Dating and its repercussions

Should parents be easy enough and leave their children to date? Dating is still considered as a taboo in India. A boy and girl going out for a dinner or for a movie is not acceptable. Leave alone dinner, even going for a lunch would evoke a lot of gossip in the community. Why are parents against the idea of dating? Is it because they are scared of what the society will talk about them and their child? Or is it to prevent their kid from falling in love?
In India it is generally considered ok, if two guys roam along. They can hold hands and put ones hand on the others shoulder etc. in public. It is not at all considered bad. So you find most of the guys roaming together with hands on shoulders while walking on the streets.
I don't know how it is for girls, but for boys whoever comes to US, they find it difficult initially to adapt. This is because they are so used to being in contact with another boy in public. But when they do the same thing publicly in US, people will give them a wierd look and think that they are gays. So as time goes guys become very conscious about this. So when they go to India they feel very uncomfortable when some one puts their hand on their shoulders or some thing. But people in India won't understand this, they start thinking he is showing off coming back from US.
Well the main reason for me to post about this topic, that India should encourage girl-boy relationship is because of the alarming increase in homosexuals and the consequences of it. In a recent AIDS conference at Toronto it was reported that there is a high incidence of occurance of HIV due to MSM(Men Sex with Men) in places like Chennai and Mumbai. A government study revealed that there are two million MSM's in the country.

"In India, Pakistan, etc it appears that the epidemic is spiralling out of control. If we don't take action, it could make the epidemic in the gay community look simple. This is growing rapidly," said Kevin Robert Frost, Director, AmFAR(American Foundation for AIDS Research)

MSM is hidden behind the bushes in India and have no access to HIV relates services as homosexual is criminalised under section 377. They also face a great deal of violence from the cops. This brings up another question, Should homosexuality be legalised? This debate is still active in US itself, so I guess India will be taking some time to take a stand on this.
The shocking thing is, that the experts feel that about 10% of the males in India might be MSM's. It was found that 20% are affected in Mumbai and 10% in Chennai and also in Tihar.
Are'nt Indians being hypocrites by saying we are culturally pure when so much is happening?

(Source: NDTV)

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