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| Pallavi Barnwal |
Many Indian schools do not provide sex education, leaving it up to parents to talk to their children about sex. Sex coach Pallavi Barnwal told the BBC's Megha Mohan that most parents do not know what to say.
When I think about the past, I realize that my conservative Indian upbringing was actually the best foundation for someone who wants to be a sex coach.
My parents' relationship first left an impression on my personality.
My parents' marriage has been rumored for years. When I was about eight years old, I started having questions about it. At parties, if I was away from my parents, an army of aunts would come to interrogate me.
"Do your parents still sleep in the same room?"
"Have you heard of a fight?"
"Have you ever seen a man come into the house?"
I would stand holding a cup of ice cream, or walk around the garden to play with the other children. Many women would start asking me questions that I did not know the answers to.
Many years after my own divorce, my mother told me the whole story. Early in my parents' marriage, my brother and my mother fell in love with a man before I was born, which turned into a sexual relationship. Within weeks he began to realize and he ended it. But there are eyes and mouths everywhere in Indian society. Rumors reached my father over time.
It was only after my father was 10 years old and gave birth to two children that I had the courage to ask my mother about it.
The father assured the mother that no response would affect their relationship but after years of struggle, it was important for them to know. His mother told him everything. He said it was less about sex and more about intimacy. "It happened at a time when we hadn't started a family and our marriage hadn't taken off," she said.
As soon as my mother finished speaking, she felt my father's coldness. My father immediately began to move away. My mother had confirmed the story she had suspected for years and immediately lost all trust between the two.
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| Pallavi Barnwa |
It made it very clear to me that if we don't talk about sex and intimacy properly, homes can break up.
My family is from the eastern Indian state of Bihar. It is one of the most populous areas in the country, bordering Nepal and along the Ganges.
I had a conservative childhood. Like many families, sex was not an open topic of discussion. I don't remember my parents ever holding hands or hugging each other in public. This did not happen in our community.
My first encounter with anything sexual was when I was 14 years old.
One afternoon I was getting bored so I started looking at my father's books. There was a thin sheet between his novels and history books. There were many short stories about a secret world where men and women examine each other's bodies.
This book was not about literature, it was more naughty than that. In one story there was a young girl who made a hole in the wall so that she could see a married couple at night. I had to look up a Hindi word meaning "kiss" in the dictionary.
I had a lot of questions but no one to talk to.
My friends and I had never talked like that before.
I got so lost in this book that it took me a while to hear my mother's voice and return to this world.
At the time, in the late 1990's, I didn't know I had done anything wrong. Many children around the world began to learn about sex at that age, mostly in school. In Belgium, children are taught about sex at the age of seven.
But India is not a place where sex is an integral part of the school curriculum.
In fact, by 2018, the Indian Ministry of Health had not even issued guidelines for sex education for schools. More than a dozen of the 29 states chose not to implement them. According to the Times of India, more than half of girls in rural areas do not know what menstruation is or what causes it.
My father's pamphlet didn't explain much to me. I buried it in my mind and like many girls growing up in India, I remained conservative. I lost my virginity at the age of 25, and two years later I was inexperienced in my own arranged marriage.
My wedding night can only be described as a spectacle. When I saw my sage, I thought it was funny. I could hear the voices of family members outside the room. Dozens of guests from outside the city gathered outside our door as if there was no other place to sleep.
My mother told me to tell my husband that I was a virgin, so I had to make excuses for shame and confusion. We barely talked to each other before the wedding and now it was a scene where we had to sleep together. I was not a virgin but I was not ready for it.
To this day, I get messages from dozens of people every month asking me what to do on my wedding night: not just physically, but how to look more embarrassed or inexperienced.
My husband and I were together for five years. It soon became clear that I had married the wrong person, so having sex with her became an unpleasant affair. We began to determine the time and date. When I started having sexual thoughts about another person, I realized that my relationship could not survive. Our marriage is over.
