Growing Up Sexually

CENTRAL AND NON-INDONESIAN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Index → Asia (Generalia)

Featured: Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, China, Japan, The Koreas, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myammar (Burma), Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam

More: Agta, Akha, Badjau, Bagobo, Batak, Bohol, Bontoc Igorot, Buid, Burakumin, Burmese, Hmong, Ifugao, Isneg Igorot, Ilocos, Kalingas, Limbu, Malay, Mandaya, Minangkabaus, Negritos, Nya Hön, Sagada Igorots, Sedang, Semai, Sulod, Thai, Vietnamese [unlinked entities included in and linked from Philippines section]

Generalia

Current Age of Consent

Age-Stratified Patterns and Prostitution: General Remarks

Thai Age Stratified Patterns

Japanese Age Stratified Patterns

Chinese Age Stratified Patterns

Korean Age Stratified Patterns

Philippine Age Stratified Patterns

Early Marriage

Sexarche

HIV / AIDS

Further References: Asia

Generalia

LeBar et al. (1964; 1972)[1] reviewed some data on initial courtship practices among Southeast Asian tribes. Among the Mainland groups, no explicit statements were made on childhood betrothal or marriage except for the Senoi-Semang who practised rearing marriage (p179).

Taboo on and punishment of “masturbation” was documented for the Koreans (Turner, [1905:p3]), and Taiwanese (Diamond, 1969:p34). Nevertheless, Eram informed Ploß (Die Frau, I) that masturbation is a “condition extrêement commune chez les jeunes filles en Orient”.

Additional refs.:

·         De Silva, W. I. (March, 1998) Emerging Reproductive Health Issues Among Adolescents in Asia. Takemi Program in International Health, HarvardSchool of Public Health

·         Gubhaju, Bh. B. (2002) Adolescent Reproductive Health in Asia. Paper presented at  IUSSP Regional Population Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, June 10-13

·         Manderson, L. & Liamputtong, P. (Eds., 2002) Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia: Youth, Courtship and Sexuality. NIAS Studies in Asian Topics, no. 30. Richmond: Curzon Press

·         Xenos, P. et al. ([2001]) The Timing of Union Formation and Sexual Onset: Asian Evidence from Young Adult Reproductive Health Surveys. East-West Center Working Papers, Population Series, No. 108-4, September 2001 [http://www2.eastwestcenter.org/ayarr2001/Previews/ISFP/ISFP.htm]

·         Ennew, J. Gopal, K., Heeran, J. & Montgomery, H. (1996) Children and Prostitution: How Can We Measure and Monitor The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children? Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography. 2nd ed., with additional material prepared for the Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Stockholm, August 26-31 [http://child-abuse.com/childhouse/childwatch/cwi/projects/indicators/prostitution/biblio.html]

Current Age of Consent[2]

For current details, one is to consult ECPAT[3] and Interpol[4]. See also Median and Minimum Legal Age at Marriage, and Age at First Sexual Intercourse, Premarital Sexual Experience tables (Population Reports, Volume XXIII, Number 3; October, 1995). Graupner[5] lists the following consent ages: Japan (13), Philippines (12), Taiwan (16), South Korea (13), Thailand (15/18), Vietnam (16), and People’s Republic of China (-/14 for Fm). ECPAT offers specifics on the AoC for the following East Asian countries: China ([14][6]), Indonesia, Japan (13)[7], Laos (15)[8], Malaysia (16)[9], Maldives (?)[10], Mongolia (16?)[11], Myanmar ([14])[12], Nepal[13], North Korea[14], Philippines (12/”virgin”)[15], Singapore (14, het.)[16], South Korea (?)[17], Sri Lanka (16)[18], Thailand (15)[19], and Vietnam[20]. According to various 2002 resources:

