Intimacy, sexuality, gender identities: What the youth are talking about

“Because there is so much taboo around these topics, there is rampant misinformation among adolescents and teenagers and it was in that workshop that I realised the misconceptions I held myself,” said Diksha Mhetre, who has been working since 2020 with the non-profit Centre for Youth Development and Activities (CYDA) in their programme called ‘Tarang’ (talking to adolescents about reproductive health and gender.)

“I have grown up in Laxmi Nagar, Pune’s biggest slum area and have closely seen how curiosity and confusion around sex and sexuality, if not cleared properly, can give way to distraction, prejudice, bullying, early pregnancies, violence or addiction among the youth,” said the 21-year-old who now conducts trainings and workshops in various low-income settlements in the city and outside.

“Young girls get insecure about their body, boys tease and bully each other for the same. There is not much awareness about gender and sexual identities. It is important to have conversations centred around these sensitive issues and I feel this is a very important work,” said Diksha.

Pune-based Isha Badkas makes use of storytelling, theatre, art and songs in her study around developing a curriculum on comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). She routinely engages with young children from low-income working class families of Khelghar, an after school support initiative.

“I have been developing the CSE curricula with Eklavya Foundation so that conversations on mental, emotional and physical wellbeing can be held in classrooms right from the start. Often conversations about the body, intimacy or sexuality crop up suddenly when young people reach adolescence but our identities begin to develop much earlier. At the same time, making this material accessible in Marathi is something I am working towards. Simply using the proper words for reproductive organs, genitalia is itself an empowering experience for young people,” said Badkas.

Some young people from the Pune Queer Collective have been trying to make this conversation more sensitive to queer-trans experiences and other social identities. Aarya, a 23-year-old member from PQC, said, “Many queer and trans people have personally felt the lack of affirmative and open spaces for us in our formative years in schools and colleges. Sex education often stays limited to reproduction, harassment, sex and so on but it is equally important to talk about our social identities which have to do with gender, sexual orientation, sexuality as well as our class or caste,” said Aarya.

The Pune Queer Collective has held some sessions at educational institutes and hopes to make further interventions at the policy-level by holding dialogue with the education department.

The hesitation and silence around these topics however is not limited to teens and adolescents. Youngsters like Arya Gupta, a psychology graduate working with Pune-based NGO Sehmat, have been hosting workshops for conversations on “sexuality from a pleasure-perspective and mental health through a health perspective” for adults of varied age groups.

“My focus is on connections, relationships and communities and I create space to talk about intimacy, pleasure, kink, queerness, polyamory, among other things which often stay taboo even among urban, educated adults because we are not always taught how to hold these conversations in a nurturing manner,” said Arya.

While a lot of this work is done on a voluntary basis or through non-profits, Arya plans to make this passion financially viable in the future. “I am currently enrolled in an MBA programme at the Symbiosis Institute and have some business ideas, which can help me do this work in an economically sustainable manner. This is an important work, which adds value to people’s lives.”