ISSN 1944 – 6683        

 

WACS Newsletter

 

Volume 2, No 1, March 15, 2009

 

Publisher: NG Man-Lun, M.D.

Advisor: RUAN Fangfu, M.D., Ph.D.

Chief Editor: DENG Mingyu, M.D., Ph.D.

 

 

World Association of Chinese Sexologists

Room 1801, 18/F, Capitol Centre, No. 5-19,

Jardine’s Bazaar, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Web: www.wacshome.net   E-mail: wacshk@gmail.com

 

International Association of Chinese Medical Specialists & Psychologists

36-40 Main St., #209, Flushing, New York 11354, USA.

Tel: (718) 321-8808, Fax: (718) 820-9320

Web: www.iacmsp.org   E-mail: iacmsp@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Sex Rights in 2008: A Report on Greater China (Excerpt)

 

Josephine HO, Ph.D.

 Distinguished Professor, Center for the Study of Sexualities,

National Central University, Taiwan

sex@ncu.edu.tw

 

While vast social differences have created varied historical-cultural-specific concerns and dynamics in relation to sex and gender in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, certain newly emergent forces have been working to forge increasingly similar resonances in those areas, and surprisingly making the concept of Greater China a growing possibility.  These forces include rapid recent developments in cross-strait negotiations and relations, the spread of information technology (esp. the internet), and the growing expansion/integration of the globalization initiative.  Based on three locally produced lists (see below) of the most significant sex/gender-related events in the three locations, the following general observations are drawn to provide some insight on the condition of sex rights in 2008 in Greater China:

1. Homogenization through Sex:

The concept of Greater China is understood as a major frame of reference for economic integration in the region, yet it has been fiercely resisted by some in Hong Kong and Taiwan who maintain that there are irreconcilable political and cultural differences.  Significantly, in 2008, one high-profiled sex scandal, with its reverberations through the media and the internet, has helped to congeal similar repercussions throughout these areas and China.  This has to do with the leaking of home-made sex photos by movie star Edison Chen posing with multiple popular actresses on different intimate occasions.  The incident made the biggest news in March, and internet users throughout the greater Chinese world strove to expand their circles of net friends as they searched for the photos, leading to the most far-reaching consolidation of communication across political boundaries.  Such communication and dissemination are taken as cause for existing or later development of regulation for the internet in regard to web content and information exchange.  Right to privacy, right to sexual self-determination, and right to freedom of information on the internet continue to tug on the nerves of all three different societies, proving that with the help of the media and the internet, certain events are now capable of sending similar shock waves throughout Greater China, while subsequent discursive oscillations gravitate toward the mutual adoption of similar language, similar values, and similar structures of feeling.  Another event that provoked comparable responses was China’s banning of An Lee’s new film “Lust, Caution” in which leading actress Wei Tang is entangled in a series of explicit and perverted sex scenes.

The phenomenal impact of such events is compounded by the conjuncture of several noted elements: they involve well-known entertainment idols admired by millions; they present highly-stigmatized sexual activities that verge upon perversion and immorality; they carry explicit sexual images that can provoke strong curiosity as well as fierce reactions; and the images can be transmitted across the internet at an unimaginable speed, reaching an unimaginably huge crowd.  The incident also made it obvious that traditional sexual repression in the Chinese culture has induced a strong tendency of jealous voyeurism and malicious resentment that can now be relentlessly expressed through the anonymity of the internet world, thus further strengthening existing sex negativity.  And as the clamor further hiked the sensational effects of such events, authorities and conservative groups took advantage of the moment to enforce stringent measures concerning the use of the internet for transmission of sexual information.  As netters and authorities contest for the control of internet information, the issue promises to reverberate throughout Greater China in the coming years.

 

2. Juridification of human interaction:

In 2008, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all devoted much time and space to discussing or implementing laws regulating interpersonal exchanges, especially laws to prevent sexual harassment.  The visibility of the issue and the legislation that follows reflect clearly the shifting boundaries between public and private spheres in these societies as a result of changing gender relations and growing gender awareness, as well as the timely arrival of principles of interpersonal exchange from the so-called advanced countries, in the form of international standards of civility and gender equality.  Ideas of respect and equality are becoming major points of reference, and legal codes and litigations have emerged as the most popular form of regulation and enforcement in this age of growing impersonality.

