When Zoella (Zoe Sugg) was dropped by a GCSE exam board for reviewing sex toys, it brought to mind the significant lack of sex education, in relation to sex, pleasure and masturbation, from both the education system and the South Asian culture. It’s something that repeats itself time and again, slipping sex out of the conversation, save for the talk on using contraception and avoiding unwanted pregnancies and STI’s.
I was brought up with traditional Bangladeshi and Muslim values, where sex itself is seen as a sin before marriage. The minimal conversation on it consisted of “don’t have sex, you’ll go to hell”, with a blatant disregard to the real life problems and challenges we face. By avoiding all conversation on sex, a culture of shame and inability to learn from reliable sources is created.
Last night, I was discussing this with my boyfriend. We talked about how important it is to talk about sex and masturbation, both in school and in the home. We both had pretty crap Sex Ed in school, with no mention of self-pleasure or what constitutes as safe, consensual sex.
What makes educators or even parents think their teen children aren’t having a wank or exploring their bodies? I can guarantee you they are. Going through changes, both hormonal and physical, results in a lot of feelings, ranging from arousal to curiosity and an eagerness to learn more about how the body works. If the people meant to teach them about sex aren’t giving them the right tools to get that knowledge, then chances are they will turn to harmful sources of information. Like porn.
In school, we were all told about periods, that sex is made for having kids and nothing about what masturbation really was. In my culture, I was made to feel wary and ashamed of sex—feeling embarrassment at the mere mention of the word. Coupled with lack of knowledge from adults, I was left to my own devices, having to do my own research through reading magazines like Cosmopolitan and Sugar.
The South Asian culture primarily shames people with vaginas into modesty, teaching us that our entire worth lies in our body and vagina. From suffering from disorders like PCOS or endometriosis, we’re told to be quiet because speaking about something related to our reproduction and vagina is shameful and impacts our haya (modesty/self-respect). I had always expected, from everything I’d heard from hushed conversations between my married cousins and the girls at school, sex to hurt.
My first time was a disastrous experience, resulting in two tears in my vagina and a two-night hospital stay. I hadn’t known what sex was really supposed to be like, or that being really ready for sex meant feeling calm and relaxed, not anxious and nervous to the point I felt sick.
Zoe Sugg responded to her removal from the GCSE syllabus by saying “(…) how else are teenage girls going to find out more about being a woman? I WISH I had a website like @Zoella when I was growing up. Instead I had a Mizz magazine problem page!! Are you trying to tell me your 16 year old daughter doesn’t know what a sex toy is or that she’s not explored her body AT ALL? Oh plzzzz. [cry laugh-emoji]
“It’s reasons like this that we feel it’s important to write about these things on the website! And we will continue to do so. But just to clear up the narrative. No. I did not review vibrators. As a team we wrote about the most popular ones. And guess what? It was our most clicked on article, most swiped up & most ordered items through links EVER! BECAUSE WOMEN MASTURBATE!!!!”
I started masturbating at a pretty young age and was exposed to sexuality on every medium. Even when we’re not actively looking for it, we see sex-laden ads on websites and even apps. It’s not something that can be avoided. I know people who sent nudes to the boy who promised he wouldn’t show it to anyone but by the next day, the entire year group knew about it. Having someone who talks about everything related to sex, including nudes, is vital, because it’s a healthy way of talking without painting a grey-tinged curtain over it and depicting sex as something dangerous. Cultural beliefs and values have often played a significant role in my life growing up. It was pretty difficult to navigate sexuality and self-pleasure without being bombarded by the feeling of shame and embarrassment.
Zoe started a much-needed conversation on the importance of sex education. There is a dire need for schools and cultural communities to do better when it comes to sex and talking about it. The fact my culture censors all discussions on pleasure and even the bodies of people with vaginas is detrimental, to mental and emotional health, as well as sexual wellbeing.
The harm from not being able to talk about sex, or get a proper education, leads to learning about it from unreliable sources and thus get unrealistic expectations—like sex is meant to be constantly rough and painful, body types and even the way genitalia is supposed to look.
Porn is one of the main contributing factors in harmful expectations, as well as learning from peers instead of trusted adults. Not learning anything about sex, or even being able to talk about it, impacted my mental health: I regressed into an almost childlike mindset, an immaturity which has carried over into my early twenties.
I was unable to properly communicate about sexual desires or wants without stumbling over my words and feeling awkward. Everything I was taught about pleasure, and solo sex, was designed to make me feel ashamed, guilty and embarrassed, in a culture drowning in modesty, and an education system that failed to properly teach us about sex, sexual health and the emotions we’d be encumbered with.
Speaking up and going against what we’re taught to believe is seen as shameful, and everything links together because it all stems from patriarchy. We’re taught our pleasure, even masturbation, and our bodies belong to men. A woman isn’t allowed to say no, let alone speak up about her desires. This all connects to sex and masturbation being taboo, seen as otherworldly in the eyes of my culture.
The way sex has been communicated is in the South Asian culture is through ‘it’s for your husband’: which means sex is something that is done to us, and not with us. It’s important to call out this behaviour and change it, because the dichotomy between changing the narrative and understanding the values in the South Asian culture come from talking, unlearning and relearning. Having said that, I doubt the elders in my family will ever truly progress in terms of their belief system and sexuality, and with the norms of the culture placing a heavy burden on every person with a vagina, it is difficult to shatter the shame.
Nowadays, the internet is at every teen’s disposal and a quick Google search will give them the information they’re looking for. Whether that information is healthy or not, we won’t know—which is why both schools and families from cultures that avoid talks surrounding sex, sexual health and masturbation have to find a ground to walk on where they can open up an honest conversation on the topic.
