Let’s talk about it

A photograph of a intrauterine device (IUD).

As a 29-year-old woman, I still find it difficult to speak about doing what is best for my body and myself. This is because growing up, any discussion surrounding sex and by extension sexual and reproductive health was avoided. And as I write this, there is some amount of ambivalence that has to do with the learnt behaviour of shame at openly addressing such topics.

Everything I learnt about sex and sexual and reproductive health, I learnt from the TV, personal relationships and carefully constructed conversations with my late Godmother who was a nurse, though I was sometimes ashamed to ask her.

I grew up in a society where girls were not allowed to talk about sex. If they did, it was automatically presumed that they were promiscuous. Very few adults saw talking about it as equipping their children with the knowledge to make the decisions that would help them later in life, or whenever they should need it.