Parents told to come clean on the facts of life

By Pandaya

JAKARTA (JP): An innocent bride-to-be nervously asked her parents what she was supposed to do on her wedding night.

"Just look at the chickens," was the embarrassed reply from her father.

The long-awaited night finally came. She got into bed, turning her back on her mate and pressing her chin hard on her chest.

When her bewildered husband asked why she was acting that way, she responded, "Daddy told me to imitate how the chickens mate".

This was one of the irreverent but true stories that Boyke Dian Nugraha, a well-known gynecologist and sex consultant, used in a recent seminar to show taboos about frank discussion of sex have disastrously affected people.

Boyke, together with Gerard Paat of St. Carolus Hospital and nutritionist Elvina Karyadi, addressed a packed forum on sex education for children here last Saturday.

Cosponsored by Intisari magazine and Mead Johnson, the one-day discussion, When Should Sex Education for Children Begin?, was full of laughter as Boyke couched his message with jokes and humorous anecdotes.

Most of the about 500 participants were women of various age and social levels, including those from religious groups.

Housewives flooded Boyke with questions, ranging from how to stop children from masturbating, to why a husband was impotent with his wife but functioned sexually with other women.

A women stood up and voiced her concern about her nine-year- old son's "strange habit" of rubbing his genitals against the edge of the family's sofa.

"We are scared the sofa will eventually be dotted with holes, but we just don't know how to make him kick the habit," she said to the amusement of the audience.

The soft-spoken Boyke stated forcefully that parents should banish the belief that discussion of sex with their children was a strict no-no.

General public perceptions of "sex education" are of the smutty pornographic materials, dealing solely with sexual intercourse techniques, that schoolboys pass on to each other under the classroom table.

"This long-held, mistaken perception has hampered the true sex education that intends to disseminate information on essential knowledge about sexuality among youngsters," Boyke said.

He said few parents realize that cuddling a baby gives basic sex education, albeit in an unsystematic fashion. The same is true when parents teach their children how to react to a stranger.

He recommended that Indonesian parents adopt a modern approach to sex education, generally considered a Western concept. This may begin with discussions with children on sexual anatomy, menstruation, wet dreams, pregnancy and birth.

Later, parents may explain to their teenage kids about sexually transmitted diseases and other unwanted consequences of irresponsible sex.

Interestingly, although Boyke's views touched on sensitive religious beliefs, nobody in the audience raised objections.

Although acknowledging the novelty of sex education for children in Indonesia, Boyke cautioned parents not to be overly Westernized and remain true to their oriental and religious values.

"For example, in Islamic doctrine, pacaran (dating) is a sin. But how can contemporary parents prohibit their children from having a boyfriend or girlfriend?

"So the middle-way solution is to tell the child that dating is sinful according to Islam. But since it is unrealistic not to date, parents should arm their loved one with basic knowledge about sexuality."

Proposals for introducing formal sex education in schools has always sparked a heap of controversy. The same holds for the publication of books on sexuality for children.

The most recent hullabaloo rocked Indonesia in 1989 when Adik Baru (New Baby), a translation of a Swedish book Peter, Ida und Minimum, went on sale in local bookstores.

The few weeks of polemics climaxed with the then attorney general, Sukarton Marmosudjono, banning the illustrated 52-page book on grounds it was "not compatible with Indonesian moral values and (had) stirred up unrest".

Critics said the book had overly graphic illustrations of the human body and explicit details about sexual intercourse. This amounted to encouraging children to engage in sex, they argued. Advocates questioned the rational behind the ban, saying the book was needed to break old taboos.

The book, which had been translated into various languages in the West, was translated into Indonesian by Swami Gunawan and edited by R. Conny Semiawan, the then rector of the Jakarta Teachers Training College.

Ironically, its publication had received clearance from the police.

Government officials are apparently still divided over whether the state will endorse sex education in schools. Influential religious leaders in this predominantly Moslem country have yet to organize any public discourse about the delicate subject.

The modern approach to frank sex education for children seems limited to the more "open-minded" educated elite with more access to a wide variety of information sources.

"As far as sex education is concerned, religious dogma alone is not adequate," Boyke said. "People should be more realistic."