Writings @ Ankur Mutreja by Ankur Mutreja - HTML preview

Chapter 4.3.3: The Need for New Sexual Morality for Teenaged Girls

Morality

There are two concepts of morality: the conventional morality and the critical morality. The conventional morality reflects the moral views of the majority in a society; whereas the critical morality denotes rational or other standards that do not depend upon the majority’s point of view. The abolition of Sati, Child Marriage, etc., via law are examples of the triumph of the critical morality over the conventional morality. I personally favour critical morality and care least about conventional morality.

Teenaged Girls

There are reasons to believe that teenage girls are the most difficult. The studies have shown that the mental makeup of girls in this age group is such that they have skewed orientation of life and are extremely amenable to negative external influences in the matters of making sexual choices and in the manner of expressing their sexuality, and some of their most normal sexual behavior can be wrongly interpreted as inclination towards promiscuity. This is especially so in conservative societies like India. BTW, I have nothing against discretionary promiscuity, but I don’t think teenaged girls are capable of the discretion.

The Need for New Sexual Morality for Teenaged Girls

As the things stand at present in India, the sexual morality for teenaged girls is entirely conservative conventional morality. And, ironically, their women seniors are the biggest component of the majority. It seems the seniors are living under a guilt and have not been able to come to terms with their own sexualities, which makes me believe that some, or may be many, of the senior women folk in India are living under a volcanic state which, if given sexual freedom, can erupt in forms worst than that of an uncontrolled teenaged girl.

I have neither ability nor inclination to analyze the reasons for the skewed behavioral pattern of teenaged girls. However, I am not in terms with the conservative conventional morality for teenaged girls either. This is especially so now when the technology has become widespread, and the teenaged girls are often subjected to its negative use. The conservative morality naturally leads to the urge for experimentation and, under the circumstances mentioned above, can have extremely ugly ill-effects. Openness is the need of the times also because it is the same representatives of the conservative morality, i.e. the community leaders, who sanction such ill uses of technology to further their own ends; the direction they are taking the society into is the one in which promiscuity, exhibitionism, and the acceptance of submission in sexual relationships will become the norms for girls and women at large. Further ramifications of this would be acceptance of exploitative professions like prostitution as a normal choice for women. In other words, India will become Thailand. I am not sure what shape the morality for teenaged girls should take, but I am sure if the present state of affairs continue in India, the female foeticide will increase even further, and the family, for which these conservatives argue so very much, will cease to exist in spite of profusion of marriages, and love, as distinct from sex, will become extinct. ©2011-2015 Ankur Mutreja