In China, debate on sex, privacy, values

[tonado]

In China, debate on sex, privacy, values

 

By Philip Pan, Washington Post, 2/23/2003

 

CHONGQING, China -- He is the son of poor farmers from a small village in southern China, a shy computer student as thin as a stick. She is the daughter of Communist Party officials in Beijing, a bubbly law major with a rosy, round face. On a mountain campus in this huge city in central China, they fell in love.

 

They flirted in the dining hall, held hands at the movies, enjoyed romantic strolls along the lumbering Yangtze River. Like college sweethearts around the world, Louis Lin and Mary Ma eventually lost their virginity together, too.

 

Then in October, Ma discovered she was pregnant. Her doctor notified the college, and officials enforced a longstanding policy at universities across China: Students caught having sex before marriage must be expelled.

 

Instead of breaking up and returning home in shame like countless young couples before them, Ma and Lin decided to fight back. They called reporters and took their college to court.

 

The 19-year-old sophomores at the Chongqing University of Post and Telecom have touched off a rare public debate about sex, privacy, and traditional values in this rapidly modernizing society. On television and the Internet, in newspapers across the country, people in China have been discussing what one sympathetic commentator described as ''a simple story of love and courage.''

 

''At first, we were worried about going public,'' said Ma, who has not been named by Chinese media and asked that she and her boyfriend be identified by the English first names they use with foreigners to protect their privacy. ''But China is changing. With economic development comes social progress, so it's natural that people's views on sex should change, too. The problem is the university isn't keeping up.''

 

''I don't think there's anything improper about what we did,'' Lin added, his hand grasping his girlfriend's as he spoke. ''And anyway, it's a private affair. The school shouldn't be involved at all.''

 

Thousands of people, young and old, have responded to the couple's story by flooding newspapers with letters and phone calls and plastering the Internet with messages. Some condemned ''the Western sexual revolution'' and argued that ''college shouldn't be a sexual amusement park.'' But the vast majority supported the couple and blasted the school for being old-fashioned.

 

''Hey, wake up! It's the 21st century already!'' said Christine Liang, 23, a graduate student at Beijing University.

 

''What's the point of expelling them? Everyone knows young people are doing this kind of thing,'' said Liu Xiaoli, 52, a cabdriver with a teenage daughter in Chongqing, 930 miles west of Shanghai. ''And at college, when you have so many healthy young people together, it's natural.''

 

Conservative sexual mores have dominated in China for more than 500 years. At one time, unmarried men and women were not permitted even to shake hands. After the Communist revolution in 1949, the party added a political element, labeling recreational sex a decadent pastime and ''a bourgeois evil.'' Communes sometimes required husbands and wives to live apart and adultery became a serious offense.

 

But since the economic reforms of the 1980s, China has been experiencing a sexual revolution, fueled by an opening to the outside world and the party's retreat from people's personal lives. Couples are no longer afraid to hold hands or kiss in public. Form-fitting fashions have replaced drab suits. Prostitution and pornography, nearly eradicated in the 1950s, are back in force.

 

Such rapid change has caused significant social strains, because a deep conservative streak still runs through much of Chinese society, especially its government and educational institutions. Sex education, as it is understood in the West, is virtually unheard of in China. Condom ads are banned from public places in many cities. And party officials regularly launch campaigns against ''spiritual pollution.''

 

The ambivalence is perhaps best illustrated by the brisk business many Chinese hospitals do in a procedure to ''repair'' a woman's hymen and make it appear she is a virgin. Do-it-yourself hymen repair kits also are sold in many of the more than 2,000 shops specializing in sexual aids. One shop in Chongqing reports selling 30 to 40 kits every week.

 

''Most people in society have begun to change their views about sex, but there is a tension because many of the people in charge, especially at the local level, have not,'' said Ma's father, Ma Zheng, a government lawyer. Ma said he was surprised and angry when his daughter called and told him she was going to be expelled for having sex. But he eventually came around to her arguments and now expresses pride in her courage. He agreed to represent her and her boyfriend in court.

 

''It's a sign of progress for China that an ordinary person like my daughter can now challenge the authorities,'' he said. ''When I was a college student, no one would have dared do anything like that.''

 

 

This story ran on page A20 of the Boston Globe on 2/23/2003.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

[AZwolfman]

This kind of thing used to happen frequently in the U.S. --- back in the 60's.

[JonInDenver]

it's a tough one... one of the things i LOVE about my wife are her strong morals, and her staunch conservative upbringing. so i don't like seeing china slide into the type of openness we see here in the states.

 

at the same time... as americans we couldn't imagine a government or a business or a school that could punish a person for their activities outside of that institution. heck, i don't know anyone who would have a job, or an education if these rules were applied here.

[AZwolfman]

My thoughts exactly, Jon. I couldn't have said it better.