Should Chinese middle schools carry out sex education for teenagers? Is sex education good or bad

As early as October 2004, the One Child Hotline for Teenager Sexual Psychological Counseling, founded by 18-year-old middle school student Li Tong, was opened in Changchun City, Jilin Province. The puberty of Chinese teenagers has been greatly advanced, coupled with the portrayal of sex in movies, novels, and the internet, post-90s middle school students often suffer from adverse effects due to sexual physiological arousal, ignorance of sexual hygiene, and immature sexual psychology. At the recently concluded 6th Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival, sex education for middle school students became a hot topic of discussion. Experts believe that sex education for middle school students must remove the awkward hat and become a compulsory course in school and family education.

What methods are adopted to provide sex education to teenagers? Is early sex education a fire extinguisher or a combustion aid?

Textbook warnings are high

The Guangzhou University City held a forum on college students' sexual and reproductive health, exposing various sexual confusions among contemporary Chinese college students. Experts believe that this indirectly reflects the gap in sex education in China, and to reverse this situation, sex education during middle school is particularly important.

Many middle school students have adopted an indifferent attitude towards the sharp increase of teenagers' Premarital sex, induced abortion, and ectopic pregnancy at this stage, even regarded them as fashionable and avant-garde.

Duan Xueting, the homeroom teacher of the second year of Guangzhou Second Middle School, said that although she is only about 10 years younger than her students, she feels that middle school students are now much more precocious and have more temptations around them. It is better to block them than to neglect them. It is necessary to carry out formal sex education in schools. She said that existing sex education textbooks are usually written in the tone of educators, which is somewhat condescending. If we can start from the perspective of students and see what their ideas are, it may increase the specificity of the textbook.

Duan Jianhua, Deputy Inspector of the Guangzhou Population and Family Planning Bureau, said that there are problems with the lack of teachers and lagging teaching materials in secondary school sex education. There is a lack of staffing and system, and many schools do not have professional teaching and research rooms, which makes the content of textbooks unable to meet the knowledge needs of students. Duan Jianhua suggested that teachers, parents, social workers and scholars should start from respecting human nature and building a healthy life, treat the emotions between boys and girls, face up to their needs, and give them direct, standardized, systematic and scientific sexual and reproductive health guidance.

Zhang Feng, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Sexuality Society and Director of the Guangdong Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission, believes that allowing teenagers to fully feel the close relationship between sex education and their own growth process can stimulate their enthusiasm for learning sexual health knowledge. He said that most of the existing adolescent sex education in China is based on preventing negative consequences. If we truly start from the needs of teenagers, the education content should not be limited to the introduction of physiological knowledge during adolescence, but should pay attention to tutoring teenagers on how to interact with the opposite sex. In addition, it is essential to cultivate and exercise effective communication skills, resist negative temptations, and make rational and responsible decisions by teenagers.

Due Diligence of Parents

What if I find a condom in my child's backpack? How to talk to children about topics such as menstruation and nocturnal emissions, as well as sexual intercourse and contraception?

During the Sex Culture Festival, more than 100 parents of middle school students in Guangzhou attended a special Parent–teacher conference to jointly study their children's views on sex, love and life.

Duan Jianhua said at the Parent–teacher conference that the post-90s generation are more personalized than their predecessors, are good at accepting new things, and have very different sexual values from their parents. It is particularly important for parents to help them correctly and scientifically approach issues such as sex, love, and lifestyle during adolescence.

Duan Xueting said that the post-80s generation hardly received sex education from their families and grew up in a relatively simple environment. Nowadays, movies, novels, and online sex topics are overwhelming, but many post-90s parents still believe that sex education does not need to be taught, and children naturally understand and avoid communicating with them.

Zhang Feng believes that the family is the fundamental unit of social development, and parents' sexual health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors are crucial for the sexual health of adolescents. Parents can provide sex education to their children without time or occasion restrictions. If there is any relevant content or plot while watching TV, parents can use the topic to discuss with their children on a certain topic. If children adopt a laissez faire or laissez faire attitude, they may think that their parents do not care about them; If it is too strict, interferes with children's behavior, and even takes punitive measures, rebellious psychology will make them go further.

During the interview, many experts suggested that schools should improve parents' sexual health knowledge level by means of Parent–teacher conference, and teach them sexual education methods and skills, so that they can become responsible and qualified parents in participating in sexual education.

Extinguishing or supporting combustion

At the on-site expert forum, experts from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan discussed whether parents of students aged 12 to 15 should put condoms in their children's backpacks.

Wu Minlun, a Hong Kong sexologist and Sex therapy expert, believes that it is unnecessary to put condoms in the schoolbags of children aged 12 to 15, but they must know where to get condoms and give them sex education in due course.

Professor Qiu Hongzhong, Vice President of the Guangdong Provincial Sex Society, believes that early sex education has both advantages and disadvantages. Taking Sweden, a Nordic country, as an example, early sex education generally advances the age at which children first have sexual intercourse, but effectively reduces the transmission rate of related diseases.

Zhang Feng, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Sexuality Society, said that if adolescent sex education is only aimed at preventing pregnancy, miscarriage, or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases caused by sexual behavior, and avoiding harm to the body, then adolescent sex education has a fire extinguisher effect, which is clearly not realistic in modern society. He said that teenagers have strong abilities to imitate and accept new things, but lack the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Will adolescent sex education stimulate an increase in sexual behavior and serve as a fuel?

Zhang Feng suggests that adolescent sex education should be composed of three firewalls: the first is to prevent minors from having sexual relations; The second is to teach contraception and Emergency contraception knowledge; The third question is how to handle pregnancy promptly.