Illustration by Pawan Tiwary Illustration by Pawan Tiwary

All of us have, some time or the other, asked our parents how we were born. The closest my parents came to the topic was when they told me the story of a swan that drops a pebble in the river, picks out a child and delivers it to the parents "when God decides it is the right time". And that was procreation for me for the longest time.

Parental reticence was complimented by shy biology teachers and no sex education at school in Mumbai. Sex was rarely a topic of serious discussion among my friends. Words such as pussy, G-spot, sex, masturbation were often used as cute or clever punchlines for jokes that I pretended to understand. I only understood how babies were born at age 13.

St Stephen's College in Delhi changed all that. I got a room in the hostel. All of you who have lived in boys hostels know about the ragging, teasing and the cocky humour, where every word becomes an euphemism for sex. I had never heard such talk before and had nothing to say most of the time. To put the situation correctly, I was a "bachcha".

I understood sex as a concept soon enough when seniors made me watch a video for the first time. They would say, "Hey, you Gujju boy from Bombay, are you a virgin?" "You haven't even masturbated?" I was somewhat embarrassed each time they asked me this.

In the first summer of college, I wanted to know whether I was the odd one out. I wanted to know things for myself and began working on an anonymous sex survey. The final impetus came from an anonymous post I read on the 'confessions page' of St Stephen's College blog (SSC Shots). A couple had broken up, and the girlfriend had written the post saying she was sorry. They had used handcuffs while having sex, and the girl had tied her boyfriend's hand to the bedpost. She said it was great sex, but afterwards she realised she had lost the key to the handcuffs. To complicate matters, the boyfriend had to go to the bathroom urgently, and the girl's parents were soon coming home. The boy had to pee in a bucket, and they found the key after an hour and a half, just before her parents arrived. I wanted to document all these 'sexcapades'.

The questions were designed to be objective and also allowed space for people to write about their own experience. For instance, in response to the question, "How often do you masturbate?", one boy wrote in the space for comments: "Can't keep count".

My friend Bhushan was the first to tell me about his experience. He was 14 when his sister's friend, who was five years older, made a move on him. This became a regular affair. He still credits this early start as being the reason why he knows how to please a girl (as of today, at age 21, he has had sex with 12 different girls). Prashant, aclassmate, told me how he once had sex 10 times within 24 hours, an achievement he is quite proud of, although he admits the going was tough by the seventh time.

Jacob, another classmate, said that he never masturbates while in a relationship as he considers it cheating. But when not dating, he masturbates three times a day. Tina told me how she had tried and failed at masturbating as she "didn't really know what to do". Her best friend said it takes her 45 minutes and sometimes more to reach climax if she can't find the right spot. This might explain why one girl, to the question, "How do you feel after masturbating?" wrote, "Never completely satisfied", while another wrote "Tired". It could also explain why 29 of the 48 girls surveyed had never tried masturbating.

Not all were so forthcoming. There were those who politely turned me down and others who thought I was a creep. Anu refused to fill the sheet as she was too embarrassed to think about it. Arjun at first refused but warmed up to the idea, and after three days, discreetly dropped his survey into the box. Some were more upfront and said it was none of my business- a fair point.

The survey provided a medium for fellow Stephanians to talk about their sex life. Some of the questions were on how open people were talking to their parents. It amazed me that only 10 per cent boys and girls spoke to their parents about masturbation. Most operated on a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. I was surprised that 37 per cent boys talk to parents about their relationships and "always tell both parents" while 25 per cent girls confide in both parents and 18 per cent only tell their mothers.

It was surprising that in my college, the average age for boys to begin masturbating was 14, while it was 16 for girls, and that there was only one among the 35 boys surveyed who said he had never masturbated. I discovered that nearly 50 per cent boys had a sense of "satisfaction" after masturbating as compared to only one-third of the girls. The second most popular response for girls (14 per cent) was: "Like I just wasted my time."

Where has the sex survey taken the bachcha? For starters, questioning my friends on their sexual life shed many inhibitions. We laughed, joked and seriously discussed it too. I even managed to muster up the courage to ask our philosophy professor about his sex life, and he said sex was boring, repetitive and he would "rather sleep".

The survey made me realise that sex is an unnecessary burden and taboo that we are forced to endure in our interactions, especially with members of the opposite sex. And only a small initiative, a few questions and laughs are required to kill the sex monster.

with Indra Shekhar Singh