THE PRECOCIOUS SEXUALISATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE

There is an urgent issue and it is already very late to tackle it. This commonly known but ignored issue is critical as it is our CHILDREN who are at stake. Yet, it is most of the time, either overlooked or a deaf ear is turned to it. Our youth is in jeopardy today, and this can be explained by their precocious sexual development, whether it is physical or mental.
Knowing about sex, bodies, or sex-related topics is neither a sin nor a taboo, but knowing the right quotient at the right point in time in their lives is crucial. If children develop a sex-driven attitude and know more than required for their age, it is obvious that the outcomes will be fatal or even ruinous. This precociousness in children is highly distorting and problematic. Through that, the importance of a sex education in today’s fast evolving generation is highlighted.  However, the source and content of a sex education should be supportive to the holistic development of a child, and not one that makes the child obsessed or driven by sex.  If a thorough scrutiny of the problem is done, we might detect that it occurs at grassroots level.  Still, we ask ourselves why the fruit is rotten.  It is true that several stakeholders and factors are responsible for the development of a child, but when a problem crops up, stakeholders tend to look for a scapegoat, instead of addressing the issue.  We don’t really know who is to be blamed for the precocious sexualisation of our youngsters.  Is it the child?  The parents? The society? The school? The media? The local authorities? The religious institutions?  Do we really need to find someone to blame? Or stakeholders should rather take their responsibilities and coordinate with each other in order to work for the same objective, but by performing differentiated tasks at different levels and at different points in time???The issue is widespread in the Mauritian society, and our youngsters are stuck in a quagmire, in which, their language, behaviour, manners, lifestyles, sexual orientation and habits among others, are characterized by their precocious sexualisation.  I believe, nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear a child using foul language, abusive and vulgar words.  This language issue involves the sexual connotations that children’s language carries, for example, f*ck, bou*, f*p f*p, etc…  These sexual connotations can be seen and heard almost everywhere: public places, social networks, on walls, on the road, at school, in the bus, near the court, in the hospital, in religious and spiritual places. And it is done in a flagrant disregard for others.
The promiscuous behaviour of children and youngsters is an indication that the stakeholders have been too fault-tolerant and it is difficult to be in the saddle now! Are the youngsters so sexually deviant that they can’t have a proper body language? Seeing young girls on the laps of boys/men hitting on each other is not a scene you would like to see in public places, nor would you like to expose your children to these scenarios.  Yet, these deviations from the social norm are quite recurrent. Less flagrant than these would be youngsters showing their middle finger to friends or people in general. Or least flagrant would be girls sitting in embarrassing positions with their short uniforms. However, the level of promiscuity doesn’t cascade down, rather, it gets more and more problematic, with young people being involved and caught in flagrante delicto.  Apart from sexualizing authoritative figures like teachers, or getting engaged in illegal relationships with married people, young people are deep-rooted in sexual activities, like early sex, having multiple sex partners, or being the stars of pornographic films.  It is unacceptable that some young people are sexually active, some of them are parents at the tender age of 12, some of them have undergone abortions several times, some are taking contraceptive pills, or worst, some are victims of sexually-transmitted diseases like AIDS, and are fighting against death!??Another pertinent issue is the ‘over-exposure’ or ‘over-display’ – I would say – of youngsters’ sexual orientation and preference.  Someone’s gender should be respected and valued, because nature has designed us as we are.  Therefore, being lesbians, gays or bi-sexuals are not the problem.  Rather, it is the ‘use’ and ‘display’ of these genders that may disturb. Schools have become a place where youngsters are changing their orientation by themselves.  Is it their quest for identity or attention or importance? Or simply, peer pressure or could even be the influence of the media, which is encouraging this over-indulgence in young people?  Is it an attempt to emulate the lives and lifestyles depicted on screen???I believe this precocious urge of being sexualized is not less than a contagious addiction, from which we should keep our youth away.  We should teach our youth about the way they should go to ensure a decay-free generation and a social evil-free society.  I certainly appreciate how many young people still show evidence of good upbringing and values.  Their good manners and respect for and towards others are signs of maturity.  What I would like to suggest to stakeholders, especially to parents, if I may do so, is to always keep abreast of the path your young one is adopting.  To add, the best way to prevent them from straying would be to educate them about sex, its implications and consequences, and also to talk to them openly about any thing they would like to know or share.  Being a hot potato, the issue is also a hard nut to crack, but our young generation is at stake, so we must do something about it!

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