how to pee & shit since I was 36 months old. Why is ‘this’ awesome process so personal and ‘that’ filthy process so public?

Fourth: ‘Foreplay’ happened before marriage & the ‘play’ after it.

So now that I am so open to you, let me just explore how & why sex is so interesting but mysterious. Over the years I found out how & why sex is interesting. But even after answering all the four questions above, I still don’t know why it is still kept personal, secret, hidden or mysterious. Why when there cannot life without sex, we keep the living beings unaware of it for many years of their age? Let us attempt to find out.

“Most personal is the most general”

Whatever we do very personally, everybody does it generally. We breathe, bath, breed etc at a very personal level i.e. you do it alone and only for yourself. And everyone does this personally. All alone & for oneself. Sex is also one of these personal, yet so general things. We all do it & all of us know that we all do it. Every child is born with sexual instincts like he is born with linguistic instincts. He is not programmed to speak a particular language but just to speak whatever language he is trained in. As the child grows up, you will find some speak really fluently with superb sense of vocabulary & grammar, while others are really loose/foul in their speech. Some are extroverts, while some of them naturally introvert. Some speak but nobody understands, while some can’t speak at all.

Similarly with his sexual instincts, the child’s sexual orientation, skill, sense & intensity are the results of the environment & beliefs of the contemporary society, law, religion & culture. A child may grow up to be sexually aggressive even to the extent of a rapist while the other may develop into a Casanova. Some other may like his/her own sex while someone both. On the other hand, one might love himself (masturbation). Still someone might not have it in him. I personally feel that as a species (especially Indians) we have failed miserably to understand this simple phenomenon. We might have multiplied into a billion through sex, but we hardly have understood it as well as we understand other things.

What we need to understand is that there are two parts to it. The destination and the journey. Sex & the pleasure derived before & after sex. We mix them up big time. For us kissing and copulation means the same thing. For us touching and fondling is all the same. This is absolutely silly, morally and scientifically. At one place on earth i.e. Tahiti Islands, it is quite common for you to see couples engaged in an intercourse at a public place. (is it why Abhi-ash are honeymooning there?) While on the same planet, you have places where you cannot even see the eyes of the opposite sex. (sometimes even of the same sex). In USA you can kiss in public places but cannot pee; in India you can pee in public places but cannot even touch, forget kissing.

Let there only be co-education. Let there be clothes that look good & sexy. Let there be live-in relationships. Let there be work-in relationships. Let there be dance bars & adult movies. But along with all of this, let there be sex education. Let parents be the sex educators. Let love be love & sex be sex. Let foreplay be foreplay & the ‘play’ be ‘play’. Let me get aroused & excited, but also let me know whats, whys, hows & ifs of the sexual adventure. Let me test & check my character and not the police (moral or immoral).

We are the only species that procreates for joy and not only for reproduction. And if we hide this from each other & our youngsters, the situation will be as dangerous as treading into a rose garden in darkness. The flowers might smell good but the thorns will tear you apart.

Finally to sign it off

“Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. ‘Yes’ is the answer.”