This is my only column on the Malay Mail Online for the month of May this year. I haven’t been productive on Malay Mail Online as I would like to be and that’s likely to be because I’m doing so much writing elsewhere.
The development of a child’s sexuality is a taboo issue. Although there is no denial that as children, many will develop crushes and have ridiculous fantasies about them. From a young age, children will explore their bodies and learn to masturbate. But the idea of a child masturbating is an unspeakable horror for so many liberal-minded people that silence is the best cure for such hand-ups.
For legal and historical reasons we owe to Victorian laws, 16 is the age of consent. But before then, children are clouded with distorted ideas about sexuality and lack of useful information. Muslim children are more in danger of this knowledge vacuum because of the social disease of child marriage that plagues Malay Muslim families. Although taboo, it is not as if sexuality is not taught in school. Masturbation is likely to come up in Islamic Studies (Pendidikan Islam) in school but couched in restrictive and often lurid terms. No other classroom session will young children be inducted into the categories of human bodily fluids.
Read the rest here.
Alicia Izharuddin 