Sexual Health Issues and Their Remedies in Hong Kong

Adolescents have always been a matter of public concern as they’ll become the pillar of society. Regardless of background, ability, and belief, they have healthy bodies and minds and develop mature interpersonal relationships. They strive to pursue their ideals and exert their strengths in their respective positions, but without the psychological and physical development, how can they achieve those goals? Sexual Health of adolescents has mentioned for a long time, In 1986, Hong Kong Education Bureau published the ‘School Sex Education Guidelines’ in the Hong Kong Curriculum Development Council in order to encourage students to learn sexual knowledge, cultivate appropriate attitudes, establish values, and master various skills, also to deal with their sexual and emotional stress. But still, there was a limit to development of sex education.

It’s generally believed that current sexual education is inadequate, the sexual attitudes of adolescents are more open, they can accept premarital sex, 'one-night stand', the degree of family harmony has a profound impact on adolescents' sexual-related dangerous behaviors, and adolescents don’t have a strong sense of self-protection during sexual behavior, not opposed to homosexuality, have the mind of choosing to get married after pre-marital sex during pregnancy, curious but fearful of changes in adolescent body, lack of knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases, etc. They often obtain relevant knowledge from their peers, including friends and classmates. When encountering related problems, they often ask their peers and obtain from the Internet. The scope of sex education should not be limited to 'sex education' for sexual behavior itself, but life education for the whole person, including the development of the entire person, such as personal image, make friends, get along with the opposite sex, etc.

In terms of individuals, they have a physical and psychological understanding of their gender, affirm their gender identity, respect for the opposite sex, protect themselves, personal hygiene, etc. (especially preschool students), face physical changes in adolescence, and peer pressure on their own top quality Elementary school to junior high school students), the relationship between love, likes, and love, the meaning of marriage, the meaning of sexual intercourse (such as the most intimate whole-person connection, including love, commitment, personality, body and each part of life) and Consequences (Sexually transmitted diseases, fertility, contraceptive methods), understanding that men and women are very different, for example, they are socially different, and 'slaps their heads' on behalf of men are friendly. Expressing the most exciting peaks between men and women, whether they are getting along, planning things, different methods of caring for children, and different expressions of sex, etc. are complimentary. Under this guideline, the cases of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in adolescents keep on increasing, just like the new cases of HIV infection among adolescents, it’d increased substantially.

Many people in the community mistakenly believe that comprehensive sex education will encourage young people to have sex prematurely. However, it doesn’t mean that not let adolescents know about what 'sex' means, then they will not encounter sexual confusion and crisis, it can only help by empowering adolescents with sufficient sexual knowledge and life skills so that they can make rational judgments in love relationships and sexual behaviors, and establish positive communication skills to protect them from the threat of sexual violence, unwanted pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases.

People living with HIV have always been younger. As they are more likely to contact virus carriers through dating apps or sex workers, with their frequents of having sexual activity, it makes them more vulnerable to infection. Since Hong Kong still not make decision of the Legalization Assignment of Prostitution, which causes the difficulties of achieving safer sexual behavior, and there's no way to make sure adolescents and sex workers to use condoms for protection of preventing the spread of disease, as the government are not able to require those workers to conduct regular disease detection.

In April 2016 to March 2017, AIDS Concern Health Service Center had conducted a questionnaire with 195 young girls between 15-24 ages to understand their use rate of the condom and also the STD infection rate. They found that there only have 16%, 22%, and 29% of girls ' use a condom every time'. 20% of the young girls said they did not use condoms in connection with their partners base on those reasons: 'the partner asked not to use condoms', 'don't want to break the mood', 'not to use condoms is a' closer relationship' performance' and ' fear of making the relationship worse ', which can find that they are willing to maintain their intimacy with partner even though they have to give up the autonomy to use condoms and have the risk of STD infection. Like Platonic love, it emphasizes that the love between people should be more of a kind of spiritual communication, which does not need to be expressed through sensuality, which similar to the thought of most girls. But in order to have a good relationship with partners, it’s important to know the bottom line and learn to say no.

Faced with today's sexual health crisis, it is necessary to reform the one-sided and fragmented sex education curriculum in schools. Although the current government has repeatedly explained that sex education has been included in the curriculum of different disciplines; however, the curriculum goals of different disciplines are different, and there is a lack of a systematic sex education curriculum framework, so that sex education in many schools is only about teaching reproduction. The level of organ knowledge and talking about the consequences of sexual behavior has clearly failed to provide adolescents with adequate equipment. With the comprehensive sexuality education, it will not only prevent adolescents from having sex earlier but also effectively ensure that adolescents establish their sexual autonomy in relationships and use condoms consistently and correctly when they choose to have sex.

