More sex in China: PDA police and condom confusion

Ah, the innocence and beauty of young love: our cold, rational hearts are always warmed a bit when we see couples walking around in the throes of their first fling. Relationships are a curious time for new lovers: trying to feel each other out, learning to love and be loved, and of course, actually learning how to make love.

Apparently, it's that last part that's the catch: sex education in China seems to stop after explaining the one-child policy. Slate has a great article on the tensions between traditional values and the increasing sexual openness of Chinese society.

From Slate:

The first time Hu Jing tried to have sex with her college boyfriend, there was a technical difficulty. "We knew we had to use a condom," she said. "But we didn't know how."

Faced with this conundrum, Hu and her boyfriend went looking for answers—he from his more experienced friends, she from the university library, where she combed through Dream of the Red Chamber, a literary classic from the Qing Dynasty.

The following week, they reconvened for a second try. This time, they managed to roll on the condom but then … well, where was the penis supposed to go? It took another week of research before they succeeded in doing the deed.

It's kind of scary to think of the implications of a youthful population without any proper sexual education, but we do give Hu Jing credit for her literary impulses. On the other hand, it makes us thinkg that the Chinese education system has the right ideas on how to provide useful and effective sex ed.

Perhaps what Chinese youth really need is a sense of propriety driven into them, hall-monitor style. Sina has an article on the Communist Youth League's efforts to clean up Nanjing Forestry University's campus, specifically ridding it of affectionate couples showing their love on school grounds. The campus, which is a stop on the League's campus tour circuit, has student monitors who walk around disrupting amorous classmates who publicly display their affection. The general result has been embarrassment, for both the students and the volunteers, and a gradual forcing of lovers off campus. Which, we're sure, only serves to make the complications from a lack of sex-ed that much worse.

Sure, we can all admit it's not the best way of dealing with the situation. But with the rampant sexual profligacy stories that have been showing up on Chinese BBS sites, we're not altogether surprised that the red guards have been put on duty.

Photo from Sina