Research on Chinese attitudes toward

premarital Sex
As we all know, Chinese people are always considered to be
conservative on premarital sex. In Americans impression, Chinese
usually avoid talking these kinds of sexual topics deliberately in a
certain extent. Nevertheless, according to my research on Chinese
attitudes toward premarital sex, Chinese attitudes toward
premarital sex may have a huge evolution. Furthermore, they also
point out the society changes is the reason of this evolution. On the
other side, they also find out that adolescents attitudes toward
premarital sex are always open. Thus, the sexual education on
adolescents are significantly important.
Yan (2002) points out that premarital sex was a social taboo that
was carefully observed by generations of young villagers. ( pp. 4546) The premarital sex was banned from the parents and the culture
of that village. The young villagers used to be ashamed about
premarital sex. According to Yans survey (2002), premarital sex was
rare during the 1950s and 1960s, because of the strong expectation
of bridal virginity. On the other side, couples had limited space and
time to be intimate beyond the watchful eyes of family members
and other people in the village at that time. (para.4 ) According to
Yan (2002), official ideology throughout the first three decades of
socialism opposed premarital sex, denouncing it as the product of

corrupt attitudes (para.4 ). However, as the social improved, the

relative open attitude toward premarital sex has spread into the
village. Although the old men in villages still opposed to premarital
sex, the young villages had changed their attitudes. Increasingly
young villages try their first premarital sex. As a result, we can
conclude from Yans article that most villages in the remote village
had changed their attitude toward premarital sex. Since the
attitudes in remote place are always the latest to change, we can
tell that most people in main cities in China mostly have changed
their conservative attitudes toward premarital sex
(Yan,2002,para.5 )
The former article indicates the evolution of Chinese attitudes
toward premarital sex and explains why Chinese attitudes toward
premarital sex used to be conservative. Chang, Hayter & Lin (2014)
focuse on specific groupadolescents attitudes toward premarital
sex. It is more specific compared to the former article. According to
this article, the researchers conducted a study among Taiwanese
school students attitudes toward sexual relationships and
premarital sex. The main study comprised the following three
dimensions: external incentives, the developmental process, and
internal control. (Chang, Hayter, Lin. 2014. Para 3.) They found out
that most adolescents are in favor of premarital sex. There are three
main reasons for their support. First, increasingly students in the
school had premarital sex and someone even had a baby. So,

premarital sex seemed pretty normal and nothing special to

adolescents. Second, adolescents felt inferior if they had no
premarital sex experience, but their friends had. In order to join the
discussion on the premarital sex among friends, they would choose
to have premarital sex. Last, adolescents thought premarital sex
was an adult thing and they just wanted to do some adult things.
Besides that, the article also points out the consequence of this
open attitude toward premarital sex among students is related to
sexual health. (Chang, Hayter, Lin. 2014. Para 5.) The article
referred that increasingly students found prostitutes in order to have
this sex experience. The sex impulse drove adolescents to be
increasingly curious about premarital sex and most of them are
willing to try it. Therefore, they would found prostitutes and
someone even rape the girls if they were not willing to do premarital
sex. With information provided in the research, their attitudes
toward premarital sex are quite open. However, when the
environment couldnt satisfy their demand they may make a crime.
(Chang, Hayter, Lin. 2014. Para 5.)
The former article perfectly explains the adolescents attitudes
toward premarital sex and also points out some extreme situation of
this attitude. Nevertheless, it does not explain the reasons, which
form these harmful behaviors. Zhang, Li, & Shah (2007) added that,
improper education on premarital sex may lead to extreme
behaviors among adolescents. The authors thought Sex education in

China has been promoted for many years, but limited data are
available regarding the sources from which adolescents receive sex
related knowledge. (Zhang, Li, Shah. 2007.para 5) As a result, they
conducted a survey and found out most adolescents acknowledged
knowledge about premarital sex form Internet. According to the
article, most resources about premarital sex on the Internet are
quite violent and pornographic, which was harmful to adolescents
sexual education. They would imitate those improper behaviors they
learned from the internet (Zhang, Li, Shah. 2007.para 7).
Consequently, the article points out that improper sexual education
will do harm to the adolescents and may lead to an extreme
situation such as crimes. They also mention that the good sexual
education should from parents and teachers. Nevertheless, Chinese
society and educational circle lacked sexual education on teenagers,
which formed some extreme behaviors mentioned in the former
article. (Zhang, Li, Shah. 2007.para 5)
All these articles mention that Chinese attitudes toward premarital
sex had a significant change. Furthermore, they all agree that
adolescents are the largest group who most likely to have premarital
sex. However, three articles have their own limitations that first
article only talk about the premarital attitudes of villages. The
second article aimed at the research of adolescents attitudes
toward premarital sex. While the third article focuses on why
improper sex education would cause extreme behaviors. However, it

doesnt point out how to improve this lack of sex education in China.
For this purpose, I would do more researches on how to properly
guide premarital sex among Chinese.
References
Chang Yu-ting, Hayter Mark & Lin Mei-ling. (December 2014),
Chinese Adolescents Attitudes Toward Sexual Relationships and
Premarital Sex Implications for Promoting Sexual Health, Retrieved
from http://jsn.sagepub.com/content/30/6/420
Li-ying Zhang, Xiaoming Li and Iqbal H. Shah(2007), Where do
Chinese adolescents obtain knowledge of sex? Implications for sex
education
in
China,
351-363.
Doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09654280710759269
Yan yuxiang. (July 2002), Courtship, Love and Premarital Sex in a
North China Village, pp. 1-53. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3182440?
origin=crossref&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents