In our society, we very often hear or see sexual abuse of women and children. It is in public places, public vehicles, work places, institutions and almost everywhere.

I have read in many magazines and dailies about adults seeking the magic potion from Agony Aunt. Their problems are mainly about sex and relationships.

And quite of late, an incident made me quite sad when I learnt about a neighbour’s relative’s daughter eloping with a married man with two wives. They said his first wife was living abroad, while his second wife was living with a child on her own.

The girl, who was supposed to appear in the recently concluded SLC exam, is now living with her parents. In our society, when we hear that Mrs. X’s daughter is ‘in trouble’, we more often than not snap, “I knew that girl would come to no good,” then perhaps, “We failed to guide her well.”

We have come a long way to the first decade of the 21st century; our society has not achieved a healthy acceptance of sexuality. Still a veil of silence and fear overshadows the subject of sex. However, although there have been great changes in many places, expression of sexuality is discouraged and sex education considered a taboo in Nepali society. It is for these reasons that hundreds of children and women are silently undergoing sexual abuse. Ironically, the same society does not tire of blaming the younger generation of sexual aberration and unhealthy sexual behaviour.

This factual basis is that, if we were scrupulously honest enough to admit that we all enjoy a picture of a beautiful girl, there would be much less sniggering prurience and probably much less deviation. Besides this, take a look around Thamel, bus parks, and so on, there are people who go and enjoy their drinks and meals more in restaurants because they are served by pretty girls in tutu.

Many of the jokes, cartoons and picture would hardly be thought worth reproducing in a society which freely accepted its sexuality. They are in fact “dirty”, not because they are about sex, but because sex has been labelled dirty; and they are laughed at, not because they are really clever or funny, but simply because they touch on a socially unacceptable subject.