Back in the eighties, the not-so-subtle trend among Nepali and Hindi movies was to bring two roses together, their stalks gliding towards each other over green hedges in the background, apparently to emphasize the level of intimacy between on-screen couples. For particularly raunchy sequences in the masala-movies, vamps were hired, who seduced men by jigging on their bare legs. It was only in the mid-nineties when cable television first entered Nepal that we started seeing bolder expressions of love on screen. Young audiences were instantly hooked to the rather incestuous relationships that were the hallmark of Hollywood daytime soap operas like Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara. By the time the country entered the noughties, the internet and cell phones were starting to catch their imaginations; and, with it, whole new varieties of sexual expressions entered the lexicon of Nepali youth: everything from ‘internet sex’ to ‘sexting’.
The generations that came of age before the late nineties are understandably a little queasy about the fast growing culture of hook ups and one night stands among the college-going crowd. There are more and more folks, especially in the 15-25 cohort, who take sexuality as something to be celebrated, in and of itself. These days it is not hard to find teens who profess to multiple no-strings-attached relationships. But just about everything that has anything to do with sex is morally loaded in a society like Nepal which is in a state of transition, in more ways than one.
Take teen pregnancies. Whether you like it or not, the number of pregnant teenage girls seeking abortion is shooting through the roofs. In the year 2007/08 just under 13,000 girls opted for abortion; today, the figure is close to 25,000—or 65 abortions a day. These are documented cases. Just the fact that ‘abortion clinics’ can be spotted in virtually every major hub in Kathmandu suggests that the figures are much higher.
For some, these developments represent decaying morals. But it is hard to see how the generation of our grandfathers who used to keep multiple wives, who, in turn, were forced to have five or six children each by putting their lives on the line, could in any way claim moral superiority over today’s young generation. And yet, the case against teen pregnancy can be made on purely medical grounds. The bodies of girls as young as 13 (who are regularly visiting abortion facilities in Nepal) are not mature enough to deal with the physical and psychological burdens of pregnancy. Not only are these girls prone to a whole range of reproductive system-related disorders in the future (in addition to their diminished chances of future pregnancy), the social consequences of early pregnancy can be equally burdensome on budding minds.
In order to prevent a possible health catastrophe, it is vital that there is greater dissemination of reliable information on safe sex and efforts are made to remove the taboos associated with sex. More open dialogue between parents and children would be a wonderful first step in sex education of children at a time when we, as a society, have clearly failed to impress upon the youngsters the dangers of unsafe sex. Insincere squeamishness on sex will only make matters worse.
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