Adolescent girls should control their sexual urges; adolescent boys should respect young girls: Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday said adolescent girls must control their sexual urges instead of giving in to two minutes of pleasure and adolescent boys must respect young girls and women and their dignity and bodily autonomy [Probhat Purkait @ Provat vs State of West Bengal]..A division bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi Sen made the observation while acquitting a youth, who was convicted for raping a minor girl, with whom he had a 'romantic affair'.The Court voiced concerns over the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) conflating consensual acts among adolescents with sexual abuse and hence called for decriminalizing consensual sexual acts involving adolescents above 16 years.The Court also called for comprehensive rights based sexual education for adolescents to avoid legal complications arising from sexual relations at a young age. Reasons for sexual urges/ libidoIn its detailed judgment, the Court explained the reason for sexual urges and the importance of reining in the same."The principal androgenic steroid is testosterone, which is secreted primarily from the testes in men and ovaries in women and in small amounts from the adrenal glands, both in men and women. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland control the amount of testosterone, which is primarily responsible for sex urge and libido (in men). It’s existence is there in the body, so when the respective gland becomes active by stimulation, sexual urge is aroused," the Court said.But activation of the respective responsible gland is not automatic as it needs stimulation by our sight, hearing, reading erotic materials, and conversation with the opposite sex, the Court said.So, the bench opined that sexual urge is created by our own action."Sex in adolescents is normal but sexual urge or arousal of such urge is dependent on some action by the individual, maybe a man or woman. Therefore, sexual urge is not at all normal and normative. If we stop some action(s), arousal of sexual urge, as advocated in our discussion supra, ceases to be normal," the judgment said..The bench, therefore, proposed a 'duty/obligation based approach' to the issue, and suggested some duties for both the adolescent females and males.Duties of adolescent femalesFor adolescent females, the Court suggested:It is the duty/obligation of every female adolescent to:(i) Protect her right to integrity of her body.(ii) Protect her dignity and self-worth.(iii) Thrive for overall development of her self transcending gender barriers.(iv) Control sexual urge/urges as in the eyes of society she is the looser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes.(v) Protect her right to autonomy of her body and her privacy.Duties for adolescent malesFor adolescent boys, the Court said, "It is the duty of a male adolescent to respect the aforesaid duties of a young girl or woman and he should train his mind to respect a woman, her self worth, her dignity and privacy, and right to autonomy of her body.".Sex education, parental guidance.The Court also emphasised the significance of guiding and educating adolescents about issues surrounding sexuality. For this purpose, the bench said charity should begin at home and parents should be the first teachers."We therefore feel that parental guidance and education to children specially the girls to recognise bad touch, bad signs, bad advances and bad company is necessary especially with emphasis on their health and reproductive system to have sex at an age not sanctioned by law," the bench observed.Similarly, parental guidance and education so far as boys are concerned should include how to respect a woman, how to keep dignity of a woman, how to protect the integrity of body of a woman and how to befriend a woman without being aroused by sexual urge even if there is advances from the other side till he becomes capable to maintain a family."The family where a child is there should maintain such a conducive atmosphere in the house that no kid grows up believing that it is 'OK' to violate women. We should never ever think that only a girl is subject to abuse, because there is no escape for a boy even now-adays," the bench underlined.Besides the parental guidance, requisite sex education with emphasis on these aspects and reproductive health and hygiene should be a part of the curriculum of every school, the Court said..Advocates Malay Bhattacharyya, Subhrajyoti Ghosh and Dibakar Sardar appeared for the Appellant.Additional Public Prosecutor PK Datta, along with Advocates Ashok Das and SD Roy represented the State.Advocates Shibaji Kumar Das, Soumyajit Das Mahapatra, Rupsa Sreemani and Madhuraj Sinha represented the Victim.Read more about the judgment here..[Read Judgment]