by PRIYA MULJI

This year I gave into peer pressure from my work colleagues and started watching the reality television show, Love Island.

If you don’t know, Love Island is a show where a bunch of guys and girls go into a villa for around eight weeks to find love.

In essence, it is trashy, but incredibly addictive viewing. Many of the participants are very open about their sexual relationships, but more so the men. One of the situations on the popular show that got me thinking was when a guy thought he was going to get sex with someone in the villa, but the girl (who’s been very open about her sexuality) said no. It got me thinking that in 2019 we still think that women, who are sexually expressive, are going to be easy and that men will try to take advantage of that. But why, in this day and age, is sex still such a taboo subject to speak about?

Being from a south Asian background, people from our culture, more than anyone, can testify that we most likely got our sex education from school, friends or television. I don’t ever remember having the birds and bees or any kind of sex talk with my parents. It’s the same when we talk about menstruation. But why is it that men are okay to say they have had numerous one-night stands, threesomes and so on but if women say the same in public, they are branded as ‘easy’. I can’t imagine that these thoughts will change overnight, but do hope that the next generation and especially as people my age begin to become parents, we are more open with our children and encourage them to speak about sex and all matters of dating and relationships.

Love Island is relatively easy viewing and I can imagine it will be around for years to come, but they also need to start taking more responsibility of how women are portrayed and start to reprimand men for identifying women as sexual objects.

However, it is not just the men of Love Island that do this. Whenever I am around a bunch of guys, they are eyeing up the hottest eye candy, perving on women’s bums or saying, ‘oh yeah she will do’ and sadly this is the truth. Women need to be seen less as an object of desire and more for their intellect, kindness and inner beauty.

I doubt this will change in the next five or 10 years, but if you have children, teach them what it truly means to appreciate the opposite sex and what they genuinely bring to your life.

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