Less mechanical, more emotional: Calls for sex education improvements. Again.

The sex education debate continues to simmer with calls for a more rounded curriculum that may help reduce teenage pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. China Daily today reports:

Young students in China are dismissive about sex education at schools, complaining it focuses too much on the physical side of sex, including sexual identity and naming parts, but with scarce information on the emotions.

Since 1988, schools across the country have introduced curricula on reproductive and adolescent health.

…

“My middle school teacher just left us a textbook on reproductive health to read on our own,” recalled Tang, who’s now in his late 20s.

As a result, unwanted and teenage pregnancies are on the rise, most of which end in abortion, previous reports say.

These calls are not new, with suggestions by a Moral Education official in 2004 that:

“(Courses have) been focusing on how the body’s sexual system functions and on sexual development and reproduction, but sexual morality and psychology have been ignored,” says Cao.

She feels the latter is more important, because students “need to have information about the physical and emotional changes associated with puberty and sexual reproduction, including fertilization and conception and about sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.”

On a similar theme, an article from 2001 states:

“Sex education in China is not a problem of sex knowledge, but a lack of proper education. Students should be taught about family values, morals and other values related to sex,” said Geng Wenxiu, a distinguished professor from East China Normal University, who studies sex education.

Poor sex education teaching has generated a backlash as students, eager to learn, are turning to other sources, such as newspapers, videos and even the Internet.

This has been suggested to have led to sex-curious young Chinese ’stumbling upon’ X-rated websites, some of which supposedly masquerade as sex health sites, one of the reasons behind a recent government crackdown. Some suggest this may have the effect of further reducing the availability of proper sexual health content.

Also of continuing contention is the time at which sex education should commence. In 2001, Liu Dalin, the vice-president of the Asia Federation for Sexology suggested, “Sex education in China should make adjustments to meet the changing situation. It should expand from middle schools to elementary schools.” This may have inspired Guangzhou officials in 2004 to start sex education classes in a group of that city’s kindergartens. Potentially alarming if executed badly, but at least they are trying something different.

The show rolls on.