Written by Dr. Shirish Darak and Dr. Trupti Darak
In sexual health work, we often meet young people as they talk about a conflict, a breakup, or experiences that have left them confused or unsettled. While these situations may seem personal and immediate, they are rarely just about the incident itself. What emerges are layers of social, cultural, and gendered influences, along with deeply internalised schemas about love, trust, boundaries, and what relationships should look like.
These schemas are not just ideas. They actively shape how individuals feel, interpret situations, and respond to them. Yet, they are often taken for granted rather than examined. For sexual health professionals, it becomes important not only to recognise these schemas, but to critically engage with how they are formed, whose interests they serve, and how they may enable or constrain young people’s ability to build healthy, equitable relationships. The story that follows and the analysis is a reflection of these wider patterns and transitions happening in India.
A Relationship case study from India
Rohan is 26. He came to the counsellor after a breakup, carrying a question that wouldn’t settle: was it his fault? “I think I did the right thing,” he said. “There has to be transparency in a relationship. Otherwise, what is the point?”
He had been in the relationship for two years. What led to the breakup, at first, sounded small. His girlfriend had gone out for a movie with a male friend and hadn’t told him. When he asked her about it later, she said she didn’t think she needed to. The conversation escalated. At some point, he asked to see her phone. She refused. “She said it’s her private space,” he said, his voice tightening. “But how can there be anything private in a relationship? If there is, it means there is something wrong.”
For him, that moment settled things. It was no longer about one incident. It became about trust, honesty, and what a relationship should look like. He ended it. On the surface, this is a familiar story for many Indian youths. But what Rohan brought into the room was not just hurt or anger. It was a belief. That love means openness without limits. That privacy is a threat. That closeness requires access. It wasn’t something he had consciously chosen. It was something he had absorbed.
India is one of the youngest countries in the world
And he is not alone. India is one of the youngest countries in the world, with a median age of around 28. A large number of young people are entering relationships, often without ever having had the chance to understand and have conversations on what relationships actually require. For many, there is no clear place where this learning happens.
At home, conversations about attraction, emotions, or relationships are rare. What exists instead are patterns—gendered roles, quiet hierarchies, unspoken expectations—that get absorbed over time. In school, exposure is limited. A brief session on “good touch and bad touch” to teach personal safety. Biology chapters on reproduction. Menstrual health, often only for girls. No conversations beyond that.
There is little space to talk about desire, emotions, consent, or conflict. Little space to understand what makes a relationship healthy. So young people learn from what is available—friends, films, social media, scattered advice, personal experience. Over time, these fragments begin to feel like a complete understanding.
The Change in Visibility
What has changed, however, is visibility. There is now a growing recognition of centuries of restrictions placed on female sexuality. More open conversations and calls for action are, rightly so, encouraging girls and women to express their choices, assert themselves, and take a stand whenever possible.
But this shift has not been equally matched by efforts to engage boys and men. Conversations around masculinity—about entitlement, control, emotional expression, respect, and boundaries—often remain limited. While girls are being encouraged to claim space, many boys are left to make sense of these changing expectations on their own, without guidance or reflection.
At the same time, young people today are surrounded by the language of relationships. Words like consent, boundaries, toxic relationships, red flags, and self-respect are widely used. This visibility matters—it allows expression and gives shape to feelings that earlier remained unnamed.
Learning in pieces
But knowing the words is not the same as understanding them. Much of this learning comes in pieces. Some of it is thoughtful and enabling. Creators like Dr. Cuterus and platforms such as Agents of Ishq have opened up conversations around desire, consent, and relationships. At the same time, other online spaces promote ideas of control, entitlement, and suspicion. Peer conversations often simplify things further.
The result is not a lack of awareness, but awareness without a shared framework. This becomes visible in how relationships are understood. In our study with 1,240 never-married young adults aged 20–29, Youth in Transition, more than 60 percent of women reported being emotionally involved in relationships they described as “friends with benefits,” compared to less than 20 percent of men (Youth in Transition: A life course study to understand sexual health trajectories among unmarried youth).
These differences reflect how intimacy is socialized. When people enter the same relationship with different, unspoken expectations, it can lead to poor communication, unclear consent, and emotional distress. At the same time, there is a broader shift underway. With increasing education, delayed marriage, and changing social spaces, many young people are entering relationships by choice. But while the form of relationships is changing, the foundation often is not. Ideas of control, ownership, and gendered expectations continue to shape behaviour.
The relationship paradox
So we see a paradox. Relationships are chosen, but not always equal. The language of equality is present, but internalised beliefs lag behind. Exposure is increasing, but understanding remains uneven. Rohan did not see himself as controlling. In his mind, he was protecting the relationship. The idea that trust could include privacy had never been meaningfully available to him.
Ideally, young people would have spaces to explore these questions early. In families, through open conversations. In schools, through comprehensive sexuality education. In health systems, through accessible and non-judgmental support. But these systems remain limited.
Many young people cannot talk to parents about relationships without discomfort or moral judgment. Schools often stop at biology, without addressing emotions, consent, or communication. Health and counselling systems rarely engage with sexuality in a holistic way, and providers themselves may not be fully prepared. Further, the health services that are available have largely assumed that sexual health concerns will occur only among married couples. So, when conflict arises, young people fall back on what they know. And what they know is often incomplete and fragmented. There are important efforts working to change this.
