Although the table was meant to seat six, eleven of us squeezed shoulder to shoulder in 1920 Commons Dining Hall. As conversation shifted to binge–worthy Netflix shows, I shouted my recent favorite: “Sex Education.” One friend immediately snickered, while another laughingly retorted, “You’re telling me someone teaches you about sex?!” There was a chorus of agreement around the table.
I fired off dozens of follow–up questions to their dismissive, almost spiteful responses to a television show recommendation. Quickly, I discovered no one at the table had received a sex education from their parents. My personal experience was a painfully awkward series of conversations, but conversations nonetheless. The “birds and the bees talk,” which felt omnipresent in American media, was absent from my peers’ upbringings.
The students at that Commons table were, like me, Indian American. Not one of them had heard the word “sex” leave their parents’ lips. We live in a country where media, literature, film, and other forms of entertainment often feel saturated with sex. We attend a university with a pervasive hook–up culture. Yet this group of individuals were never sat down by their parents to explain why puberty begins, how intercourse can take place, or what safe, pleasurable sex looks like.
Riveted by this disconnect, I found myself considering if cultural beliefs or immigration histories helped curate this phenomenon. I wondered if this silence had long–lasting impacts on relationships and overall well–being. And where better to investigate these questions than the vibrant South Asian American community here at Penn?
It began via GroupMe. I spammed every cohort of brown people at Penn I could find—South Asia Society, Penn Masti, Penn Masala, Penn Pakistan Society, ASAM courses, even business and social frats with large South Asian representation—urging them to participate in an online inventory of their sexual education and the evolution of their sexual knowledge, comfortability, and activity.
By no means was this an easy task. My participants had to trust me to safeguard their most well-kept secrets. Friends in pre–existing social circles revealed to me their broken family relationships and their closeted sexual identities. Complete strangers divulged scandalous details of their sexual experiences, and acquaintances confessed shame surrounding their complete lack of sexual activity. My role as the researcher, as a fellow student at Penn, and as an active member in several South Asian American spaces inherently presented obstacles to collecting data.
Despite any distrust that may have dissuaded some from participating, I was able to gather responses from nearly fifty Penn undergraduates. This alone reaffirmed my goals in exploring this topic because my peers were willing to take the risk, spend the time, and trust me in this information collection process. After completing this quantitative survey, eight Penn students offered me a deeper insight to their experiences, their traumas, and their growth surrounding sexuality through one–on–one interviews.
Two key findings were immediately apparent. One, most brown adolescents do not receive a sexual education talk from their parents. Two, college functions as a gateway for brown students to explore their sexual desires.
All of the stories I collected point to a glaring lack of familial sexual education in the upbringings of this demographic. Of 48 brown Penn students, only 3 received a sex talk. Across the board, brown parents were not talking about sex. However, a lack of conversation does not necessarily mean a lack of communication. Numerous comments on my Google Form reported a similar phenomenon: despite rarely engaging in discussion, South Asian immigrant parents still make their viewpoints on sex abundantly clear. Some parents fast–forwarded through kissing or sex scenes in movies, inadvertently marring sexual acts with stigma, while some stated outright, “You will be abstinent until marriage.”
According to Professor Nazreen Bacchus of CUNY Queens College, these subliminal messages or restrictive comments convey morals and beliefs from parent to child, which unavoidably construct ethnically defined sexual boundaries. My own parents disallowed seemingly innocent shows like Hannah Montana or iCarly after they witnessed a kissing scene and deemed the show thoroughly inappropriate. Without any spoken words, I understood that I was not allowed to have a crush, a boyfriend, or anything of that nature anytime soon. Even after my parents were finally privy to the existence of a high school boyfriend, they rarely asked about him, which inadvertently demonstrated that it was not something to be discussed. My relationship felt like such a taboo topic that my parents did not even know we had broken up until three months after the fact.
These (real or imagined) boundaries not only deter conversation, but also have the power to inform sexual decision making. The silence and restrictive messaging teaches brown adolescents that sex is illicit, not to be discussed or explored. For those who obeyed, they found themselves inexperienced and uncomfortable, both before and after arriving at Penn. One survey respondent described that because of parental expectations, “I was terrified of kissing someone for the first time and being a bad Muslim. I was especially terrified about losing my virginity.” For those who rebelled, they entangled themselves in a web of lies. In order to reconcile their parents’ disapproval, many respondents felt they had to resort to deception.
