Fridae

“Masturbation will lead to mental disorders and homosexuality,” was one such lesson taught in a sex—ed textbook in China, according to HIV/AIDS activist Humphrey Wou who attended an International Conference on Sexuality in Kunming, China.

This was what one presenter reading aloud from a textbook that had been widely used in high school classrooms in the city of Hangzhou for years, he said, according to thenation.com.

“In a country where sex and sexuality remain taboo topics of discussion, such misinformation remains common,” reported thenation.com.

It reported that out of 90 Chinese science, psychology, and sex-education textbooks surveyed by the Gay and Lesbian Campus Association, a Guangzhou-based student advocacy group, 80 percent “characterized homosexuality as psychologically aberrant.”

This was despite China legalizing adult gay sex in 1997 and removing same-sex relations from an official list of psychiatric mental diseases in 2001

However, LGBT people in China have few legal protections against discrimination and still face widespread social disapproval and harassment.

“Traditional values have come back in a big way over the past decade,” Wou was quoted as saying. The government is very old-fashioned and refuses to adapt to modern times.

As China lacks a national sex-education policy, sex education varies dramatically across the country. Sex education—or “puberty education,” as the Chinese government calls it—is optional in many schools, according to thenation.com.

The curriculum is limited to biological differences between boys and girls and does not explore the social and emotional dimension of sex and sexuality, essential for entering into mature sexual relationships.

“When it comes to sex-education, most people only consider three categories: anatomy, disease/infection, and condom use,” said Wou, founder of the Youth Decoding program aimed to help young people better understand sexual and reproductive health issues.

While all students suffer from the system’s deep inadequacies, no group is as underserved by China’s sex-education system than LGBT people, the report said, adding that this leads to the group being “disproportionately affected” by HIV, syphilis and HPV.

“The concept of consent does not exist in China yet,” Wou says. “Most students are resistant to the idea or have never heard it. Students get into very heated arguments over whether it is necessary to ask for consent at every stage of sexual activity. We need to teach them how to be respectful and rational in the heat of the moment.”

A space for gay men to safely question sexuality and sexual health is rare in China, according to Wou.