There is no legal age of consent defined in Cambodian law, butindecent or sexual assault is punishableby one to three years in jail, a sentence is doubled if the person assaulted is under the age of 16. In China, sexual relations with a girl under the age of 14 are regarded as rape (Art. 30 Regulation of Social Order Management and Punishment), in alteration of the 16 years (for females) proscribed by the old code (Van der Valk, 1936:p76)[21], although no specific age of consent laws seem to exist as yet. In Hong Kong, “[a] man who has unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of thirteen (13) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for life” (Article 123, Penal Code, “Crimes”, CAP. 200); when the girl is between 13 and 16, imprisonment follows (Art. 124). It would be 18 for males. In Japan, the age of consent for sexual activity at thirteen (13) years (Art. 177, Penal Code). In May 1999, a new law prohibited people from having sexual relations with those under 18 in exchange for money, and bans the sale and distribution of child pornography. In Nepal, article 375 of the IPC defines rape as the act of engaging in sexual intercourse with a womanwhen she is under fourteen years of age. On the Philippines, the age of sexual consent is 12, but contacts with minors (under 18) are an offence, if the minor consents to the act for money, gain or any other remuneration or as the result of an influence of any adult person. According to Art. 266-A, rape is committed “when the offended party is under twelve (12) years of age or is demented […]”. In Sri Lanka, the minimum age of ‘consent’ in the offence of rape has been increased in 1995 from twelve (12) to sixteen (16) years. The offender of “acts of gross indecency” must be aged 18 or above (Section 365A of the Amendment to the Penal Code). The age of consent in Taiwan is said to be 16. In Thailand, “[w]hoever has sexual intercourse with a girl not yet over fifteen years of age and not being his own wife, whether such girl shall consent or not, shall be punished with imprisonment of four to twenty years and fined between Bt 8,000 to Bt 40,000” (Art. 277, Penal Code); sentences are intensified when the girl is under 13. However, “[w]hoever commits an indecent act on a child not over thirteen years of age, with or without her consent, shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding ten years or fine not exceeding twenty thousand baht, or both” (Title IV Section 279). In Singapore, “[a] man is said to commit “rape” who, except in the case hereinafter, has sexual intercourse with a woman […] with or without consent, when she is under fourteen (14) years of age” (Code 375, Penal Code). “Consent” is valid “unless the contrary appears from the context, if the consent is given by a person who is under twelve (12) years of age” (Art. 90). Further, “[a]ny man who has[…] carnal connection with any girl under the age of sixteen (16) years except by way of marriage […] shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five (5) years and shall be liable to a fine not exceeding $ 10,000 (Code 140, Subsection 1, f).

Age-Stratified Patterns[22] and Prostitution: General Remarks(®Middle-East; ®Indonesia)

Asia has generally been recognised for its “child” prostitution problems[23]. “Throughout the Eastern world, but particularly in China and India, children have always been used in large numbers for prostitution- often being sold into brothels by their parents” (Benjamin and Masters, 1964:p161)[24]. Brongersma (1987:p107-8)[25] comes to the same conclusion. Nowhere the case seems to have been ritualised. The following cases are presented infra: Thailand, Japan, China, Korea, and Philippines (see also Vietnam; and Indonesia and Bangladesh / India / Pakistan chapters).

References:

§         Pukaar, the journal of Naz Foundation International (NFI) http://www.nfi.net/Pukaar-Newsletters.htm

§         Muntarbhorn, V. (1995/6) Child Prostitution in Asia, in Forced Labor: The Prostitution of Children. Papers from a symposium co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, the Women's Bureau, and the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, held on September 29, 1995 at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, DC, p9-31 [http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/downloads/keyWorkplaceDocuments/Child%20Labor%20ILAB/ChildLaborForcedLaborProstitution.pdf.pdf]

Thai Age Stratified Patterns (®Thailand)

Thailand has no recognised historical account of age-“stratified” categories. In the case of Thai “child” prostitution, few ethnographies are undertaken integrating aspects of childhood and sexuality[26]. Mathews[27], writing in 1987, stated that the “Western ideology that boys are unwillingly or unwittingly exploited by men” could be considered “idiosyncratically Western”. Contemporary Thai attitudes toward “paedophilia” seem to be rather negative (Jackson, 1989:p19, 104, 131-2, 135-7, 147-8, 225)[28]. However, others argued that Thai society “[…] has little antipathy to age-graded relationships, an age of consent for males was first established (with little publicity) in 1987, at 15”[29]. In a study[30] on Thai sex workers based on interview groups in selected brothels, only 0.4% had their “first sexual experience” under 10, 15.2% between 11 and 14, while 52.2% had between 15-17. Fifty one per cent had lost their virginity in the brothels; the figures on early teenage intercourse are much lower than many figures in the US. In Manila, most male prostitutes are ages 12-20 - much younger than their clients, who are said to be predominantly Western tourists.

Japanese Age Stratified Patterns (®Japan)

Psychohistorians have surveyed Japanese age stratified homosexuality (DeMause, 1991[31]; Kitahara, 1989:p57-9)[32]. As it appears, ancient Japan resembled both India and China in having institutionalised “Greek-style” pederasty of boys -by priests as well as warriors[33]-, yet added to temple prostitution of both boys and girls, and “widespread” “child” prostitution, including the ancient geisha system[34]. “When the madam in charge of the younger girls considered a girl “ready”, usually about age fourteen, she would try to find someone willing to pay a special price for deflowering her”[35]. Japanese brothels would start girls in sexual service at 5 to 7 years old[36]. Children in medieval Japan would be sold for prostitution in poor families[37].

