Adolescence and Sexuality

Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay

Indian Statistical Institute

January 02, 2009

2009. “kamona, sriNgar, Naciket otijatra—koYSorei”. Koisor : Understanding Ephebe. Ed. Basu, Pathik. Kolkata: Shrayan. (pp. 102-37)

Abstract:
The author of this paper, as a member of the committee, constituted by the then Government of West Bengal with the help WHO, on Life Style Education for teens (secondary level) in West Bengal, India, under the regime of pseudo Communist party (2004-05), faced a strange situation. Culture-specific taboos, Victorian legacies prevailed rather than modern scientia sexualis. Even the section 377 Indian penal code that talked about indefinable “carnal sex” could not be combated in the committee.
The author , after analyzing the discourse of indigenous Hindu-communist (paradox!) views, proposed his own views of act-pleasure-desire taking cue from Batsyayana, Rousseau, Rabindranath Tagore, M.K. Gandhi, Bertrand Russell, M. Foucault, Laqueur, and Derrida. He elaborately discussed the role of masturbation (supplementary act) among the teens as well as the solitary simulated sexuality in the context of “modern” civilization. Onanism as a dis-ease /not as a dis-ease (historical apriori) was also discussed by deploying deconstructive strategy. He also elaborated the concept of Maria-community’s ( author was reluctant to use the pejorative term, “tribe”) ‘ghotul’-convention to show the heterogeneous practices of sexualities (please note the plural number). The so-called “Indian Values” (constructed in the colonial period) were refuted with the examples of ‘Hindu’ architecture or ars erotica. The author also subscribe the Foucaldian “proliferation of sexuality” rather than that of Freudian repression-hypothesis. Lastly , the author introduced the narrative of Naciketa, a legendary teen, from Kathoponisad, to establish the nature of ‘care of self’. In this case, author’s commentary was totally different from the other interpreters/ philosophers as he re-presented this philosophical text differently by tagging it with contemporary scenario.
This Bangla paper was written in a quasi direct discourse following the age-old tradition of dialoguing.

Keywords: Life Style Education for teens, historical apriori, ars erotica,onanism,quasi direct discourse, deconstructive strategy, Victorian legacies, section 377 Indian penal code,supplementary act,