From sex and driving to drinking, the ever-so-curious teens love to do everything that has an element of thrill. Early sex has been a grey area in almost every society, where sexual activity below the age of 16 is not considered “right”, and many in this day and age of media exposure still frown at it. While our government has been toying with the idea of legalising the consensual sex age to be between 16 to 18 for quite some time, is it really possible to decide the ‘right age’ for youngsters to indulge in sex?
“I believe mental growth is not directly proportional to physical growth. So the legal age for sex can’t be defined. It differs from individual to individual. But when we talk about minimising crime, teenage pregnancies and rape in a huge country like India, then the legal age can be fixed only when the teenagers have a say in the deciding process,” says Rahul Khandelwal, a tutor.
Whereas Dr Jitendra Nagpal feels that if teenagers can vote and drive at 18, then they ought to be able to drink and have sex at 18 too. Below 18, they are biologically underdeveloped, have immature brains and are less responsible than adults.
“Why are we confusing teenagers with separate ages for things like sex, driving, drinking alcohol, watching porn, voting and being eligible for jobs? I guess having one age when you’re ‘legally mature’ would make more sense. There is no harm in experimenting, but to ensure that individuals are responsible and don’t have unprotected sex, there should be a rider to the law that makes them accountable for the repercussions of their act,” he adds.
Ranjana Kumari, director of Center for Social Research says that you can’t define an age to have legal sex as it is different for different sections of society. She says, “One has to be informed and have better understanding of the subject before indulging in any kind of sexual activity. That comes with education about the perils of teenage pregnancies and STDs. And not all parents find it important to discuss these things with their kids and schools too fail to emphasise on the same. So one can’t really decide the age and impose any restriction. When the mind and body are in sync, that is the right age and that is different in every individual.”
Shayantanu Sen, father of a 15-year-old, says that teenagers get excited when information is readily available on the Internet, television and other media. Even if we keep all the factors in mind that are responsible for early puberty, it will still be difficult to fix an age for consensual sex.
He explains, “When they watch porn, they tend to believe certain things which are done by professionals and that adds to their curiosity. Different people have such encounters at different stages of their life. Sexual activity is a natural phenomenon. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to such sensitive things,” he says, adding that the only solution to shun risky experiments is to educate teenagers so that they have a fair idea of the know-hows.