Leupp (1995)[38] provides a rich historical analysis on man’s passion for ‘boys’ (p33, 38-46, 68, 94, 122-9, 143, 151-2). The author remarks that“[…] references to "beautiful boys"[note omitted in puppet plays and collections of humor from the seventeenth century suggest that many men in the gentry (yangban) class retained boys for sexual purposes. Homosexuality seems to have been especially associated with provincial gentlemen. Some of these men (like the literati of Fujian in China) even kept boy-wives whose status was publicly acknowledged in the village. Upon reaching adulthood, such boys would normally enter into a heterosexual marriage” (p19).

Among the Samurai, “[w]ithin class-based confines, all youths [wakashu] between puberty and adulthood were potential sexual partners for adult males, just as all women potentially were” (Schalow, 1989:p121; 1990[39]). Pederasty by the aristocracy and priesthood is well documented as occurring since at least the 14th century, with young boys given by their parents to be used anally by samurais[40] and by priests in monasteries- the boys sometimes having been worshipped as gods incarnate in religious cults similar to those of the cult of the Virgin in the West[41]. In Medieval Japan, “[f]or men, desires are fulfillable in a range of forms, from intercourse with women and young boys to wet dreams and masturbation. These acts, for which there were no separate words, in and of themselves receive no negative judgement” (Tonomura, 1994:p148)[42].

During the 14th and 15th century, a specific genre of love poems or novels (Chigo Monogatari) were written that surround a homosexual theme of Buddhist priests and boys aged between seven and fourteen (Childs) or 10/11 to 16/17 (W&I), called chigo, residing at the temples (Childs, 1980[43]; cf. Watanabe and Iwata, 1989:p38-46; Leupp, 1995:p38-9). “It seems that the Buddhist priests who taught these boys in secluded mountain temples were relatively safe from the temptations of women, but were susceptible to the charms of the chigo who lived in their midst. A popular saying, Ichi chigo ni sannō (“Chigo come first, the god of the mountain second”), reflects the prevalence of sexual relationships between priests and chigo”. Among the samurai, the chigo (lit., young child) was to make way for the wawashu (lit., young man). The wawashu would be aged 13/14 to18/19 (W&I, p47), or up to majority (p117), their love being called shudo. Whereas chigos were to engage in anal intercourse only, the menu was more variable in the case of wawashus (p119, 121). The authors argue against the influence of Christianity in the deterioration of shudo, beginning in the 18th century; rather it would have its origin in “the precipitate modernisation of the whole of Japanese society” (p26-8, 121-4).

Screech[44]:

“The 'Golden Age' of nanshoku ('man-boy' sexual activity) is now identified as Genroku, but did later Edo accept this? I propose that what is today located in Genroku was thought of as received behavior throughout early Edo, but was then forced back during Kansei into earlier history, especially Sengoku, removing nanshoku from the Tokugawa dispensation. Wakashu portraits, for example, formerly popular, disappear from Kansei art, likewise fuzoku paintings suggesting a normalcy for same-gender eroticism; onna-girai (exclusive same-sex orientation, including adult) was utterly submerged in the inequality of adult-child nanshoku”.

Saeki[45]:

“The popularity of boy love among shosei (young male students in Meiji period) is often mentioned in Meiji literature such as Tsubouchi Shoyo’s Tosei Shosei Katagi or Mori Ogai’s Vita Sexualis. Not a few young men at that time still considered that women were not worth loving and preferred boys as their lovers because they believed that they could improve their strength as “real men”, both emotionally and intellectually, through homosexual love. However, under the influence of the Western ideal of love and Western psychiatry, both of which only justify heterosexual relationships, Japanese intellectuals began to think that male homosexuality is “unnatural” and “immoral” “.

Subcultures of contemporary Japanese manga allow an inspiration by the ancient ways in their renewed concept and expression of “boy-love”. Japanese censorship ethics may, as is argued, “revolve around political struggles whose import is not the censoring of offensiveness per se, but is rather authoritarianism's basic yet desperate desire to assert itself in an increasingly liberal political climate”, having had “the unique side effect of creating safe spaces of sexual fantasy (for children, for example) […]” (Helms)[46]. In 1999, Diamond and Uchiyama[47] observed that “there are no specific child pornography laws in Japan and SEM [sexually explicit material] depicting minors are readily available and widely consumed. [...] Most significantly, despite the wide increase in availability of pornography to children, not only was there a decrease in sex crimes with juveniles as victims but the number of juvenile offenders also decreased significantly”.