Human interaction, an area infested with unconscious impulses and contradictory emotions entangled in all the complexities of power and desire, have now become the domain of jurisdiction.  This is a very significant development in social control in the Chinese world, as traditional hierarchical authorities and power of arbitration lose their impact, as the expanding flow of subjects made conventional rules of interaction increasingly ineffective, and as new forms and opportunities of exchange and interaction alerted some to call for new ways of relation and segregation.  The main target of such social control is none other than the increasingly visible world of “sex,” including sexual interactions, expressions, information, etc.

Laws are much more than legal codes, for the debate and controversy surrounding litigations over sexual harassment often strengthen already deeply rooted investments and emotions surrounding the topic of “sex,” thus creating more nervousness and anxiety in human interaction.  Worse, controversies and disputes in relation to interpersonal relations are no longer straightened out through negotiation and communication; instead, the regulatory powers of the law settle everything.  As a long repressed and distorted issue, sex and its expressions have never enjoyed much fertile ground and cultivation.  Under the present circumstances, the over-emphasis on regulation and caution moves easily toward further repression.

3. Lingering pressures of marriage:

Even in this day and age of fluid relations, the sanctity of marriage still enjoys much popularity in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—albeit to varying degrees and applied to different subjects.  In mainland China, marriageable men and women still face formidable pressure from their family to settle into heterosexual marriage.  In Hong Kong and Taiwan where heterosexual marriage is only one option among many choices of life, right to marry is now used to discriminate against marginal subjects who hope to assimilate (including homosexuals, transgenders, Mainland Chinese brides, or brides from Southeast Asian countries).  Still, marriage exerts its power of influence through other issues.

As age of marriage increases in all three areas, sex before marriage is now met with a certain degree of tolerance.  After all, the status of romantic love has risen to the extent that sex is excusable on account of love: couples in love are expected to move into marriage later so an earlier taste of sex is considered one more lesson in the preparation of marriage.  Yet this tolerance is not without its iron-clad boundary: loyalty (formerly chastity) is still the unchallengeable imperative.  As a result, affairs have become cardinal sins in this era of increasingly promiscuity, testified by the onslaught of public condemnation of celebrities caught with their pants or skirts down.  Language of sensationalism and moral outcry has also become common stock in the media as well as on the internet, thus fanning up a puritanical moral atmosphere that eclipses all sexual and emotional discords in existing coupledom.

Rising divorce rates may be a reflection on how people are viewing marriage with increasing pragmatism in Greater China, yet suicides on account of unhappy and un-resolvable marriages rose to public attention in 2008 as two women celebrities in China took their lives to end it all.  People who are experiencing various forms of difficulties in relation to marriage—from remaining single to trying to get divorced to homosexuals being forced into heterosexual marriage—are still in desperate need of some form of relief lest they are forced into taking drastic measures to put an end to the problem.

 

4. Obscenity sweeps and ban on sex work:

Pornography and sex work in contemporary Chinese world have gone through diversified development in form and content in response to whimsical obscenity sweeps orchestrated by various authorities.  Since 1990, with the advent of the internet, sexual information and sexual exchange on the internet have become focal points where official power is exercised through multiple sets of regulations and rules created and enforced under conservative vigilance.  As to sex work, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have all adopted prohibitive measures to different degrees of insistence and to no avail.  Prostitutes’ rights movement in the meantime is growing as sex workers struggle for survival against the pressure of social stigma and state prohibition.

Notably, obscenity sweeps and internet purity campaigns are increasingly framed in a language of “international standards of civility and child protection.”  As talks of civilization, taste, child protection, national spirit, and international image work to mask the violence inherent in such purity measures, presenting them instead as expressions of national pride and self-esteem, thousands of websites deemed containing so-called “improper” (mostly sexual) contents have been “harmonized” out of existence in China in the year 2008.  Such impositions are also common in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where conservative Christian groups conduct aggressive campaigns, in the name of child protection or anti-trafficking, for legislations that aim to strengthen control of information on the internet, especially pornographic information and sexual transaction.  Systems of rating were erected for cultural products ranging from books to videos to web content, only to deprive adults and children alike of their favorite pastime and nourishment for sexual growth.

It is obvious that contestations in the field of sexual information and exchange will continue to be key areas of struggle in the coming years in Greater China.

