How a Sidney Sheldon Novel Became My Substitute for Sex Education
And why it shouldn’t be that way for other kids
When I was a child, reading books by Sidney Sheldon was banned in my house.
Maybe my parents knew that these books had a lot of lurid sex scenes, or perhaps it was the violence and revenge that led my parents to believe these would be too much for my “innocent” brain to handle.
I don’t blame them.
I live in India — a country of 1.3 billion people and 0 sex education. Talking about sex is akin to talking about wanting your parents to die so you could inherit their property.
No, it is actually worse than that.
Talking about wanting your parents to die makes you greedy. But, talking about sex makes you a depraved, immoral person who has no place in society. And God forbid if you’re a woman who is remotely curious about the birds and the bees!
Needless to say, my parents wanted to avoid the shame.
The Forbidden Book
When I picked up Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight from the shelves of the school library, I immediately knew I wanted to read this. At the same time, I also understood that I had to hide the book from my parents.