Contemporary Japanese “boy-love” apparently includes women’s taste for ‘beautiful youths’ (bishoonen) as “androgynous [beings] who possesses a feminine sensibility and yet [experience] all the advantages of a male body” (McLelland, 2000a,b,c,d; 2001) [48] YAOI, for instance, is “an acronym formed from the first letters of the Japanese words YAma nashi [no climax], Ochi nashi [no point] and Imi nashi [no meaning] and refers to those boy-love stories in which there is less romantic plot development and more emphasis placed on the sex scenes between the male characters”.

Lolita Complex  [Japan]

With  Rorikon (rori= Lolita, kon/con= Complex) is meant the schoolgirl-craze most typically associated with Japanese middle-aged males. As Sharon Kinsella[49] notes, the Japanese iconical ‘Lolita’ is mirrored by the girls’ Cuteness (kawaii) cult. Few sociological insights are had in contemporary Occidental reading of this matter.

Reading:

§         Berndt, J. (1995) Phänomen Manga. Comic-Kultur in Japan. Berlin: Edition

§         Graham, D. (2002) Exhibit highlights battle between good and evil, Toronto Star, July 18, Ontario Edition

§         Japan hooked on Lolita fantasy; The Guardian Weekly 155,23:14-23 / 1996

§         Jones, S. (2003) Oriental Lolitas, New Statesman, 2/3/2003; 132 ;4623:38

§         Kadri, F. (2001) Japan defends freedom of expression in manga comics, Agence France Presse, December 20, 2001

§         Seward, J. (1995) Japanese Eroticism. A Language Guide to Current Comics. 2^nd ed. Houston: Yugen Press

§         The darker side of cuteness, Economist, 05/08/99; 351,8118:32

General additional refs.:

§         Carpenter, E. (1914) Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk. American edition. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, ch. 8

§         Jñanavira, Dh. (nd?) Homosexuality in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition, Western Buddhist Rev 3, at http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol3/homosexuality.html

§         Wieringa [50]

Chinese Age Stratified Patterns (®China)

Age-stratified homosexuality was said to be “a common form of relationship in many periods of Chinese history” (Hinsch, 1990:p11)[51], but is all but a clear picture. De Becker (p52, 55) observed that female pages and prostitutes were recruited as early as age five to seven years, put through an initiation at age 13 or 14. Contrary to DeMause’s claims, I have found no evidence of “child geisha’s”, the records from the early 20th century indicating 14 as the lower extreme (Dalby, 1983:p194-8).

Breiner[52] argued that ancient Chinese societies had known comparatively low levels of child “abuse”, including sexual abuse. Nevertheless, Jacobus X ([1893] 1898, I:p115)[53] states: “Like the Romans had their Pathici, Ephebi, Gemelli, Amasii, the Chinese have their sio kia a, little boys, sio kia tsia, pretty little boys […]”. In Peking, “young boys of from 11 to 12 years old are trained to the service of masculine prostitution. They are all dressed up as girls and they are taught all the coquetries of the opposite sex; these precocious debaucheses are incompletely castrated at the age of from 14 to 15 years, unhappy creatures neither men nor women”. Buschan ([1921:p249])[54] stated that, particular in Northern and coastal China, boys were prepared for prostitution from childhood on, the so-called Sian-Kôn. Drew and Drake (1969:p97-107)[55] state that the process of feminisation of boys destined to be prostitutes “began at least by the age of five and often earlier. Although a boy was sometimes purchased and trained after he was ten, it was believed impossible to achieve perfection in the training of a boy after that age”. The boys were shaped physically (muscle growth was prevented, etc.), locomotorically and philosophically in the art of pleasure.

Qing (1644-1912) rape laws had specific subcategories for successful rape of a boy between ages 10 and 12, successful rape of a boy under the age of 10, and of sexual intercourse with a boy between the ages 10 and 12 (Ng, 1987:p67)[56]. The previous author came across “cases involving the seduction of young boys or young men by their Confucian teachers, and the seduction of neophytes by Buddhist monks” (p68). It has been observed that the current negative stance toward homosexuality is for a part due to the huge impact of the West from the 19th century on. One British official (Hinsch, p141)[57] stated that “The commission of this detestable and unnatural act is attended with so little shame, or feeling of delicacy that many of the first officers of the state seemed to make no hesitation in publicly avowing it. Each of these officers is constantly attended by his pipe-bearer, who is generally a handsome boy, from fourteen to eighteen years of age, and is always well dressed”. Other sources are not so specific to age patterning. For instance, there does not appear to be a more specific picture of qixiong (older)- qidi (younger) homoerotic affiliation mentioned in scholarly writings (Ng, 1989:p85-6[58]; Leupp, 1995:p15).