Programs to facilitate change
Programmes like the SAHAJ curriculum developed by Prayas Health Group are designed as age-graded interventions from Grade 1 to Grade 10, engaging with children and adolescents in a structured and continuous manner. The programme does not work with young people in isolation—it intentionally engages with the larger ecosystem, including teachers and parents, recognising that children’s understanding of relationships, bodies, and boundaries is shaped across these spaces. Through classroom sessions, facilitator support, and engagement with adults, SAHAJ attempts to create consistent messages and supportive environments, rather than one-off exposure.
Civil society organisations have played a significant role in advancing sexuality education in the country. Organisations such as TARSHI, CREA, Population Foundation of India, Agents of Ishq, and Enfold Trust—along with many others—have contributed by creating resources, building discourse, training facilitators, and advocating for a rights-based approach to sexuality education. Their work has helped make conversations around sexuality more visible, accessible, and grounded in young people’s realities.
However, given the scale and diversity of need in the country, these efforts—while significant—remain limited in reach. A large-scale, systemic response from the government is essential to ensure that sexuality education is integrated, sustained, and accessible to all young people, not just those reached through projects or partnerships. And this cannot happen without addressing a foundational challenge: the perspectives and mindsets of teachers and educators. Without investing in how educators understand and engage with sexuality, even well-designed curricula risk remaining under-implemented or diluted in practice.
The Sexuality Transition in India
India’s transition is already underway. Young people are exploring relationships, identity, and intimacy in new ways. The question is whether our systems are ready to support them and what can prepare these systems so that they can deliver what young people really need.
Rohan did not leave the session with clear answers. But he left with something equally important—a space where his questions were not dismissed, and where his beliefs could be examined rather than reinforced. That shift may seem small, but it is not trivial.
Rohan’s question—“Was it my fault?”—may appear straightforward if we look only at the situation. But understanding why he experienced it the way he did, and why his response felt justified to him, draws us to something deeper: the schemas through which many young people understand love, trust, boundaries, and control. Today, there is a growing and necessary discourse around sexuality and gender. Young people are increasingly aware, and many young women are asserting their choices and taking a stand.
Yet this shift remains uneven. While the language of change is more visible, the spaces to engage with it meaningfully are still limited—especially for boys and men, who are often left to navigate changing expectations with deeply internalised, unexamined schemas. The result is a gap between awareness and understanding—between knowing the words and being able to live them in relationships.
Creating Supportive Spaces
As romantic relationships become more common and self-directed, this gap becomes more visible in the form of conflict, confusion, and distress. For those of us working in sexual health, the takeaway is clear: information alone is not enough. What young people need are consistent, supportive spaces where they can reflect on their experiences, question their assumptions, and make sense of what they believe and why. These spaces must be built intentionally—within families, through comprehensive sexuality education in schools, and in counselling and health systems that are prepared to engage with sexuality holistically. Without this, we risk leaving young people with language without meaning, visibility without direction, and awareness without support.
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Quick Answers about India and Sexual Health
What does “awareness without support” mean in India’s sexuality transition?
“Awareness without support” refers to the growing visibility of concepts like consent, boundaries, and healthy relationships among young people in India, without the systems needed to help them fully understand or apply these ideas.
While social media, education campaigns, and public discourse have increased awareness, many young people still lack access to comprehensive sexuality education, open family conversations, and supportive health or counseling systems. As a result, they often rely on fragmented or conflicting sources of information.
This gap leads to confusion in relationships, including misunderstandings about trust, privacy, and control. Without structured guidance, young people may adopt language around relationships without fully understanding how to practice it. Addressing this requires systemic change, including education reform, trained facilitators, and safe spaces for reflection and discussion.
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Dr. Shirish Darak is trained in medicine and holds master’s degrees in anthropology and clinical psychology, and a PhD in demography from University of Groningen. For over two decades, he has worked in HIV, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and comprehensive sexuality education as a researcher, educator, trainer, and counsellor.
He is the Director of Prayas Health Group, which has been advancing equitable and evidence-informed approaches to sexuality and wellbeing since 1994. His work spans classrooms, communities, and counselling spaces, with a strong focus on supporting young people, families, and professionals to navigate changing norms of intimacy, gender, and relationships.
He is deeply committed to translating research into action and bringing ground realities into knowledge, policy, and practice. At Prayas, he has led the development of a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum from Grades 1–10, launched a sexuality educator fellowship to strengthen practitioner capacity, and established a sexual wellbeing counselling centre.
Dr. Trupti Darak is involved in developing CSE curriculum for Grades 1–10, preparing training and resource materials, training educators, and conducting sessions for students, teachers, and parents. Her work focuses on creating safe, age-appropriate, and inclusive learning spaces around sexuality and wellbeing. Trupti has been working in Prayas since 2006. She has been working on different research projects in the area of HIV and Sexual and Reproductive health. She holds a Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery and a Post-graduate Diploma in Public Health Nutrition.
