Why parents should teach their children about sex

During the second lockdown in December of 2020, I remember coming across a post from a Pakistani feminist page on Instagram about how a woman died on her wedding night in Pakistan. She died from excessive bleeding as her newly-wedded husband used iron rods (maybe because he had witnessed it in porn) during sexual intercourse. The woman who had shared this story online encouraged parents to teach their children, especially their daughters, about sex in order to avoid another incidence like this happening again. For those of you reading that are not familiar with Pakistani culture, let me give you a small introduction: many Pakistani women have not even had their first kiss before their wedding night and have very little knowledge about sex or contraception due to religious norms, which creates a serious power imbalance between the husband and wife. It is likely that the husband has had some sexual experience and watches porn; in fact, Pakistan is one of the biggest consumers of porn in the world. This is the result of the culture’s obsession with controlling women’s sexuality, hence enforcing strict gender segregation and confining women within the home, whilst enabling their sons to engage in any behaviour that he wishes to do so without any fear of consequences. This difference in treatment of the sexes poses many problems for women who are newlywed, as it means that whilst men are comfortable with their own sexuality and would be ready to have sex on the wedding night, the women are anything but ready.

Growing up, women are taught by their mothers due to rampant internalized misogyny that they must cover up in the home and in public; that any talk of periods or sex or rape – any mention of their body that relates to their reproduction – is forbidden; and that any under circumstance they are not to interact with the opposite sex in a sexual manner or else there will be severe repercussions. This includes being married off to a cousin back home against your will or being honour killed by your family members because you have destroyed the family honour. Thus, as a result, women internalize shame surrounding their sexuality which encourages them to police their own behaviour, even when their parents aren’t present, and in some cases police the behaviour of other women. This manifests as dressing modestly, only having girls who are friends, fast-forwarding any scenes in movies that involve any form of intimacy and getting closer to their religion usually Islam, which helps them to feel better about the strict rules that their parents had enforced on them during their childhood. Another harmful thing that Pakistani mothers teach their daughters is that marriage is a ticket to freedom, which implies that they need a man’s permission in order to live a good life. Women are falsely promised that they will be able to travel, wear clothes that were not permissible in their father’s home, move out to a new city, and go on cute cinema dates late at night – but only, of course, if their husband consents to this. After marriage, women are transferred from the property of their father to the property of their husband, thus relieving the parents of the ‘burden’ that comes with raising a girl. A girl’s honour could be robbed from her if she were to have sex, either consensual or non-consensual (but this distinction is irrelevant in their eyes) because sex is considered inherently sinful.

Pre-marital sex is more acceptable within western societies because there is a weaker association between sex and shame, which is partly due to the sexual revolution in the 1960s which saw the introduction of the contraceptive pill and helped women to gain more autonomy over their bodies and normalize the idea of female pleasure. Pakistan, on the other hand, has a long way to go in terms of a sexual revolution: studies have shown that only 30% of Pakistani women use a contraceptive method and that more than one-quarter of these women rely on traditional methods such as withdrawal and periodic abstinence. The stigma surrounding contraception is the consequence of a very backwards belief: that sex is exclusive to marriage and only permissible for the purpose of procreation. This means that couples get married young to have sex and avoid committing the sin of pre-marital sex, but only have sex to have children thus implying that sex is only meant for carrying on your lineage, not for your own pleasure. After parents have had all the children that they want, it is very common for them to sleep on separate beds – sometimes sleep in separate rooms from each other – and no longer have sex. This awkward relationship that some Pakistanis have with sex means that parents refuse to admit that they have ever had sex. A typical cover-up for the arrival of a new sibling into the home is that “God gave them kids”, which helps them to distance themselves from the sexual act that they committed with their partner. It is also used as a method to shut down any criticism about their choice to have more children than they could financially provide for since they ostensibly had no part to play in this outcome. It’s one thing for a child under the age of 18 to feel uncomfortable talking about sex, but it’s a very different thing when an adult parent who is married and has children is in denial that they have had sex.

I could go on and on about how differently the sexes are treated within the Pakistani community, and how it severely impacts their romantic relationships, as well as their self-esteem and confidence, but I feel like I would be doing that in vain. In the present moment, the people within the community have no desire to address the sexual inequality that exists as it would mean that they would have to talk about sex and intimacy – two very taboo subjects – therefore they are more likely to completely ignore this problem than to acknowledge and talk about it. The purity culture goes hand in hand with the silencing and oppressive culture that on the one hand claims to be protecting women by strictly controlling their movements and sexuality, while simultaneously putting them at increased risk of being manipulated and abused by their intimate partners. We need to remove the shame that is associated with sex, as it disproportionately affects women, on both ends of the spectrum. If you are sexually experienced and have had premarital sex then you could be killed by your husband, or your parents, for not being ‘pure’ and adhering to cultural and religious norms. But alternatively, a lack of sexual experience puts women at risk of being abused by their husbands as they have no idea what is to be expected during sex or how to have safe sex, thus placing the man in a position of power over the woman and putting the woman at his mercy. We need to change how we perceive sex and intimacy within the context of a relationship because it will allow people to feel more comfortable talking about their sexual experience, expectations, and other important things such as contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.