How do Indian parents teach their children about sex?

15 days after my first menstruation.

Mom confirms that my younger sister has fallen asleep. Then continues like this:

Now you are a big girl. Do not change dress in front of anyone. Don't allow any man cuddle you too much. Do not let any boy touch your private parts. And do not sleep with any male person other than dad. Also tell me if someone touches you in bad places.

Me: Why are you telling me all these?

Mom: Now you are capable of being pregnant.

Me: Cool. How does that happen?

Mom (hesitating): They put their thing inside your thing.

Me: What thing.

Mom: That thing you saw in the visual dictionary. Penis.

We slept.

That was in 6th standard. Later she taught me the whole thing in the biology chapters in 10th and 12th.

Well… That was how a mother who is a zoology college teacher taught her child. :P

Taken from https://www.quora.com/

They don’t.

Such conversations almost never happen in an Indian household. Children generally get to know about topics such as sex, love and lust primarily through either movies, books, friends or other online sources.

The issue here is that there is no proper source of sex education for the children, which can lead to wrong information or worse, lack of awareness. There is a general hesitancy in having discussions on sex related topics, which can lead to misconceptions. No wonder, there are so many uncalled-for giggles in classes when that Biology chapter on Reproduction is taught in Class X.

In fact, children get to know about HIV and safe sex even later. There is not even a single word in the school curriculum which provides some basic awareness to the children on these issues.

It is quite an irony to note that in a country which gave the world the ancient texts of Kamasutra, even mentioning the word “sex” is still considered a taboo in many places.

We read in mythological books such as Ramayana and Mahabharata how the queen prays to the Gods and they bless her with a child. Sometimes, the baby comes out of the fire or from inside the earth.

Something interesting to observe is that as soon as the children get married, the entire extended household starts pestering them for babies. Is the couple expected to start digging into the earth to find a baby?

Taken from https://www.quora.com/

My parents fall in the category of the cool kind. So once we reached adolescence, they never shied away from discussing sex and sex related jokes from me or my brother. As such I never had 'the talk' from my parents, since I guess they knew that we are capable enough of finding out ourselves, and they were right. However this one incident stands out in my memory.

Now my father was in the Air Force and we had to change schools almost every year. So when I reached class 7, it was decided that it would be best for me to study in a good boarding school so that my education could be stabilized. And this was a co-ed boarding school. So when it was time for me to go to school, my dad gave me the pep talk, which consisted of how hostel life would be and the challenges associated with it etc. He also kept on stressing on the fact that I should interact with the girls responsibly and not do anything that I would regret, which confused me at first. But in the end of the talk my father looked straight into my eyes and said

“Son, try to keep it in your pants and please don't get anyone pregnant. I'm not ready to be a grandfather yet”

Taken from https://www.quora.com/