Sex education experts accused Hong Kong authorities of being “highly unprofessional” and perpetuating a victim-blaming bias. The teaching materials urge secondary school students to control their urges, abstain from premarital sex and “avoid visual stimulation through sexy clothing.”
Saturday’s sharp criticism came a day after the Education Department defended proposals published last month for teaching materials on civics, economics and society for students in grades one through three. The materials stressed the need to empower students to “make responsible decisions.”
The materials said students should define their boundaries and control their sexual impulses. If a boy and a girl had intimate physical contact that aroused desire, they should either “leave the scene immediately” or go play badminton together.
The 70-page document states that anyone who cannot cope with problems such as “pregnancy outside of a marital relationship, legal consequences and emotional stress” should “firmly reject” premarital sex.
Reverend Peter Koon Ho-ming, a politician and former member of the Curriculum Development Council, believes it would make sense for authorities to put a limit on premarital sex and take a more conservative stance toward rebellious teenagers.
“Of course, if you talk about it in a university course, you’ll be considered an idiot and it won’t work. But when we’re talking to children aged 12 to 14 who are in the middle of puberty, you’d better set a stricter (standard),” he said.
However, Koon also found that some of the examples contained in the document were “really quite strange.”
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One scenario portrayed a teenage couple celebrating the first month of their relationship with a movie night, with the boy hoping to kiss his girlfriend after drinking some wine and feeling “hot and excited.”
The document discusses the consequences of the girl accepting the advances, noting that “sexual behaviour may occur when sexual impulses are aroused by touching” and that the girl “is at risk of pregnancy outside of marriage”.
The recommended “avoidance and distraction” response was to “take a walk in the park” and “enjoy the sight of the flowers and trees.”
Doris Chong Tsz-Wai, executive director of the Association Against Sexual Violence Against Women, said the materials ignore the important thought process that gives young people the opportunity to identify their own will and clearly express their consent.
“In the area of sex education, we want to show them whether they know what their needs are and what options they have,” she said.
“(The authors of the document) seem very concerned that once young people feel sexual urges, they will have sex, have children and get into a very messy and disastrous situation. But is that the only way out?”
In a simulated exercise in the materials, students acting as “love experts” are also instructed to tell a 15-year-old teenage couple to “dress appropriately to present a healthy image and avoid visual stimulation from sexy clothing.”
Chong feared that including such messages would reinforce the bias against victims that is often seen in the city.
Doris Chong Tsz-Wai, executive director of the Association Against Sexual Violence Against Women, said the missing materials lack content that helps young people develop their own will. Photo: Yik Yeung-man
Professor Diana Kwok Kan, a sex therapist and researcher specialising in gender studies at the Hong Kong University of Education, found that 27 percent of the materials referred to brochures from the Family Planning Association and rarely referred to real and current scientific studies.
Some of the publications cited in the document were published more than 30 years ago, she noted. One theory is presented in the document without a source and “its theoretical limitations, which many scientists have pointed out, have not been taken into account.”
“Sex education research has begun to understand that gender can be non-binary, and the new guidelines have failed to adequately address the reality of sex and gender in young people. It is very unprofessional and confusing that they did not conduct a scientific literature review for an official textbook,” she said.
“The 1997 sex education guidelines were conceptually much better, but now they are regressing. Sex has gone from being the ‘foundation of a good life’ to an obsession with ‘control.'”
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In an earlier statement, the office rejected the accusation that it was “unrealistic.”
“Some comments claimed that sex education in Hong Kong has not kept pace with the development of modern society. The office must point out that this view is wrong,” it said on its website on Friday.
“The concept of sexuality education in the Hong Kong school curriculum is to develop students into people with comprehensive values and to enable them to make informed and responsible decisions on sexual issues in the future when their minds and abilities are mature.”
It was said that schools must be instructed to strengthen students’ self-protection awareness and cultivate their attitudes of self-discipline and law-abidingness.
“Although there are different opinions in society on the issue of premarital sex, we should provide adequate protection to underage students and remind them that Hong Kong’s laws provide harsh penalties for sexual crimes,” it says.
