Premarital Sex 'Degrades' Girls, Says Sexist Chinese Sex-Ed Textbook
A Chinese school textbook, ironically published by 21st Century Publishers, has found itself the center of an Internet frenzy for its backwards sex-ed teachings.
The book claims that “premarital sex has a tremendous negative psychological and physical impact on girls.” That's right, just on girls. Not boys.
It goes on to warn girls that they actually will not increase the amount of love they receive from boys but will actually be seen as "degraded" by their "conquerers." Yes, their "conquerers."
As a result, "sexual relations can cause women to lose love."
AHHHHHH!! LOSE THE LOVE OF MY CONQUERER?! NOOO!! MUST STRAP ON CHASTITY BELT IMMEDIATELY!
The sex-ed book has been around for years but the debate about its prehistorically sexist teachings started when a teacher in Southern China decided to post some of the passages onto Weibo (a Twitter-like platform popular in China).
The post immediately sparked an uproar in the Weibo community with people responding with posts such as this one, “Why does this discrimination only point to women? What about men?" Heard that!
Or this absolutely disgruntled user, “Instead of insinuating and making innuendos, sex education should aim at protection and safety. Publishing textbook like this, these educators are sick!” Amen!
In an interview with Time, Li Yinhe, a sexologist at the Institute of Sociology at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explained that the textbook echoed "archaic Chinese beliefs."
She explained that China does not have one unified stance on sexual education, leaving it up to each province to determine what sort of teachings they will provide students with. This leaves some educators, such as the ones at this school in Southern China with the freedom to teach what she refers to as their "obviously wrong" old views to young students.
According to China's Global Times newspaper, the 21st Century Publishing Group denies that the book is insulting to women and 2,000 copies of the sex-ed book have reportedly been released to students in Jiangxi.
Citations: School textbooks call girls having premarital sex 'cheap' (Global Times), A Chinese Sex-Ed Textbook Says Girls Are 'Degraded' by Premarital Sex (Time)
