01 October 2013, 02:15 PM IST
Wonderful to see you again, my friend. Welcome to my lair. Join me for some Wild Witch's Brew. It is of course just my garden in Sherwood Forest, turning russet and gold in the twilight months of the year, enchanting but not enchanted. The brew is a long frothy drink of cocoa. Coffee if you prefer. And my goodness, aren't you happy to see me (or you're packing ammo)! That you've turned up today and with that…er…affliction…is marvellous because that's precisely what I want to discuss (you don't look surprised somehow).
So, let's talk about sex, Baby.
Like British television's Channel 4 plans to, all this month, with its 'Real Sex' season. They want to help Britain regain 'a healthy perspective on sex, in a world where pornography, fantasy and fetish are considered the norm by many.' They aren't the only ones concerned. That rather frightening public service message showing a young girl browbeaten into sex by her equally young but angry, confused boyfriend is everywhere right now. As parents and schools shrug off the responsibility of teaching their children about the birds and the bees (one awkward, coldly clinical discussion with your preteen does NOT sex education make, I'm afraid). This toughest of jobs, the most important of jobs, is left to the irresponsible media and the profiteering sex industry. What do kids learn as a result? That sex is dark, dirty and deviant. And if you aren't clubbing your partner into acquiescence it's not much fun.
Boys learn that girls who say no really mean yes and to keep hitting her till she agrees, slips into a coma or dies. Whatever happens, they can then have some fun with her. Girls learn to shut up and take it, or "no" might be their last word ever. Worse, they begin to believe they want it too. And in that way.
So when we abdicate responsibility for educating our children in the thing that makes the world go 'round, this is what we get: 300,000 American women are raped every year. One in 20 British women is a victim of at least one serious sexual assault. 66% of Turkish police officers believe that "the physical appearance and behaviours of women tempt men to rape". 74% of women in Mali say their husband has the right to beat them if they withhold sex. And in India, there's Nirbhaya. Not one but hundreds of thousands.
And what the media and Porno People do to kids' body image with the distortions they hold up as ideal doesn't bear thinking about! But we must. Think about it. And tackle it.
As well-intentioned as a television channel might be, it can only untangle so many of our sexual snarls in a few nights of superficial reality TV. And I'm not convinced their intentions are ratings-free. With shows like 'Sex Box' where couples canoodle in an opaque, sound-proofed box and 'Date a Porn Star', which gives porn-star-struck dorks the opportunity to date their favourite wet-tissue fantasy (favourite porn stars? How sad), their objective seems mercenary at worst and muddled at best. Now I'd call myself fairly adventurous but even I'm iffy about sex in a box. Very few men are worth doing inside a box. Not that many in a vast, silken, four poster bed either, because if you had one of those, wouldn't you just laze and read with a box of chocolates at your side? We've all heard of the Russian bird who wanted Boom Boom in the broom closet and the seriously creepy Harry Potter fan his cupboard-under-the-stairs action. But what could you possibly learn about sex and the human form when you don't even know which bit is jammed against your face? I'd rather date a porn star! If I were the porn-struck sort, I'd learn a lot more from an hour with one of them, than I would in a box. I would learn, for example, that what you see is not you what you get. Their body parts may be enhanced with CGI or surgery but more importantly, they really don't want a torrid tumble with you, Slobbering Spotty Boy, they'd rather be home, reading.
But what this coitus cardboardus might do is generate that buzz that gets people talking. And one or two of these conversations might be a parent-child chat where their fears, misconceptions and expectations about sex are finally addressed. Because nudity, like charity, must begin at home.
Of course, clothes are useful things, especially in the English winter. But if your child were to see you in the buff, should you:
a) Scream, hide or scold to cover up your embarrassment
b) Insist you are in fact wearing clothes, like the befuddled emperor
c) Act like nothing untoward has happened because nothing has, but shuck some on at your convenience as teaching your kids about the beauty and goodness of the human body is a brilliant idea but educating the Delivery Man, not so much.
Take the advice of this airy-fairy-the-body's-not-scary Hippie Chick on this because this is one thing I might have managed to get right. Wear what you would have worn around the house before the kids came along. Don't lock the door in their faces when you're changing (wouldn't you much rather know they are safe than saintly?). Have baths with them when they are little, it gets them used to the human body and if they grab, just ease the slightly inappropriate extremity out of their grip and replace with a bath toy. Answer all their questions all the time. Especially the ones about sex. Mine, at three and five, have had a preschool version of the birds, bees, tiddlers, front-bottoms (and what they instinctively refer to as "nibbles" ) talk.