 

Appendix 1: Most Important Sex Rights Incidents in 2008, Hong Kong

(Selected by Joseph Man-Kit Cho, “Nutong Xueshe” (Hong Kong lesbian group))

1.    Radio show program on “gay love” exonerated at the end of 2008 after a year of litigation following Christian groups’ citation of the program as “misleading the young”

2.    Serial killing of 6 sex workers in Hong Kong in 2008 exposes social indifference toward “working women”

3.    Sex photo scandal of Edison Chen sparks regulation and regidification of the internet

4.    Policy of sex offenders’ registration criticized for crudeness and violation of basic human rights

5.    Bylaws created for the regulation of obscene and indecent materials trigger contestations over morality and freedom of information

6.    Proposed amendments to bylaw governing domestic violence exclude homosexuals

 

Appendix 2: Ten Worst Cases of Sex Rights Violations in Taiwan, 2008

(Selected by Gender/Sexuality Rights Association, Taiwan http://gsrat.net)

1.     Divorced man indicted for leaving web messages seeking sexual partners

2.     Convenience Stores and DVD rental stores raided by police for carrying “improper” material, and sales personnel were cuffed and shackled in the process

3.     Photos of new born babies on the internet suspected of dissemination of obscenities and pedophilia by police

 

4.     Laws governing civil partnership exclude homosexuals

5.     Citizens’ consensus conference concludes that sexual transaction between adults should not be punishable by law but government does little to respond

6.     Edison Chen’s sex photo scandal exposes public bigotry

7.     Transgender students suffer under gender-assigned uniforms

8.     FTMs required to complete genital reconstruction before changing their gender identity

9.     Mainland Chinese brides humiliated in Immigration Bureau’s visitation/evaluation procedure

10.  Gay right to marriage still not in sight

 

Appendix 3: Ten Most Important Sex/Gender Events in China, 2008

(Selected by a group of 14 young Chinese scholars in the gender/sexuality area)

1.    Edison Chen’s sex photos sparks heated discussion on violation of individual privacy

2.    An Lee’s “Lust, Caution” banned in China for licentiousness, sexual perversion, rape, homosexuality, masturbation and prostitution

3.    Chastity education in one university sparks fierce debate

4.    Nude beach in South China triggers debate over nudism

5.    Molestation case erroneously reported as first sexual harassment case in China

6.    Citizen penalized for downloading porn film from internet

7.    Women committed suicide over unhappy marriages

8.    College professor slain by boyfriend of girl student

9.    Official under investigation for suspected molestation charges

10.   Beijing asks for response to proposed legislation for women’s protection

 

Complete version in Chinese is available from Chinese Sex Rights Research 1 (March 2009): 5-24.  (http://intermargins.net/repression/theory/china/CSRR_1.pdf)

Original report written in collaboration with Wen-Qing Wang, Ph. D. student, Institute for Research on Sexuality and Gender, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China, and Joseph CHO Man-kit, Ph. D. student, Program in Gender Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.  English version translated/written by Josephine Ho.

 

Welcome to Taiwan

2009 First International Conference in Chinese Sexuality

(August 14 – 17, 2009, Kaohsiung, Taiwan)

http://wacs2009.stu.edu.tw/welcome~english

 

Six Sexuality Magazines and One Sexuality Health Newspaper have been Published by WACS

 

Mingyu DENG, M.D. Ph.D

(Director, WACS Serial Sexuality Magazines House)

 

In January 2008, World Association of Chinese Sexologists (WACS) held in Shenzhen in China. WACS have published 5 Chinese version magazines, 1 English version magazine and 1 Chinese version newspaper in one year. Chinese version magazines include <Chinese Sexuality Research> (Chief Editor: PENG Xiaohui), <Chinese Sexuality Literature & Art Research> (Chief Editor: HUANG Can), <Chinese Sexuality Anthropology Research> (Chief Editor: QU Ming-an), <Chinese Sex Rights Research> (Chief Editor: HO Josephine) and <Chinese Blogs Sexology Research> (Chief Editor: PAN Hai). English version magazine is <WACS Newsletter> (Chief Editor: DENG Mingyu), and Chinese version newspaper is <Chinese Sexuality Health Times> (Chief Editor: DENG Mingyu). These magazines and newspaper are PDF version, and free subscription.

Free subscription E-mail: iacmsp@gmail.com 

Magazines downloading: http://intermargins.net/repression/theory/china.htm

        

   

      

 

 

The university female students' psychological conflict in sexual behavior process: a qualitative research

 

Wei-Lun WU, Ting-Yu CHANG, Ming-Lei YANG, Ph.D.