I was no different. In high school, you could find me sneaking around, concocting excuses, and blatantly lying to my parents as a way to meet the ethnic expectations they set forth, while also exploring romantic interests and expressing myself sexually. I pretended to be at field hockey practice when I was really on a third date. After a fiasco that resulted in my iMessages being sent to the family iPad, I relied heavily on TextFree for all clandestine communication. Most of the times that I was at “Starbucks” or the “library,” it was code for “random parking lot” or “boyfriend’s house.” From fake contact names to elaborate cover stories, my brown peers and I were masters of deceit. I used to reflect on these seemingly toxic behaviors with guilt, but I now understand that we were simply using our means to navigate the incongruous standards of our bicultural identity.
Penn, however, offered respite — to myself and my brown peers. With the ethnically prescribed sexual boundaries left behind, the plethora of people, knowledge, and open discussion in college created an opportunity to learn about, become comfortable with, and experience sexuality. My survey’s data measured this cohort’s increase in sexual activity, knowledge level, and comfortability with sexual expression from high school to college. These developments were often attributed by participants to physical distance from parents and the new environment offered by a university. Living in the Quad or Hill or even KCECH, away from our parents’ watchful eyes, we could go where we wanted, see who we wanted, do what we wanted. With my boundaries dissolved, I felt fully independent and autonomous for the first time in my life. Armed with this newfound sense of freedom, I (and many of my peers) were empowered to engage in new romantic and sexual experiences. In short, Penn enables its brown students to connect with their sexuality.
Yet, sexual explorations in college does not immediately bridge the cultural gap. Nearly all of my interviewees reported lying to their parents — ranging from virginal status to significant others to sexual orientation — while exploring those things at Penn. Unfortunately, the problem extends far beyond a few white lies. From conditions going undiagnosed to complications with drug prescriptions, several students I interviewed experienced potentially harmful ramifications to their physical, mental, and sexual health. For example, one student Tanvi* was barred by her parents from receiving the HPV vaccine. She had to actively maneuver around her parents in order to secretly receive this series of injections. Not only did my interviewees describe precarious medical situations, but they also had to deal with the mental anxiety and risky sexual behaviors that accompanied them.
It feels easy to jump to conclusions that South Asian migrant parents are culturally conservative, but much of it boils down to differing intergenerational priorities. According to Professor Miliann Kang of UMass Amherst, totalizing these parents as strict or repressive would be unfair to their lived experiences. Parenting choices are not without reason. These parents are not sanctimonious villains, actively steering their children away from sexual temptations. They likely did not receive a sex talk themselves, may not want to encourage sexual behavior, or may maintain some degree of traditional gendered expectations from their home country. The decisions they make are informed by their lived experience of adhering to South Asian gender norms, learning South Asian values, and practicing South Asian religions. How can they be expected to deliver a talk that is normative by American standards, but unfathomable by some South Asian standards?
Ultimately, my research revealed a differential prioritization of sexual communication between South Asian immigrant parents and their American–born children, stemming from the disparate lived experiences of the two generations. Coming to terms with this truth was pivotal for my own relationship with my parents. I finally understood why they behaved the way they did, and rather than blaming them, I empathize with them. After I shared the topic of my thesis with them, my parents immediately expressed remorse for any instances where I felt they were strict or unapproachable. They assured me that despite any differing opinions we may have, they always want me to be comfortable talking to them. While it felt awkward at first, we now have open conversations about relationships, contraceptive methods, and marriage — discussions I never dreamed of having with them.
Even after I submitted my completed thesis, my project still felt unfinished. I realized I developed an unmet personal goal over the course of my research: I want to start conversations. Discourse with my interviewees and my parents vitalized my passion to carry this project a step further. Whether it’s with friends, partners, therapists, or even parents, discussing sex, intimacy, fears, and feelings allows us to slowly remove the taboo we have learned to associate with these topics. I want the students who still felt uncomfortable to engage with their discomfort and explore the positive aspects of sexual expression. I want students who feel unable to talk to their families to find solidarity in shared experiences with others. I want South Asian parents to hear about this work and take on the task of educating their children.
The “birds and the bees” are normal, natural, and important components of humanity. Lifting stigma and engaging in free–flowing conversations with my friends and my family has enabled me to form healthier and stronger relationships with them, with significant others, and with myself. In the coming year, I hope to continue sharing my findings and encouraging these discussions to embolden others to do the same.
*Names have been changed to preserve anonymity
