Dear Swastika,
When is the right time to have sex? For girls? It's not that I'm under peer pressure. In fact, my conservative friends are proud to be virgins and will probably be happy to remain so even after they get married. But when I think about it, I don't think it's possible to know a boy properly if I don't have sex with him. I feel it's important for me to just do it before marriage in order to know whether we're truly compatible or if we're just settling with one another so that we can quickly get married and enjoy the 'approved' sex.
--A curious girlThere are a lot of taboos around sex before marriage and our social structures are designed in a way to discourage physical intimacy before marriage. However, our bodies are designed in a way that at the onset of puberty, we begin to have sexual desires. Thus, the conflict between social structures and physical design can become a cause for frustration. These cultural norms are so deeply encoded in some people that they are able to avoid, suppress or channel their sexual energy in other work. Other people who do not deeply ascribe to the cultural bounds will challenge the taboo. I like to think that these taboos didn't just come out of nowhere. I think they were put in place to preserve certain human values that weave the fabric of the society we live in. Those values could have been designed to preserve monogamy, or control the risk of sexually transmitted diseases or avoid child bearing before marriage – all of which would disturb the social order. This doesn't mean everyone should ascribe to the social paranoia. People, who break the norms, sometimes do force societies to evolve in a way that is rooted in the true nature of human lives.
Having said that, I understand your disapproval of social norms around how society needs to "approve" your sex. I know what you mean by people rushing into marriage without really knowing each other just so that they can then begin to enjoy "approved" sex. It is a very disturbing idea to think that we are like puppets just moving along the lines of social norms and not be able to listen carefully to our own true nature.
As much as I am skeptic about social norms, I also doubt the hype around sex. I don't think you really know someone or know how compatible you are after having sex. You might find someone with whom you're sexually compatible but that doesn't mean that you're compatible in other aspects of your lives. After sex, especially good sex, it can make you emotionally dependent and delude your judgment on who really is and isn't compatible.
I know this doesn't answer your question about what is the right age or if it is okay to have sex before marriage. But what I want to say that questions of life and relationships are a little more complex than decisions to have or not to have sex.
------
Dear Swastika,
I recently broke up with my girlfriend. As clichéd as it sounds, I haven't been able to get over her and really miss her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me and I hate myself for not being able to treasure a gem like her. Every day I'm daunted by the thought of, 'I'd make things so much better if she chose to get back with me.' But she doesn't want to. She's happy, and flying like a free bird while I rot like a dead one. I wonder if things will always be this way; that I'll always yearn for her no matter who I meet or where I go. She tells me that I'll soon get over her, but it's been six months and I still want her.
---Romeo
As cliché as it may sound, time will eventually heal everyone. If it doesn't, then oh well, life will still go on. I know what it is to feel – if and only if we had said the right thing at that right time, if and only if we had treasured our love and if and only if we could get one more chance. But "if" is the most tragic word of our lives because it reminds us how, in the grand scheme of things, we are powerless. We may think that people leave us because we fail to hold them back. We may think that people die because we fail to save them. We may think that things fall apart in life because we don't hold them tightly together. But life is designed not only with love, life, and beauty. It is also adorned with pain, death, and decay. And because of that design, the cycle of karma sometimes brings us the best days of our life and the worst of tragedies.
Does this mean that everything is fate and we have no choices? You've probably heard the mythical story of Shiva carrying around the corpse of Parvati and wandering off all over the world unable to deal with the pain of losing her, while her body began to decay and different parts of her body began to fall off. Mortality is part of the design. But we have the choice – either to cremate the dead or to carry the corpse on the back and keep wandering around unable to accept the design of life.
Some part of you perhaps will always remain fond of her. Her memories are etched in every part of you. No one might be able to fill the hole that she leaves behind. But it doesn't mean that you'll never be happy again. If you move on, life will move on with you. There will be better days, happier days. Here's another cliché for you – what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger (and in your case, a better lover).