CCTV sex education programme sparks controversy
Reporters elicit embarrassing responses during street interviews assessing parents' attitudes towards sex education for young children
A controversial state television programme promoting sexual education for children as young as kindergarten age has spurred a heated debate about how far mainlanders should go to shed their shyness about sex.
The special report on China Central Television on Tuesday made its case for early-stage sexual education with a series of man-in-the-street interviews in which reporters surprised their subjects with such provocative questions as: "How did you come into this world?" and "When did you first understand sex?"
Some people immediately turned away, while others replied with the untruths their parents had told them about their origins.
One middle-age woman at a breakfast stall said her mother told her that she had been found on a pile of stones, adding: "I don't believe a word of that." She later told her own son he was found on the side of the road.
Two tourists said their parents told them they sprung from holes in the ground. Another said his mother told him he jumped from under a rock while she was herding goats.
A university student said she spent years believing that she had come from her mother's armpit. "I knew nothing about sex until college," she said. "It has taken me a long time to overcome the embarrassment and fear to embrace the idea of sex."