Like Hindi films of the ’70s?

Old Bollywood had this demure image to show a couple making love: two flowers nudging each other. Criticised by conservative elements for ‘promoting’ promiscuity by being too graphic, NACO has decided to act coy too. It has dropped ‘safe sex’ and ‘condom’ from its school manuals. Speak Up asks Mumbaikars if sex education needs to be toned down and gets a resounding ‘no’

Would you rather your teen went to a dodgy source?
Our mistake is that we don't mention terms   as 'safe sex' and 'condom' often enough and categorically enough. I tell youngsters who come to me that the condom is like a helmet that protects wearers from accidents. But it is not foolproof. And it does not give you permission to drive recklessly. The knowledge we impart to our youth has to be precise.

Even I would criticise the use of words such as 'condom' and 'safe sex' if it is done mindlessly. There is a way to impart sex education: it needs to be culture-specific, value-based, age-appropriate and scientific in nature. We can't teach students just anything in the name of sex education. It is also important that only an expert teaches the subject.

If the primary motive of the campaign is to create awareness about HIV and AIDS then there are other details that need to be explained as well. For instance, a condom only covers the penis, and not the other parts, through which infection can spread.

I don't think holding back information helps any one. You need to use caution when you explain sex to a young teenager. And if you leave out relevant details, he/she will seek it out of some dodgy source.

I don't understand why the topic of sex education raises such a furore. We are not a coy society. Which other culture can boast of Kamasutra or Khajuraho? We also worship the Shivalinga, which depicts the union of Parvati and Shiva. Traditionally we were a very liberal society but lost that advantage over the centuries.

Given the amount of sex available over the internet it becomes all the more important to give youngsters the correct picture. What they gather from these sites is often misleading, incorrect, perverted and harmful.
 —Dr Rajan Bhonsle. Head of Department of Sexual Medicine KEM Hospital and GS Medical College

We aren’t in middle ages
I had sex education as a subject from Standard VIII. And I think it is necessary for every teenager to be aware. I don't agree with NACO's latest module on sex education because you cannot teach children facts of life without using terms such as 'safe sex' and 'condom'. It's not that a teenager doesn't have access to information about sex; the internet makes information available at the click of a mouse. But this information might not be accurate, worse it might be twisted. Also we need to remember that we are not living in the dark, middle ages but in a time when the sciences have made a lot of progress.
 —Ketki Barfiwala

Be forthright with teens
Sex education is a necessity today. How can we avoid concepts such as safe sex or not mention condoms when we are talking about sex education? Without them you cannot even start explaining the facts of life to children. There is no point in imparting an incomplete education to our teens. Indian society still needs to become open about issues relating to sex. You can deal with the issue in a forthright manner with children. It is after all how nature made us; not some kind of aberrant behaviour. If you treat it as a
natural topic of discussion, children will reciprocate by taking a sensible attitude.
 —Ashwathy Menon

You need to be cautious
How sex education is imparted depends on the approach of the person teaching the subject. But talking about certain issues might just disturb growing children. If they do not understand a certain topic well they might just misconstrue it. So in a way I think it was sensible of NACO to avoid words such as 'safe sex' and 'condoms' in manuals for schools. Consider students who are really innocent. If they themselves misinterpret an idea or are fed half-baked information it can lead to emotional trauma. The ideal stage to impart sex education to teens is once they enter college. Then they can imbibe the information.
 —Mini Thapar

Parents need to open up
This generation is smart and has several sources for information at its disposal. If you don't teach them about birds and bees they will learn about it anyway. I am all for this campaign to introduce sex education in high school. It is more scary to let a child go to some shady source of information. This could leave him permanently scarred both mentally and emotionally. Today even the media is open about discussing sex. So it is just the parents who are shying away from discussing the subject openly. This is ridiculous because a matter-of-fact discussion at home is the best way to lead a child into the subject.
 —Sneha Tejwani'

Start as early as 12
People who think that sex education is "anti-Indian" should take a look at our history. Sex education goes way back and this can be seen in the carvings on our temples. According to me, sex education should start as early as Standard VII. And it should be done without any sense of taboo. Our children know far more than we give them credit for. The more a teen knows about the various aspects of sex, the better it is for them. It is important to tell children about the need to be cautious and how to avoid HIV and other sexual diseases. I think instead of being coy we should have started sex education in schools some five years ago when the information explosion began.  
  —Dhruv Acharya. Parent

Teens will seek out facts
Teenagers today are so inquisitive that they manage to discover most facts of life on their own. And when a youngster enters puberty, the excitement to figure out these facts comes from within and leads to heightened levels of curiosity. You would be naive to believe that youngsters wait for classes to learn about sex!  I think that the state should insist on schools beginning sex education in Standard VI. This is the age when a child starts maturing and the hormones start raging around the body. I think families also should learn to become open about issues relating to sex. I have an aunt who was quite open with us and I grew up with no sense of embarrassment at the mention of the word sex, unlike my classmates.
 —Purab Kohli. VJ

We are still a conservative people
Before creating the Condom Bindaas Bol advertisement, we did some research and found that most people are embarrassed to use the word 'condom' even among friends. This has been the biggest barrier in promoting condoms for safe sex. Oblique images of chemist shops failed to deliver the message in the past. These ads showed people walk into a chemist shop and demand condoms.

But they didn't click with the audience because they did not demand any change in viewer attitudes. So instead of asking people to use condoms, we attacked the problem itself. We decided to work on this deep-rooted embarrassment among viewers. So our ad showed images of regular people using the word 'condom'. Is it safe to use the word 'condom' and the expression 'safe sex' freely in sex education books for children? That is a tricky question. There are complicated issues at work here. It is easy for the elite to say yes, children need to know what sex means. But our society is still so closed about discussing sex. So sex education for children is still a revolutionary idea for us.
But I have to say that with the kind of media exposure children get today, it would be better to teach them facts the scientific way. Also, it is important to decide on the correct age to start sex education. 
 —Anand Saspi. Creative Director, LOWE