WHEN I read in one of our dailies a story about the dissemination of a digital recording of two students from one of our better schools having sex, something pricked me deep inside. It wasn’t difficult to figure the sources of that feeling, although what that feeling itself is, is something much harder to define. One source emanated from my being the father of two teenaged children, both of whom are attending senior secondary schools, and if such a scandal can happen at such a senior school, arguably it can happen at any school. The other main source of that disturbing feeling which overcame me is the fact that among my children is a daughter – this is something that I don’t have to explain to most men who have daughters, and in whose lives they are deeply invested.

Over the past couple of days, however, that instinctive reaction has given way to a more reasoned approach on the issue, taking into account all the factors involved in the story and viewing them from their own unique perspectives. Naturally, the first thing to look at here is the fact that young people are engaging in actual sex and sexual activities. As a father, as much as this pains me to say, we (as parents) have to recognise that an essential part of growing up, of developing into adulthood, is the hormonally-driven impetus for teenagers to discover and explore themselves as sexual beings. This is not a quick, instantaneous process in which our offspring remain emotionally and intellectually as children until they suddenly switch to adulthood as soon as they attain the age of majority. A world in which teenagers have not been having sex has never existed. The most we have been able to advise is to ensure that sexual relationships do not start too early, which potentially endangers the physical and mental health of our young people; that they are aware of the dangers of HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections if they do decide to engage in sexual activity; that they do not become involved in sexual relationships with adults; that is, relationships that are inherently exploitative and, in this age, that they make informed choices relative to the presence/use of technological devices in all their settings.
The other dimension to this incident is the fact that it occurred on the school’s premises. Another incident of children discovered having sex in a school, as described in a brief article in another of the dailies yesterday, illustrates that this is not a problem confined to any one school (whatever the ranking), yet, we must be conscious that this may not necessarily reflect the phenomenon being widespread.
That said, the fact that the school is residential in nature presents its unique problems in monitoring the sexual behaviour of children placed in its care, and they are no doubt more challenging than those faced by regular high schools. It is unclear the time of the incident, but according to the story, it occurred in the school’s Home Economics Department. If the incident happened after school hours, as the story suggests, there should be an instant review of how the school polices the property after hours. While there are no doubt rules in place as to where students should be when not in class, these need to be complemented by proper monitoring and enforcement.

[box type=”shadow” align=”alignright” ]Over the past weeks I have been doing articles on the dependency sysndrome and public/private partnerships. Over the next few weeks I will be doing articles on the social media.[/box]
In my view, both the above issues are perennial, and issues that various societies have had to deal with in some form or the other throughout history. The thing that is new, the added dimension to all this, is the role of technology in capturing, magnifying and perpetuating these acts. During the 1980s, and even the 1990s, illicit activities conducted in the classroom remained there; the only evidence being rumour and the recounting of the occasional eyewitness account. Today, however, the very information and communication technological infrastructure that played such a crucial role in an important and recent global event – the liberation of Egypt – can conversely be as devastating to the individual life. This is something I believe that our children — this generation for whom all this technology seems to have been invented and the persons most familiar with its intricacies — have not come to comprehend deeply enough.
Even in societies which we presume are accustomed to sex and related Online scandal, the consequences for indiscretions captured and e-mailed, blue-toothed or copied around are both instantaneously devastating as well as long-lasting. As simple a thing as a shirtless picture sent to a woman, to cite one recent American example, has cost US Congressman Chris Lee his entire political career.
Then there is another sub-issue to deal with. At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that one of the main sources for my discomfort on reading the article was the fact that I have a teenaged daughter. One thing that struck me in the piece was the line:
“According to sources in the school, from all appearances, the female involved in the episode had given consent for the video to be made.”
While I am sure that there are undoubtedly instances of sexual exploitation perpetrated by young men on women, there was no evidence on the surface of this case for there to be even a presumption that the recording was non-consensual. Both students were from the fifth form, and presumably of the same intellectual calibre, yet the fact that it needed to be mentioned that the young woman gave consent exposes an inherently prejudicial perspective that the newspaper, and this is one shared by society at large, has taken its inquiry into the incident. The first prejudicial assumption is that our young men are natural pornographers; the second-that our young women are incapable of independent decision-making and — as a natural outflow of that logic — that the young woman who gives consent to being recorded during sex is somehow some hideous moral anomaly.
Taken together — the hormonal sexual drives and the reality of modern technology — what we have on our hand is a new feature that our society has to combat. There is no time for an extended and scandalised shock and outrage on this — people being horrified by two young people having sex in school — because it is hypocritical as well as unhelpful. If half of us who consider ourselves to be privileged and in exalted positions were to be judged and sanctioned on the immoral stuff we did in high school, we’d be a couple of pegs lower than we currently are. What we need instead, as a start, are well-thought-out programmes that communicate to young people the benefits of informed decision-making and the detrimental consequences of the use of technological devices before or during sexual activities such as recording their sexual activities, that is, if they have decided to engage in sexual activities in the first place. They need to understand the multiplier effect of the Internet, and that the picture or video recording will not be deleted (even if they delete same) while there the Internet and storage space are still available. Once it’s posted on the World Wide Web, whatever the site, it remains in cyberspace! While the consequences might seem surmountable, there is always the chance that the next person who interviews them for a job, or considers them for a scholarship, might be someone who has been exposed to their youthful indiscretion and – while it may not be completely fair – who will ultimately judge them on that, despite what achievements they gain after. Worse yet, someday, their own teenage child might stumble across decades old video/s or picture/s of their parent and form their own moral outlook based on those. Personally, I see this problem increasing rather than decreasing, and it is one we need to tackle with the urgency it deserves.
Written By Keith Burrowes