Sex talk

How much should we tell teenagers about sex, what should we tell them, and why? These are questions being asked in the Lion City now, after students complained about four-hour 'sexuality workshops' organised at their school by the Family Life Society, a Catholic- church-based group.

The students said society demonised pre-marital sex, argued against contraception and abortion, and criticised in-vitro fertilisation. Students posted blogs and wrote to newspapers complaining that the society's information was biased towards promoting Catholic dogma rather than presenting all the facts. In a country where there are more than 2,000 teenage pregnancies a year and the level of abortion among teenagers is high, there is obviously a need for some kind of sex education. But balancing conservative Asian values against the realities of 21st-century city life is proving difficult.

The issue of the 'birds and the bees' was even discussed in Parliament, where a young MP called on the Ministry of Education to redefine the way schools taught teenagers about sex. He pointed out: 'The truth is, many of our teenagers are having sex'. The response of the government was non-committal: a senior official defended current sex education efforts as being in step with the nature of Singaporean society.

A survey of sexually active teenagers by the local Sunday Times found that the majority had had sex before the age of 16; most didn't use protection; and none of those surveyed had told their parents. The myth that local youths are prudish computer geeks was further destroyed by a recent scandal when a 17-year old Nanyang Polytechnic student's explicit mobile phone sex video found its way onto the internet after the phone was stolen.

Increasingly, sex before marriage is seen as perfectly acceptable by local youth. This is not surprising, given that the average marrying age in Singapore is 30 for men and 27 for women.

But sex education is an issue not just with the young here. Recently, I was confronted with a new government campaign to lift the taboo of talking about erectile dysfunction. Pamphlets and stickers showing a thumbs-up or thumbs-down have been plastered about as part of a new, nationwide campaign to encourage men who have sex-related problems to talk to their doctor.