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SCMP Reporter

CHINESE couples in Hong Kong are making love less often than couples in the West, according to research by doctors in two hospitals in the territory.

  Doctors at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin and the Caritas Medical Centre in Kowloon interviewed 150 pregnant women as part of a study on sexual behaviour in pregnancy.

  ''At any time local couples are having sexual intercourse less frequently than in Western populations overseas, but the difference is even more pronounced during pregnancy, said Dr Christopher Haines, senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynecology at the Prince of Wales Hospital and leader of the study.

  The women, interviewed privately by female doctors, were asked how frequently they made love before pregnancy and during the first, second and third trimesters before giving birth.

  Dr Haines has compared the data with that collected from similar studies in the United States.

  Just under 10 per cent of the Hong Kong women said that before their pregnancy they had intercourse less than once a week, compared with 1.3 per cent in the United States, 67.6 per cent reported making love between once and twice a week compared with 29.3 per cent of the Western women.

  In contrast, 59.3 per cent of the women in America said they made love between three and seven times a week, compared with 22.5 per cent of the women here, while 10 per cent of the Americans reported having sex more than seven times a week, compared withno local women.

  Dr Haines conceded that the figures from the United States, based on research conducted in the same manner, did seem high. ''We were prepared to keep the study going longer but the difference was so enormous that we did not need to.

  ''It is our impression that the data we collected was genuine,'' he said.

  Dr Haines was reluctant to speculate as to the reasons for relatively low sexual activity. ''Maybe it has to do with the long hours people work and the crowded living conditions,'' he said.

  The research findings suggest that conservative attitudes to sex are still prevalent, despite an increase in pre-marital sex during the last few years. In the study, just under three-quarters of the women had only one sexual partner, which was their spouse while 19.5 per cent had two. Only one woman reported having as many as five.

  Dr Haines said studies in the West would show a significantly higher number of sexual partners.

  Of the 150 pregnant women interviewed for the study, 98.1 per cent were married, but only 58.9 per cent said their pregnancies were planned. ''This suggests there is a problem with the contraception we are offering,'' he said.

  Condoms were the most common form of contraception used by the women, 44 per cent saying they used that method compared with 14 per cent for the oral contraceptive pill. But 24.6 per cent said they had never practised contraception.

  The frequency of intercourse and orgasm was found to be higher among younger women, while less educated women also reported more frequent orgasms than educated.

 Another finding was that women showed no particular desire to conceive in a particular month or year to coincide with favoured dates of the Chinese calendar.

  Johanna Chan, a counsellor with the Personal and Marriage Guidance Council, said that traditional attitudes towards sex were still widespread in Hong Kong, though younger women were becoming more liberal.

  ''Many women think having sex is a horrible, mechanical and painful thing. They have this preconceived idea that it is what men want, and not something to enjoy. Women don't know much about touching and foreplay.''   With sex being such a taboo subject, men sought facts by turning to pornography, which did not teach them about love, she said.



Sexual adversity in Hong Kong