(Graduate Institute of Educational Psychology and Counseling, Tamkang University, Taipei)

 

Today, people’s knowledge about sex is lack; their attitude to sex is guarded; but their sexual behavior is open (risky). Although the people and media concern about the sex, details are insufficient. The sexual behavior includes not only intercourse process of two people, but also exchange of their value systems, individual expects, parents / friend / social sight…etc., all crowd on the same bed.

Young unmarried women, who adopt the burden of traditional morality, may have more complicated and subtle thought. When The Hite Report (1994) finds that foreign women “When it talks to the main issues about love relation, 84% women don’t satisfy with their sexual relations on the emotion, only 16% women enjoy the intimate sense on the emotion that they want in the sexual relations.(p.16)” Let us consider that for young unmarried Chinese women， when the social permit them separate sexual behavior and marriage day by day, are they really gain liberation in the sexual behavior? Or the traditional moral value still permeates their private emotion with multi-form.

Because it’s the first time to research young unmarried women’s internal experience in sexual behavior process in Taiwan, this is a explore research. In this qualitative research, we interviews five heterosexual female university students about their internal conflict in their sexual behavior with sex mate. The frame of analysis bases on the hermeneutic approach, research participants’ narrative and feeling would be seen as a hermeneutic circle.

As the research result: for the unmarried university female student's, (1) although they can enjoy the pretty of sex, but there are also many kinds of internal conflict, especially the traditional morality and virgin complex which inherits from family and society. (2)They can understand their male-partner’s good intention of taking contraceptive voluntarily, but actually, it can’t reduce female anxiety about the probability of the pregnancy. This anxiety reflects the above-mentioned internal conflict. (3) Therefore, under all sorts of conflicts and anxiety, “compromise” becomes the common understanding when make love or not. (4) At the same time, not talking ”sex experience” becomes an unspoken consensus between parents and children, both sides avoid totally this topic of “sex” in the same wavelength. (5) And for the sexual behavior itself, women take sexual behavior as symbol of love. The fore-play and after-play of sex have great influence for women’s positive feelings. (6) And the companion's response, attention, and initiative have positively influence for sexual behavior. Besides, we also found that (7) Most participants have sexual harassment experience, but these experiences are unlikely to cause obviously perplex for the sexual behavior.

Keywords: sex behavior, young unmarried women, psychological conflict

 

 

Reconstructing Masculinities and Male Participation under Internationalization Background

 

FANG Gang, Ph.D.

（School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing ,100083,China）

Abstract: During the process of advancing the social gender equality, males themselves’ participating desire is still inadequate. Globalization provided the opportunity for the transformation of Chinese masculinities. This paper puts forward that the male participation should be encouraged both with rules and regulations and with individual methods. Individually, it should start with encouraging males to change hegemonic masculinities. There exist multiple masculinities; and hegemonic masculinities can be reconstructed. At individual level, reconstructing hegemonic masculinities will directly help to bring about male participation. This paper puts forward such concepts as “male consciousness”, “male emancipation”, “duality of Male consciousness” and so on. It is claimed here that males should be called to be conscious of the harms conventional hegemonic masculinities done to both males and females. Thus males may actively overturn hegemonic masculinity on their own initiative, and further advance gender equality with woman. While, only when such consciousness and emancipation be based on the awareness of the fact that, under patriarchal culture and system, females bear greater oppression can the advance of gender equality be guaranteed. Besides, this paper takes the reproduction health field as an example to demonstrate how reconstruction of hegemonic masculinities influences active male participation.

Key Words: Masculinities, Male Participation, Male Consciousness, Male Emancipation

 

The Breast and Vagina in the Perspective of

Symbolic Anthropology

 

QU Ming-an

(Professor, the Ethnic Researching Institute of Yunnan University, Kunming, China)

Abstract: From the perspective of symbolic anthropology, women's breasts and vaginas are not only the significant sign of  female body but the symbol with most distinctive characteristics in the entire history of the human culture development.  There exists lots of difference between Chinese and Western culture on the symbolic meaning of breast, which reflects the different aesthetic needs and values. Generally, both in traditional easteren and weateren societies ,people regard women’s vagina as the cradle of human reproduction and multiply or the source of life for its own reproductive function, and the vagina relating to the hymen is also looked as a sign of female chastity under certain social and cultural background.