Chinese boy prostitution may have been imported to America. As footnoted by Weiss (1974:p52)[59]: “Some police officers testified that occasionally young boys, 14 and under, were enticed into these houses of prostitution, but it was not a usual practice. Caucasian men, however, did frequent such establishments (Farwell, 1885:p103-4)[60]”.

Discussing the apparently low incidence of child sexual abuse, Ho and Kwok (1991)[61] argued that “[t]he Chinese pattern of childrearing from initial permissiveness to unquestioned obedience may facilitate adults using children as sexual objects”. According to Tang (2002)[62], the “suppression of sexuality in traditional Chinese culture (Goodwin & Tang, 1996) also makes it difficult for Chinese children to talk about sexual matters and articulate their sexual victimization experiences (Tang & Lee, 1999)”. “Initiated by a local feminist group in Taipei, a decade-long campaign to rescue child prostitutes has recently become successful in criminalizing patrons of child prostitutes. As a side effect, sexual abuse of children and adolescents, which has often been considered attributing to child prostitution, has recently been acknowledged as a social problem in Taiwan” (Luo, 1998)[63].

Korean Age Stratified Patterns (®Koreas)

There does not appear to be much data on the age of the Wharang (wha, flower; rang, shining purity) boys (Rutt, 1961[64]; cf. Leupp, 1995:p19); they were “often in their mid-teens” (Murray)[65]. It was said that the use of flower boys, or hua lang, was officially instituted by a Silla king in the year A.D. 576, as a replacement of female shamans[66].

Philippine Age Stratified Patterns (®Philippines)

Boy prostitution was said to have been common (Drew and Drake, 1969:p117-24)[67]. Bini boys roamed the streets dressed as girls, a phenomenon entering popular culture as a disguised theme: a Philippine “Robin” would be dragged away from attempted amorous passes at other males by “Batman”. An illustrated account of Manila street life is given by the subversive book Desert Patrol[68], apparently in celebration of boys’ liberties with tourists. Johnson (1998:p698)[69] mentions that local homosexuals (“gays”, not “paedophiles”) “call on 8 to 12-year-old boys who frequent video houses. Paying them as little as five pesos, the gays in Jolo call these boys Ha! Ha! Boys”.

Early Marriage

For South-East Asia,

“In rural areas marriages take place at an early age. A girl may be married before puberty, with the consent of her father or her father's father, with consummation awaiting her coming of age. Marriage is universal for women. Since virginity is valued, the safest course is to marry off girls while they are still very young. Marriage removes some of the restrictions on a girl's movements. It is viewed as conferring adulthood on both sexes”[70].

More specifically,

“Virginity at first marriage is a value cherished both in Hinduism and in Islam. Concern with it takes a variety of forms: ihi, or pre-pubertal ritual marriage with a bel fruit representing the god Narayan, among the Newar of Nepal (Allen 1982a); child marriage; pre-pubertal marriage with delayed consummation, widely prevalent in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh (Government of India 1974, Palriwala 1990, T. Patel 1991, L. Dube 1996); and the widespread practice of marrying off a girl as early as possible after puberty. Laws specifying the lowest permissible age at marriage exist, as in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, but they are ignored. Elsewhere in this work we discuss the preoccupation with a daughter's marriage and the marking of puberty as an important point in a girl's life. These are clearly associated with concern over the management of female sexuality. A girl must be guarded properly during the liminal period between menarche and marriage. Sexual desire is believed to awaken at puberty and to need control and harnessing” [refs. omitted][71].

Sexarche

Bozon (2003:p3)[72] overviews a sexarche timed in the late teens and early twenties; in this survey, Nepal’s seems to be earliest.

HIV / AIDS

The User of this Atlas will note that the author has not specifically focussed on medical issues per se, although some of contemporary material surfaced in the context of HIV/AIDS discussions. For USAID HIV/AIDS profiles outline country- and region-specific information on epidemiology, factors contributing to the disease's spread, challenges faced in mitigating the epidemic, national- and regional-level responses to date, and a summary of USAID-funded HIV/AIDS activities, go http://www.synergyaids.com/summaries.asp, Asia section. Also consider

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr08-00-00 (South & Southeast Asia),

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr03-00-00 (Central Asia), and

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr04-00-00 (East Asia).

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Oct. 2004