He was a 2nd year college student, a member of the school volleyball team, a "cheerful and energetic" boy who did well enough in his studies to take Special Papers.
Yet on 3rd of March this year, the 18-year old jumped to his death. He was convinced that his private parts were 'too small'.
He addressed his fears to his mother earlier on this year, who brought him to see a specialist because she noticed that he may be more worried about this belief than he should be. The specialist convinced him that he was 'normal', and explained that regardless of how the male genitalia looks like... in a state of excitement, it will measure up. He even showed him diagrams to illustrate and drive his point across.
Apparently, that wasn't enough for him. His family noticed that he became increasingly subdued, losing his temper over the slightest thing... and despite stromg emotional support from his mother and girlfriend, he remained stoic in the belief that he had a 'problem', and this made him 'less of a man'.
On March 3, after his routine volleyball practice, he never came home. Leaving a note for his parents, he apologised to them for not being able to take care of them in the future - but he couldn't face his life with what he was 'cursed' with. He also left a letter for his girlfriend, informing her that she should move on because he could never be able to provide for her happiness.
Which made me wonder... what brought about this senseless and tragic loss of a young life? Could it be that communal showering facilities (common after sports) highlighted this 'inadequacy' to him, so much so that he feels inferior? Did this 'unfounded belief' stem from a lack of sexual education? Or could it be that sex education only glosses over the facts of life... walking that fine line between a necessary part of the curriculum and what may be seen as "encouragement"?
Would his fate have been different if he had been born a few years later... and thus could have benefitted from counselling and sex education? (It has been made compulsory for all schools here to have a trained counsellor in the premises and incorporate thrice weekly sex education periods in the timetable as of 5 years ago).
I'm all for sex education being made a necessary addition to the subjects taught in school. As we progress further into the next millenia... there is undoubtedly a change in one generation to the next. The majority of teenagers
are going to have pre-marital sex, regardless of how 'wrong' it would be. In the wake of AIDS, STDs and unwanted pregnancies (which has already taken some people unaware because of their ignorance) instead of barring them from the subject of sex in general - why not make them more aware, so that they would be better equipped to handle the situation? It may spark 'curiosity' to some... but with or without sex education, puberty is an age whereby we learn new things about ourselves, and discover more through our curiosity. Keeping them in the dark would just make them more curious, and awareness through other means and ways might mean a whole lot of untruths and fallacies.
I'd prefer to know who my teenage daughter is sleeping with and provide her the necessary protection - taher than to have her doing the deed everywhere else, or be rudely awakened one day by shocking news.