Women shouldn’t work at night, women shouldn’t work more than 12 hours, women should be cautious when travelling alone, women should learn martial arts... In the wake of the rape and murder of the young doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, government guidelines and advice from well-wishers are pouring in, but all focus on how women should protect themselves. What about men? What about raising boys who respect boundaries and understand consent? No one is born a criminal, but a lack of proper guidance can lead one down a dangerous path. Sadly, most parents never tire of nagging kids to study but categorically steer clear of the crucial topic of sex education with them. This omission can easily lead adolescents astray.

Rot in society

The Reclaim the Night vigil on August 14 and the spate of protests since then have not touched the added areas of the township, say some of the girls that The Telegraph Salt Lake spoke to. “None of us went,” said Manju Ray, a 24-year-old digital creator from Khasmahal. The reason seems a resignation to status quo. “Some boys from the locality, who are known to taunt girls, went to these rallies, took smiling selfies, came back and posted them on social media. So how can we expect things to improve?” she argues. Gender discrimination is woven into their mindsets from the families. “My younger brother can stay out late, not me, as it is not deemed safe. He can wear shorts but I am not allowed to,” she reflects.

There is little support for a woman if she is harassed. “The other day, I was coming to my CG Block office on a KB 16 bus. A woman kept asking a grey-haired man behind her to step back. But other than her husband, no one said a word. After a while, the couple got off the bus while the man, who was troubling her, continued on the journey,” said Amrita Chowdhury, a chef in a catering outfit who is from Nazrul Pally. “If a girl is teased, barely one in 10 people speaks up in her favour. Everyone looks the other way, especially the women,” agrees Manju. Rishita Bhattacharya of the NGO LittleBigHelp led an eight monthlong sex education project last year in Basanti Colony next to Bidhannagar railway station. “We found the boys there entitled. They feel they can do as they please regardless of their partner’s wish. Consent or respect means nothing,” she says. “The girls confessed to having been molested by cousins living under the same roof.”

Protesting is not an option as these girls see what happens to their mothers if they try to stand up to their husbands. “They either get beaten up or are deserted by the men, which in their society, is worse,” Bhattacharya sighs.

Bane of Bollywood

Experts also blame the celluloid for reinforcing misogynistic ideas. “We see many school drop-outs who love watching violent shows on their phones. The visuals make a far stronger impression than merely hearing about violence,” says Sumitra Basu, a DL Block-based social worker with years of experience in the slums near City Centre.

Others condemn the causal use of the word “rape” to mean anything unpleasant, idioms like “chudiyan pehen rakhi hai” to stereotype the helplessness of women and “item songs” in films. “The trend of having a rape scene in every film may have reduced now but it’s got replaced by derogatory item songs,” says Chirasree Mitra, a psycho-social counsellor, and AD Block resident. Filmmakers should be careful about portraying women on screen as the vast majority is ready to misinterpret it. “Consider Kareena Kapoorin the song Fevicol se,” Mitra says. “There are many who won’t laugh this song off as they genuinely feel a woman’s worth is no more than “tandoori chicken”, as mentioned in the song.

Such lyrics only reinforce existing condescending attitudes towards women,” she says. Mitra recalls how a rapist in the Nirbhaya case showed no remorse after his crime. “Men from patriarchal and feudal backgrounds see nothing wrong with rape; they see it as the ultimate punishment for women,” she says. Sexual harassment need not be only physical or verbal. A Salt Lake dancer from the queer community shared his experience in a remote South 24-Parganas village where he had taken his troupe for a Kali puja night show. “I felt violated by the toxic masculine gaze of some of the villagers. In fact, I myself felt scared and was unsure about the security of our female dancers. So I told the organisers that we would not stay a minute beyond 10pm if we did not get the stage right away. I did not want to be sitting in a room with such people,” the dancer said.

Sex not a bad word

The solution is to sensitise individuals at an impressionable age. “But since parents are awkward talking about sex, kids grow up thinking it is bad,” says Sritama Ghosh, counselling psychologist at Monoshij, the mental wellness wing of Techno India Group. “This is why even during workshops, teens are hesitant to ask questions, fearing judgment from peers and parents. But curiosity about sex is natural at their age. If parents consistently skirt the issue, the child may either become overly curious or grow up without ever being comfortable with his sexuality,” she says. “Neither is healthy.”

Parents often underestimate their wards too. “I have an 11-year-old boy coming for treatment for inappropriate sexual behaviour towards his family members. After the RG Kar incident, I rang his mother, asking her to bring him over as this case is bound to have an impact on him. But the mother said he doesn’t know about the case!” says Mitra. “That’s not true as the boy had found out everything from the Net and his friends and formed his own opinion about it.”

The problem with porn

Mitra says that girls are afforded at least one opening for a sex-related discussion - when they start menstruating. “It’s another matter that most parents squander this chance, limiting the conversation to how to wear and throw the pad. But boys don’t even get that much and so turn to friends, and pornography when they have nocturnal emissions,” she sighs. Pornography, she says, is a safe way to maintain one’s urges, but without guidance, adolescents can assume the staged acts of bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism (BDSM) are what bring women pleasure and may try to force these on their partners,” says Mitra. She mentions a young patient who, after seeing prosthetic penises in porn, became obsessed with increasing the size of his own. “He was plagued by low self-esteem, and his equally clueless friends suggested everything from special oils to visiting sex workers,” Mitra says. “And this is very common.” “If we miss guiding and grooming them, kids grow up with confused ideas and given the opportunity, some of them land up becoming juvenile or adult offenders. We must protect them from becoming both, victims and offenders,” she says.

