India may not be "sex safe" any more

Indian society may not be as conservative as most of us think it to be. Indian youngsters are slowly but surely, indulging in premarital sex more than they ever used to, quotes an article published in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal. The study conducted by the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, revealed that a quarter to a third of Indian youngsters may be indulging in sex prior to marriage. The study was conducted in Delhi and Lucknow and the participants included school and college going students and young people in the age range of 15-24 years living in the cities' slums. The major conclusions of the study were that a majority of youngsters had their first sexual experience between 16-18 years. Boys tended to experience sex almost a year earlier than girls. Though most of the respondents reported having sex infrequently, about 14% said that they indulge in it often. About a third of the respondents were found to be lacking in awareness about unsafe sex, while 2-3% had multiple partners. An interesting finding of the study was that premarital sex was more common in Lucknow than in Delhi. This is unexpected since Lucknow is considered to be a more conservative city than Delhi. The reason cited for this was the more liberal mixing of boys and girls in conventional traditional cities. Other findings suggested that the incidence of premarital sex is as high as 17% among school going children. A worrying aspect of the study was that about 50% of the females and 45% males had never used condoms. Overall, 46% never used condoms, 22% sometimes and 17% always used them. Unsafe sex was more common among unskilled labourers than students. Though the study may ruffle a few feathers, it can not be taken at face value as representative of the country as a whole, since the number of respondents was small and from a particular geographical area only. Another criticism levelled at the study is that it does not take into account the rural population that accounts for a majority of the Indian populace. Thus, though the study might not have serious implications immediately, it may well serve for act as an alarm to the health authorities of the country.

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