This was originally meant for a forum where the topic started off with a poll then lead to some comments with the words “immoral” and what-not (don’t want to reproduce the stuff here again). It struck a nerve because I have been trying so hard to get people to focus on being more supportive and not judgmental, to focus on promoting education not ignorance…

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To me, the issue is not so much as to whether women have sex before marriage but whether they are smart enough to protect themselves and to make that choice.

It is not about moral values, spiritual belief or conservative behavior alone – the fact that we are discussing it means that this is a change that is occurring in our society. Instead of ignoring it like what our government is doing, we should be educating people about the choices they may face in the future – when and who and how to lose one’s virginity. Do young girls today really know what sex is about or are they doing it because they are curious? And when they do have sex, do they even know how to protect themselves from diseases, and unwanted pregnancies? Is “being in love” enough or is there more to it?

You’d be surprised as to how ignorant young Malaysians are about birth control and sex itself. I have spoken to many teenage gals and a lot of them were “conned” into having sex simply because 1) they were curious, 2) no one truly spoke to them about the choices they have to make, and 3) peer pressure. They go to school and the teachers say “Abstinence!”. They come home and parents go “Lose your virginity and you lose your value as a human being”. Can you imagine how that may feel like to a person with raging hormones, a person who is being bombarded with sex constantly through the media, news and people around them?

No one explains to them about the mechanics of the human brain, how men and women differ, how to treat your partner as a gentleman/lady and more importantly, no one stood up to men who went around deflowering women. Like they say, a man who f*** around is a stud but a woman who f*** around is a slut. It takes two to tango so why aren’t we, men & women, calling men out on these so-called immoral behavior?

These young gals don’t know how to tell the difference from abuse and love – they think that love can be bought, they mistake Hollywood dreams for reality. It takes experience to tell all that but you know what? They don’t know because Mum and Dad are too busy advocating abstinence. Is it any wonder why some families go through that whole age gap thing?

All the horror stories you hear out there about pregnancies before marriage, abortions, and etc, are not necessarily “immoral”. A child conceived through love before marriage is just as worthy as a child conceived after marriage. If the couple in question then choose to marry, why should we view the woman only as less worthy? What about the man? The last time a virgin birth occurred was nearly two thousand years ago. I haven’t heard of any since. In the first place, why can’t we congratulate the couple for being responsible for their actions? Why do we judge them instead?

Why do abortions and spread of VD/HIV occur? Because 1) people are not educated enough to prevent pregnancies and 2) people are not ready to be parents. Should we then force them to carry on with the pregnancy knowing fully well that we’ll label them as sluts, trash and good-for-nothing, worthless animals? Either way, we label, we judge, we insult and we hurt…

Do you know that in the US, female HIV victims contract the disease from their spouse, long term partners and common-law partners? How did that happen? It happens when people have sex without protecting themselves and others around them NOT because they have sex in the first place. I know of girls here, now, who will have sex with their BFs without any means of birth control and all because they want to remain in favor with their partners. Why do we say that they are stupid? Why can’t we ask men this: “If you say you love me, why can’t you use a condom?”?

We make robots out of young people and then expect them to decide what’s good for themselves. When they do make their own choices – right or wrong – we punish them for it, forgetting that as adults, they are entitled to how they want to lead their lives and that they, not us, are responsible for the consequences of those choices.

Personally, sometimes I think our society doesn’t encourage education, we discourage it. We encourage biasness and blatant judgment, not understanding and open-mindedness. We support discrimination and violence (yes, words can be a source of violence), not peace, love and fairness.

In short, we are just so full of shit when we say that we are a caring, tolerant society.