Younger than you think

“It is too late to talk to them when they reach Class IX or X and sex education classes in educational institutions are more of optics anyway. The students have learnt too much by then on their own and their sensibilities are formed,” says Amlan Ganguly, founder of the CG Block-based NGO Prayasam, which works in slums and colonies around Salt Lake.

His NGO takes social orientation classes where members, especially boys, are sensitised from the age of seven or eight years. “These children stay in one or two-roomed hutments, so they are exposed to everything early. So we also have to explain gender issues like physiological differences between boys and girls early but of course in a way that suits their age group,” Ganguly says.

He stresses that discussions should happen in an open forum so that there is no feeling of taboo. “When we discuss topics like menstruation, the boys cringe in discomfort. They are either not aware of the phenomenon or think it’s not worth their while to learn about a girly issue.”

Gender, he stresses, is in the head. “I make them imbibe these sensibilities from childhood.” Pressure of conformity to stereotypes is as much there on girls as on boys. “Even boys are expected to adhere to norms of masculinity. A boy is expected to go out to play and mouth obscenities, even if they are sensitive and prefer to stay at home.”

Having interacted down the years with about 6,000 youths from underprivileged sections, Ganguly feels such grooming has worked. “They come from communities where it is commonplace for men to physically abuse women. Yet most of our boys, when they grow up, are sensitive to the problems and limitations of their wives or mothers. One told me that he is not thinking of starting a family as his wife needs time to settle down. Another said they had stopped cooking with sugar as his mother was diabetic. These are significant behavioural changes.”

School counsellor Priyanka Banerjee, who is currently with the SPK Jain Futuristic Academy in New Town, recommends sex education classes from Classes V-VI. “We have to inform the students rather than be secretive. We also have to involve them in physical activity when they enter puberty so that the libido energy is channelised in a healthy way,” she says.

Sex education, she says, is also needed to let them know that attraction towards the opposite sex is common at this age. But she warns against the victimisation of boys. “I have handled cases of girls ganging up to bully a boy as boys go through physiological transformations like voice break and lean form during puberty. They can suffer from a lack of self-confidence if they are bullied. We teach both girls and boys to say no if they feel uncomfortable,” she said, citing the ragging and death of a firstyear student at Jadavpur University, Swapnadip Kundu a year ago.

Speaking to The Telegraph Salt Lake, Parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor, who put up in New Town during a Calcutta visit last weekend and attended a book signing event in Starmark, City Centre II, also advocated gender sensitivity starting from a very young age. “After the Nirbhaya incident in 2012, I remember talking to (the then Delhi chief minister) Sheila Dixit about getting gender sensitivity texts in the hands of boys who are six years old and above. They should know how to behave with members of the opposite sex.”

He pointed out the preferential treatment they grow up getting at home. “Many of them feel that they are privileged. This is often because of their mothers who would feed them earlier than their sisters. This gives them a sense of entitlement that comes to them from home. It needs to be remedied with proper education in schools,” the former human resources development minister said.

Tharoor also disagreed with the state government’s recent recommendation not to assign night duty to women. “Women should have the right to perform their profession, any profession that they wish, in conditions of safety and security. Why should women be considered more vulnerable? We should give them the right to do what they want, when they want and we should give them facilities that make it possible for them to do that.”

Power play

Ghosh mentions how misguided youths equate masculinity with the number of women they’ve bedded. “If a woman refuses, such men may force themselves on her to assert dominance. Similarly, how does an unemployed man living off his wife’s income feel superior? He too forces himself on the wife. In such cases, rape is not about sexuality but power,” she explains.

Soma Saha, a psychiatric social worker, recalls how a boy was brought to her after molesting a classmate and trying to start a fire in his school. “It turned out this boy was being molested by his grandfather. Often, sexual offenders are themselves victims, so it’s crucial to protect them too,” she says. “Even people with extreme addictions can have sexual violence as a comorbidity.” Saha has experience working at hospitals like RG Kar and SSKM, and till recently was a faculty at Amity University in New Town. Mitra cites a case where a mother eloped, leaving her adolescent son devastated. “This created such anti-women feelings in him that he spent his adult life trying to violently “punish” every woman he had a relationship with,” she says.

Kakoli Das Mandal shares the case of a Class X girl who sexually experimented with a female friend. “But then she was consumed with guilt, fearing how her mother would react if she found out. This lack of parental support, especially in LGBTQ matters, can lead to extreme emotions, which if repressed, may lead to violence or self-harming behaviour,” says the BL Block-based behavioural counsellor and life coach.

Break the ice

“You complain your son won’t lookup from his phone, but do you? How much time do you spend with him outside of taking him to tuition? Do you talk to him about anything other than asking him to eat and study?” asks Das Mandal. “Quality time with your child is crucial, no matter how busy you are. You need to talk to understand what he’s thinking.”

Adolescents need terms like gender, sex, and sexuality explained. “Tell them, of course, about good and bad touch but also how good sex is only that between consenting adults. Anything else is bad sex and should not even be considered,” says Mitra, adding that if parents are uncomfortable, they can try the “Heads” approach — a conversational technique used by professionals. Parents can talk to their kids, give them literature, and take them to workshops, but ultimately, kids will mimic what they see. “These adolescents will observe how their fathers behave with their mothers, sisters, domestic helps, how they react upon seeing actresses on TV and form their ideas accordingly,” says Mitra.