This simple question stands at the heart of an uneasy debate over Indian values, contemporary morality and the best way to educate modern teenagers in the facts of life.

As Indian society races through extraordinarily rapid social change, a dispute over the content of a sex education textbook throws a spotlight on the ever-shifting boundaries between cultural acceptability and sexual taboos.

It shows how conservative forces in India are battling fiercely to resist the swift pace of change, as a new generation of adolescents, particularly in the cities, are brought up on an untested diet of Western soap operas, cable television and increasingly globalized values.

In recent weeks, six of India's 28 states have suspended a new "adolescence education" program designed for 15- to 17-year-olds in all state-run schools and devised jointly by the National Education Ministry and the government body responsible for combating the spread of AIDS.

Outrage, mainly among rightist parties, which often promote themselves as defenders of an ill-defined notion of "Indian morality," was prompted primarily by a flip-chart of illustrations for use by teachers as they summarized the physical changes experienced by teenagers during puberty.

Information in the curriculum on contraception and sexually-transmitte d diseases also provoked anger.

One by one, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan - some of the largest Indian states - declared that the content of the course was unacceptable for Indian children and announced a suspension of the program.

The government of Kerala has stopped teaching the course temporarily while a review board modifies the textbooks, excising the unacceptable elements.

The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, wrote in a letter of protest to the Central Education Ministry that the "government has devaluated Indian culture and its values."

"Instead, the younger generation should be taught about yoga, Indian culture and its values," he concluded.

The education minister in Rajasthan, Ghansyam Tiwari, justified his decision by describing the course material as "disgraceful and capable of corrupting the minds of the young."

Announcing a decision to suspend the course in Karnataka, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said at a news conference: "Sex education may be necessary in Western countries, but not in India, which has rich culture. It will have adverse effect on young minds, if implemented."

This response has elicited seething frustration in the National AIDS Control Organization, where officials are struggling to combat an AIDS epidemic. Last year, India became the country with the highest number of HIV-positive people, with an estimated 5.7 million cases.

The director of the AIDS organization, Sujatha Rao, said she regretted the way the subject had become a political flash point.

"There is no place for a debate here on cultural sensibilities. This is a basic question of saving lives," she said in an interview at the group's Delhi headquarters. According to its research, one-third of the reported infections across India are in the 15-29 age group and 50 percent of all new infections are in this young category.

Rao said conservative groups across the country were being unrealistic about swiftly changing attitudes to sex among a new generation of Indian teenagers and were clinging stubbornly to an outmoded vision of the country's youth.

"There is much more permissiveness around today than a generation ago; young people are more aware of their sexuality," she said. "There is much greater access to information about sex from the Internet, from the cinema, from television.

"This generation needs to be much more knowledgeable, so that they are aware of the risks," she said.

"I have a feeling that the conservative elements in our society are unable to cope with these dynamic changes that are taking place. There is a fear that this area was once under their control and is now spiraling out of their control."

India has included sex education in its national curriculum since the late 1980s, but earlier course material gave little detail on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases and had no illustrations. The AIDS group maintained that with the epidemic spreading and with teenagers starting to have casual sex, the new course had to be clearer in certain areas.

A study by the group in 2006 showed that 8 percent of Indian teenagers had had casual sex; a less comprehensive survey conducted by the India Today weekly newsmagazine showed that one in four Indian women ages 18 to 30 who were questioned in 11 large cities had had sex before marriage.

The timing of this debate comes as self-appointed defenders of Indian morality have caused noisy controversy on various other issues. In every area of life, India is struggling to find a commonly acceptable line between decorous behavior and actions deemed to outrage moral sensibilities. Despite the increasingly permissive atmosphere, the occasional kiss or display of excess flesh triggers a nationwide, media-fueled storm.

The central government decided to ban the broadcasting of Fashion TV in March, in response to complaints about programs like "Midnight Hot" which showed models in flimsy bikinis. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry said that the programs were "against good taste and decency, denigrate women and are likely to adversely affect public morality."

All of which makes the teaching of sex education an extremely delicate business. Vandana Sharma, director of Nari Raksha Samiti, or the Women's Protection League, a charity that has been campaigning for better sex education in schools, said the course was more vital than ever before.

"This kind of teaching was not necessary 10 years ago. But now India is merging more and more with Western cultures, there is easy access to Western culture through cable television," she said. "Teenagers see characters having extra-marital affairs and women in seduction roles, and they want to experiment, too. The real problem is with the soaps - these are against Indian culture - not the sex education, which really represents the solution."