Survey finds teens are ill-informed about sex issues
More than 40pc of students don't know that condoms can protect against HIV
A survey has shown that teenagers are as ill-informed about sex as ever, although the government said it had in recent years stepped up efforts to promote sex education in schools.
More than 40 per cent of the 3,227 secondary school students polled in the latest survey on adolescent sexuality commissioned by the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation said they did not know that condoms protected against venereal diseases and HIV.
A similar percentage of the group had misconceptions about the functioning of the male sex organ.
Nearly half of the students wrongly thought that a woman could not become pregnant if she had sex while she was menstruating.
Detailed findings of the survey, which was conducted between July and February, will be released later this year.
Catherine Tang So-kum, professor of psychology at Chinese University of Hong Kong and head of the survey, said the findings were consistent with similar surveys conducted in previous years. She doubted the effectiveness of the government's sex education policy.
'Whether adults like it or not, teenagers are now maturing earlier than before because of their wider exposure and better living standards. If the government does little and parents and teachers do not talk to their kids about sex, they will very likely explore it themselves and end up [with] inaccurate information from others,' said Professor Tang.
About 20 per cent of the students polled said they had access to books, websites, and movies carrying pornographic material.
The survey also found that teenagers believed in many sexual myths they learnt from the media.
Professor Tang said the misconceptions would lead to relationship problems, low self-esteem, and unwanted pregnancies if not corrected. The results also related to her earlier findings that sexual harassment among peers was on the rise.
She said many students did not regard the touching and fondling of genitals as harassment. 'If nobody explains to them that the act is a form of harassment, they might do the same to other people when they grow up,' she said.
The majority of those surveyed also said they did not discuss sexual issues with their family.
Fewer than 20 per cent of teenagers said they discussed sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution, sexual intercourse and pornography with family members. Only 15 per cent said they had discussed contraception or abortion with their relatives.
Although the findings showed that parents tended to talk to their daughters more about sex than their sons, boys were found to have a slightly more accurate view about sexual matters.
Professor Tang put it down to boys having a more open attitude.
'Many of the boys were laughing and excited when they talked about sex. But we had to spend a lot of time to encourage the girls to speak up in the interviews,' she said.