Key words: symble；anthropology；breast;  vagina

 

Coerced first sexual intercourse in Chinese college students’ dating relationships

 

HE Shanshan, Ph.D. Candidate

(Department of Social Work and Social Administration, the University of Hong Kong)

Abstract: Sexual coercion is an important research problem. This study aims to explore the coerced first sexual intercourse (CFSI) in Chinese college students’ dating relationships. Total 895 Chinese college students (426 males and 469 females) from 7 universities in 5 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Shenzhen and Hong Kong) who are currently in a dating relationship attended the study. Results showed that 162 (18%) participants reported having experienced CFSI, in which 62.5% happened in the exploring and lovestruck stage of dating, 19.9% in the early stage and 17.6% in the established stage. The top three tactics of CFSI were 1) “I committed that I would marry her in the future”; 2) “I told my partner that other couples have sex more than we do”; 3) “I hinted that making love with me will be very stimulating and funny”. The limitations of this study and the future directions for research on sexual coercion in intimate relationships will be addressed.

 

 

<The Study on Masculinities and Men’s Movement>

 

FANG Gang, Ph.D.

(Book, Published by Shan Dong People’s Publish House, 2008)

 

About the author

Dr. Fang Gang is an instructor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of Beijing Forestry University. His study focuses on sexuality and masculinities. He has published more than 30 books  both at home and abroad.He is the first scholar who studies masculinities in China mainland.

Fang Gang’s E-mail: fanggang@vip.sohu.com　

 

His major works includes: Surveys on Multiple Sex Partners in China (2005), Sex and Gender during China’s Transitional Times (2005), Dictionary on Sexualities by A Sociologist (2004), The Liberation of Men(1999), Men Want to Liberate (As chief editor)(2006).

 

 

Introduction

The research on masculinities and men’s movements is just started in the past few years in mainland China. It is the first work about the topic which was written by a native author of mainland China. As an activist and researcher of men’s movements and masculinities study, the author not only pursued the study on masculinities in mainland China for the first time, but also propelled t he development of men’s movement. In addition, he proposed the viewpoint that there is a dualism in men’s disillusionment with gender.

This anthology included more than 20 pieces of works about a wide range of masculinities study and men’s movements. It was composed of the following subjects: introduction to the masculinities study and men’s movements in western countries; some papers on the studies of masculinities in China; an analysis between masculinities and sexuality in China, and several articles and thesis which regards to men’s movements in mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan. So this book serves not only as important references for those who study the subject of gender and sexuality, but also as necessary reading materials for those who want to explore the complexity about the studies of masculinities and men’s movements in China .

 

Contents

Foreword

 

Chapter I   Masculinities study and men’s movements in western countries

１，Sex role theory in masculinities

２，The multiplicity theory in masculinities

3，Men's movement and its different schools in western countries

4，Important English publications on masculinities study

 

Chapter II   Masculinities study in China

5，Masculinities study and publications in China

6，The analyze on the multiplicity of Masculinities practice

7，Between hardness and softness——analyses on the practice of masculinities in a male beauty contest

8，The contrast study of gender role on male undergraduate from Beijing and Taibei

9，The Absence of masculinities study and men’s care – on the issues of sexual harassment in workplaces and related law in mainland China

10，Jia,Baoyu: the diplex betrayer of social class and gender role.

11，Response to Eco-feminism: a viewpoint of men’s study

 

Chapter III Sexuality and masculinities study

12，Male's sexual behaviors from a masculinities point of view

13，Male sex workers and their masculinities

14，Analysis on male images in advertisements of afrodyn

15，Male sexual dysfunction and the spread of sexuality thought in China

16，"Equal opportunity in bed" - analysis of the sex lives of high income men’s narratives and their masculinities behaviors

17，Prospect of using masculinities study in Chinese sexualities study 

 

Chapter IV   Men’s Movements in Mainland China

18，The dawn of men’s movements in mainland China

19，Male consciousness and feminism: an alliance movement against patriarchy

20，Commentate male consciousness and male liberation

21，From reconstructing hegemonic masculinities to promoting male participation

22，Memorandum of men’s movements in mainland China

 

Chapter V  Men’s movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan

23，The men’s movement in Hong Kong: observation and thought

24，Men’s movements groups in Taiwan

25，Discussion of Men’s movements with Taiwan scholars

26，Impression on Wang Ya Ge – the male feminist

 

Appendix　The conception of promote masculinities study and men’s movement in China today