Youth Pulse: When silence is not a virtue

The Star

2 days ago

LATELY, I have been thinking about how we Malaysians talk about sex, or more accurately, how we don't.
There is a clear pattern to be observed. Our society's loudest detractors react with moral panic instead of asking why these efforts were necessary in the first place. The resulting norm is a country where silence is mistaken for virtue, and one where we risk leaving our young people vulnerable to disease and shame.
The alarm bells should have been ringing three months back when the Malaysian AIDS Council reported that individuals aged 20 to 29 now make up 44% of all HIV cases, with many being school leavers and university students unaware of the risks. Sexually transmitted cases remain high, accounting for over 54,000 of the 135,000 HIV cases recorded since 1986. Alarmingly, even children under 13 are among the newest reported cases.
Yet time and again, we see corrective steps taken to instil better sexual health awareness shut down. A Student Represen-tative Council at a local university was accused of spreading 'sexual liberalism' when they organised condom distribution and STI (sexually transmitted infection) prevention booths as part of 'Gender Equality Week' this past June.
The same month, police raided a 'gay party' in Kelantan, seizing HIV medication and condoms. The state's Health Department recently clarified that the event was an HIV awareness programme.
It is telling that while HIV cases linked to drug use have declined due to sustained harm reduction efforts, similar public health logic is rarely applied to sexual health.
When condoms are distributed or awareness events held, they are met with suspicion, as if prevention is somehow more offensive than the problem itself.
I believe the backlash we keep witnessing is not directed at the acts themselves. Instead, it is about a national discomfort with admitting that young people might be, or eventually will be, sexually active. As if by not talking about sex, we can somehow make it disappear.
That could not be further from the truth. What's actually happening is that young people are being left to learn about sex from half-whispered conversations, the Internet, and sometimes, from experience too late. A study conducted in Kelantan found that 64% of adolescents surveyed relied on their peers as their primary source of sexual health information.
Meanwhile, official education is fragmented and uneven. A comprehensive review found that sex education is inconsistently delivered, abstinence-focused, and lacking teacher support.
Even clinic outreach reflects this stigma. In interviews with school health teams conducted in 2022, many admitted to emphasising moral warnings and fear-based messaging over clear, accurate, and accessible information about sexual health.
The consequences of choosing to treat sex as taboo instead of teaching young people how to navigate it safely and responsibly are already here. Nowadays, even teenagers are contracting HIV through sexual transmission.
Others face unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and emotional trauma from relationships where consent was never properly understood. For LGBTQ+ youth, the stakes are even higher. Many already face social stigma at home and in school. Without inclusive sexual health education, they are further isolated, left to navigate misinformation and shame with no formal support.
All evidence points to the need for comprehensive sex education. As United Nations agency Unicef Malaysia explains, it helps young people understand their bodies, feelings, and relationships in a healthy and informed way. This includes learning about puberty, sexual and reproductive health, and how to protect themselves from unplanned pregnancy, STIs, and abuse.
Beyond biology, it equips students with the tools to navigate intimacy with safety, confidence, and respect.
Comprehensive sex education also teaches young people how to set boundaries, say no when something feels wrong, and respect the choices of others. Crucially, it removes the shame often tied to these topics. When students are given space to ask questions and speak openly, they grow up more confident, better informed, and more capable of making decisions that protect their health and wellbeing.
In Malaysia today, access to sex education is inconsistent. Some students might receive it in schools, depending on how comfortable with it their teachers are. Others might encounter it through workshops by NGOs or youth groups. But many go without entirely. There is an urgency here to embed it in the curriculum and deliver it consistently.
It is also possible to adapt sex education to local values. In Tunisia, a Muslim-majority country, the government introduced age-appropriate lessons in 2019 with support from religious leaders and civil society. The curriculum focuses on health, respect, and dignity, proving that sensitive topics can be addressed without compromising cultural or religious beliefs.
Much of the work today in Malaysia falls on NGOs, youth-led groups, and individual educators. However, the reach of such methods is limited, and they cannot replace a national policy that commits to protecting every child, in every classroom.
More broadly, sex education helps us replace judgement with understanding. The comments on social media left underneath the aforementioned news have been painful, almost unbearable, to read. They speak deeply of a society that has never been taught how to understand difference, how to speak about vulnerability, or how to treat others with basic compassion.
We see the impact of stigma in how certain groups are treated: LGBTQ+ people are vilified for seeking HIV care, teenage girls are shamed for getting pregnant, and abuse survivors are blamed instead of supported. Compre-hensive sex education helps break these patterns. It teaches that consent is care, that all bodies and identities deserve respect, and that honest conversations lead to safer, healthier lives.
We cannot keep dismissing education efforts while ignoring the deeper crisis unfolding in silence. The rising HIV numbers, the public shaming, and harmful assumptions are symptoms of a society that has refused, for too long, to speak honestly about sex, safety, and dignity. If we truly want to protect our youth, then the conversation must begin now, and it must begin with courage.
Student Jonathan Lee traces his writing roots to The Star's BRATs programme. He is now a Malaysian youth advocate. The views expressed here are solely the writer's own.