This openness can sometimes lead to embarrassing situations. At a recent extended family dinner, our little girl loudly informed everyone that her parents had been "bobbing up and down on each other AGAIN!" Fact is it was a fully clothed cuddle but would it matter if they did happen on more? I would rather have my kids think of sex as wholesome, maybe even mundane and obviously, totally for the doddering, than something filthy, furtive and fly-by-night. Because when something is forbidden, it follows that it has to be taken by force. Sociologist Stevi Jackson argues that the home is where children begin to question right and wrong. But their need to know is often stymied by grown-up evasiveness and sexual repression. "In attempting to protect children from sex, we expose them to danger," she says, "In trying to preserve their innocence, we expose them to guilt. In keeping both sexes asexual and then training them to become sexual in different ways, we perpetuate sexual inequality, exploitation and oppression".
I want them to have the benefit of what most of my generation (and those before us) didn't- a parent who talks (endlessly) about sex. As well-meaning and in some cases, liberal, as our parents were, we got all the wrong messages about sex and the human body. They didn't talk to us about it but Hollywood, Bollywood, Mills and Boons and the weird uncle who liked sitting you down on his knee, did.
Hollywood taught us that liberation meant wriggling out of your bra but keeping your stilettoes on because men like it when you can think for yourself like that. Bollywood went one further and impressed upon us the need to always toe the (sexual) line set down by the man in your life, be it father, husband or some dirty old man that's made it his business, because otherwise you might as well be dead. And often are, mid-way through the movie. Mills and Boon taught us that great sex is always forced on us, usually by a nasty boss or Arab Sheik with a harem habit. And the less said about what your "uncle" told you as you perched uncomfortably on his knee the better.
If your parents aren't talking to you, your school friends usually are. And it's usually rubbish. I was terrified of boys' fingers for ages because I was told that's how they slip babies into you. I know better now.
Sadly, the same messages are still doing the rounds. Not about boys' fingers perhaps, but this, "Men, I know you think your woman isn't the type who wants to be taken. But trust me, she is. Every girl wants to get her hair pulled once in a while. If your wife says "no," turn her around, and rip her clothes off. She wants to be dominated", from a "book" by reality TV star Melissa Gorga. Small fry compared to the ridiculously-successful-mind- numbingly-awful "Fifty Shades of Grey", the doormat's guide to delirious domination by a freak. When Anastasia breathed, "Truly I am a marionette and he is the master puppeteer," I almost stopped. Breathing.
My recent six weeks in Kolkata have convinced me that India needs this parents-taking-the-matter-by-the-scruff-of-the-neck approach more than almost anywhere (of course, much more must happen, but revolutions usually start small). Even without going into the many horrific sexual crimes reported recently (and the thousands that go unreported), it felt different. I was a journalist there 13 years ago, out and about at all hours, never in any doubt that I was completely safe. This time, at South City Mall on a busy Sunday, I realised uncomfortably that I, a "Mashima", worthy of our time-honoured tradition of Mother Worship, was being stalked by a pack of young men who could have been my sons (if I'd begun early). I could see my snug jeans had shorted their Neanderthal thought circuit, causing confusion. As that fantastic anti-rape video we've all watched recently said- it was my fault. I am old enough and confident enough these days to give such miscreants a piece of my mind, maybe even the sensible sex talk they clearly didn't get at home. But there's something in the air in India right now, the scent of a storm brewing, and an attempt at a cosy chat about sex with a pack of predators seemed inadvisable. I gave them the slip instead.
I am but a minor witch; I will never change the world. But I can be a Cool Free-spirited Momma. And so can you, or a really Wickid (in the street sense of the word) Warlock Dad. We can start the revolution in our homes that will change how sex is perceived and eventually experienced. But no crusade is complete without a kick-ass slogan. So, I give you the totally original…
Liberty: give your kids the freedom to love how they look and what their bodies want to do.
Equality: Grant boys and girls the same freedoms, the same strictures, the same sex talk.
Fraternity: we're all in this together, girls, boys and parents. There is no "other", no enemy.
And of course, NUDITY: be at home in your own skin, let them get really comfortable in theirs. Go skinny dipping, they'll be much the wiser for it.
Say it with me Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Nudity…and now practise what you preach.
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