Despite being the mother of a child at the age of 32, I was suddenly under no pressure. I was a divorced woman in the eyes of society. While living in Delhi, the capital of India, I had several sexual relationships that had no future.
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| Pallavi Barnwal |
I experimented, I slept with older men, with married men. Over time, that is likely to change. My married friends started asking me for advice. Inspired by my freedom, my mother, who had always been a little rebellious, came to live with me and my son in Delhi.
There was a lot of talk around me about sex and women's rights. The rape of a young girl on a bus in Delhi in 2012 had exploded in the city.
But what bothered me was that sex was controversial or violent in these discussions, not something to be enjoyed.
Too often in India, women do not see sex as a pleasurable act that should be controlled. There is so much silence and embarrassment around this subject that sometimes young girls do not recognize the abuse that is happening to them in this regard.
Crimes against women
In India, according to 2019 statistics, an average of 87 rape cases are reported every day (no data available for the latest year) and more than 100 cases of child sexual abuse occur daily.
In total, there were 45,861 incidents of crimes against women in 2019.
According to the 2020 Global Population Survey, India is the worst country in the world in terms of per capita sex crimes.
I trained to be a sex and neuro linguistic programming coach and created an Instagram page where people could ask me anything. To further the conversation, I posted details about my sexual experiences.
It succeeded. People began seeking advice on many other topics, including sex myths, taboo topics about self-indulgence, marriages that did not involve sex, and sexual abuse. And many questions came from parents.
Then two years ago I was asked to give a Ted talk in which I had to explain why parents should talk to their children about sex and consent.
On this occasion, I wore a saree on stage to show that it is not only Indian women who are influenced by Western culture who have sex. I told people that in 2019, according to the site Porn Hub, despite the ban on porn sites in India, the most viewed porn in India.
After this Ted talk, I started getting 30-30 questions and coaching requests in a day.
It could be a woman asking about the use of sex toys, or it could be a man asking if it is safe for her to masturbate again after recovering from code. (My answer: Masturbation in Kode can cause physical fatigue but it is okay to go back to normal after recovery.)
These questions made me realize that some of the most painful parts of our lives are due to not talking about sex. Often sex is not the main problem.
The problem with my parents was that they could not communicate properly. The lack of sex in my own marriage was also due to the fact that we could not talk to each other.
My son is now almost eight years old and I know that in a few years he will be curious too. When I weaned her, I told her that she was too old to touch any part of a woman's body.
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| Pallavi Barnwal |
He was very young at the time but he understood. When it comes time for him to be sexually active, I hope I have raised him in an environment where he will be well informed and safe.
Advice for Pallavi Barnwal's parents
First you need to understand why your children need to know about sex.
Talking about sex can protect your children from many troubles later in life. Low self-esteem, low self-esteem, sexual abuse, unhealthy relationships are just a handful of major issues that many young adults face.
Tell them about your experiences.
Children are incredibly attached to their parents' stories. They are curious about what it was like for you when you were growing up.
They want to see you as a real and authentic person who has made mistakes. If you talk about the challenges, confusions and misconceptions about sex that you have endured at your age, you will have a better relationship with your child.
Give your opinion
Talk to your children about your sexual values. What do you think about nudity, teen sexual activity, homosexuality, abortion, contraception, unmarried sex, healthy relationships and the importance of waiting? Remember that you are helping your children build a framework of values, not enforcing them.
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| Pallavi Barnwal |
Tell them the facts
- Expectations and values about sex
- Correct names and importance of male and female genitals
- What is sex and how does pregnancy occur?
- Physical and emotional changes during puberty
- The nature of menstruation and its cause
- Homosexuality, gender, self-indulgence, abortion
- What is contraception?
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and how they are spread
- What is sexual exploitation, how to prevent sexual exploitation and what to do if it happens
All of this information is age-specific, so you have to decide when and how much to tell.
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