Peking University, Beijing, Apr. 19, 2010: On March 29, Prof. Chen Shouliang, the well-known biology professor from the School of Life Sciences at Peking University, pointed out during his lecture at PKU that the current condition of the Chinese college students’ sexual-education is far from being satisfactory. He said: “As far as I know, there is not one college in Beijing which has opened this kind of sexual-education classe, including my alma mater–Tsinghua University.” He expressed that the recent atmosphere of the society is not good enough that people generally treat sex as a taboo. He hoped that PKU’s public elective course of “Human Reproduction and Sexual Health” could inspire other colleges to provide this kind of course.
When talking about the reasons for opening this course at PKU, Chen told us that the sexual-education was a forbiddance for the youth when he was young. He thought he was lucky enough to read the book of “Sexual Psychology” translated by Mr. Pan Guangdan in 1947. Before his retirement, Chen decided to fight for the opening of this course to give the correct understanding about sex to the youth for their health. However, it is a pity that few teachers are willing to give lessons in the course.
Chen graduated from the Department of Biology of PKU, and has taught the courses of “Animal Physiology” and “Human Biology”. In 1995, he opened the public elective course of “Human Reproduction and Sexual Health” at PKU for the first time, and wrote the first teaching book for sexual-education–“Human Sex, Generation, and Health” by himself, in order to give scientific knowledge about sex to the PKU undergraduates. Since 1995, the course has developed very fast that it has become a public elective course. According to the students, the course is so popular that more than 500 students choose this course every semester.
Due to the special cultural traditions and the political policies at specific historical periods in China, the topic of sex has become such a taboo that both families and schools have treated sexual-education with negative attitudes. At home, most parents will not give their children positive answers to the questions about sex and teachers have generally chose to avoid the topic at school. When children grow, it is inevitable for them to develop various thoughts and interest about sex. If the grown-up are not able to provide proper guidance to them, the children, misled by the bad ideas, may form deviant behaviors on gender relations.
A survey taken by 900 undergraduate college students in Chongqing showed that about 86％ of the boys obtained their sex knowledge from non-scientific sex books and illegal publications, and only 1% of the girls have read scientific books on sex. Chen told us that only three universities, South China Normal University, South China University of Technology, and PKU, have opened a sexual-education course. There are still a large number of students desiring for the proper guidance to obtain the scientific sexual-knowledge.
The start of sexual-education in China was not very late. In the early of 20th century, Prof. Zhang Jingsheng of the Department of Philosophy of PKU used to teach students sexual psychology and esthetics, and organized the associations of esthetics and sex in the mean time. He was the first man to promote sexual-education in China in the 20th century. Then, the famous writer Lu Xun also tried to promote the development of sexual-education. The development of sexual-education came to a climax when Mr. Pan Guangdan translated the book of “Sexual Psychology” and introduced it into China. However, we did not hand on this tradition for some historical and environmental constraints of that time. Especially in the mainland of China, the development of sexual-education was delayed to the 1980s, far behind the West.
Recently, the sexual-education in China has developed a little faster than before. The Center of Moral Education of the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau of Macao and the Family Planning Association of Hong Kong co-organized the lectures of “Sexual-education at Campus: How to Carry out Sexual-education” and “The Communication of Love: How to Help the Children Develop a Healthy Gender Relations” in order to find the ways to help the youth develop healthy gender relations through simple explanation and practical examples. The Gansu STD & AIDS Prevention Education Advisory Station, the first sexual-education base of China, has been set up recently in Lanzhou. There will be 24 primary schools, high schools, and colleges opening sexual-education course as experimental schools in Shenzhen. On February 12, Yunnan TV broadcasted a program of “Discussion of People’s Life” to discuss if the love course could be opened at high school. This program was cut for several times because of its sensitive topics.
Edited by: Connie Chang
Translated by: Su Juan
Source: PKU News (Chinese)