In order to improve this situation, there are few points about the corresponding method. First is instilling a positive message through the family. The child first learns the social roles and responsibilities of different genders from the parents, they learn new things through imitation, which is also the most primitive learning method- the Social learning theory, it’s the ‘bridge’ between traditional learning theory and the cognitive approach. The atmosphere of family harmony and the parents' perspective on the family and marriage will have a profound impact on the youth, letting parents know that only the combination of harmonious family education and school education can shape the relatively complete personality of young people.

Targeted content and diversified forms according to different age groups is also the point for adolescents to learn and grow in Sex education. It should cover the areas of safe sex, intimate relationships, love communication, gender, and sexual orientation, and combine elements such as knowledge, life skills and reflection on values to ensure that adolescents can have healthy sexual development. Apart from the substance, it should also set with different content for different age groups, including sexual physiology, sexual psychology, sexual ethics, contraceptive knowledge, and legal knowledge. In the upper grades of elementary school, some of them have undergone physiological changes and begin to sprout their sexual psychology. Physiological changes in adolescence should be taught before puberty, rather than after puberty or sexual signs so that they are more ready to welcome Changes in adolescence that can be properly understood and treated.

In terms of education, the proposal can be carried out from multiple perspectives. The schools and communities can adopt more interactive teaching methods and peer education, such as discussions and dramas, so that students can learn sexual knowledge in a relaxed manner so as to strengthen the positive impact on adolescent sexual health publicity. They can also teach adolescence how to choose the right sexual knowledge from the web and design more flexible and targeted educational activities.

Providing professional training to sexual health educators. In order to implement sex education effectively, teachers’ ideas and ability is the key factor, by training more professional sex educators, the human resources of sex education will increase, more related educator can express the message and to assist different relevant circumstances dealing with sexuality. With the widely publicized of such course, it’ll help to change peoples’ appearance of teach and learn about what is ‘sex’, inject the right ideas of ‘sex’. On internet, people used to exchange knowledge and questions about sex to the others, however, there are many irresponsible messages on these anonymous platforms, even thought they asked, they didn’t usually got the right answer for help, but with those training, it can help to create a better platform for solving their problems effectively. For example, some boys feel that their penis is too short to make their girlfriend sexual satisfied, those educators can analyze whether the accumulation of fat layers makes the penis look short, or there have any misunderstanding caused by watching pornographic videos and ask them to try different positions so as to bring excitement to his girlfriend.

Providing sexual counseling services can also help to promote the sexual health of adolescents, by setting up more specialized hotlines or emails, and provide a help system for adolescents, adolescents can consult with their questions in any time. To do a good job in the prevention of adolescent sexual health, scientific data of support is needed. This is more conducive to the in-depth and effective work of adolescents. The principle of sex education is to guide positively, deal with the problem of the right amount at the right time, and jointly create a trinity, coordinated and harmonious education environment, in-depth discussion of all aspects of 'sex', so that young people can correctly face physical and psychological changes and train young A healthy, good, and responsible attitude towards correctness will help young people to build a positive and healthy outlook on life and sexual values, and work together to create a harmonious family and society.

Apart from those solutions, UNESCO has published the latest (International technical guidance on sexuality education), which combines the state and experience of the development of sexual education in countries around the world in the last ten years, including increasing the number of key learning concepts from six to eight. Describe the different topics that each age group should accept, and how to truly grasp attitudes, skills, and knowledge. It also shows the affirmation of the implementation of comprehensive sex education and creates a chapter to explains what is CSE. It also a possibility of Hong Kong to apply in the education for adolescents which the adolescents need to have knowledge about not only ‘sex’ means but the whole development of themselves.

Proponents of sexual liberation often emphasize sexual pleasure, regard sexual desire as 'sexual needs', and restraint as 'sexual depression', and only emphasize 'safe sexual behavior' in sex education. They believe that adolescents also have 'sexual autonomy.' The country's experience, scientific understanding of the brain, and the voices of young people, the agenda of sexual liberation will bring more heavy costs to society and individuals, but sexual morality has a protective function. In a society where hedonism prevails, most people seek happiness by various means. Does the role of educators still need to teach students how to enjoy more sexual pleasure? Or do students need to be taught to make a decision that is well thought out and willing to bear the consequences? The answer is clearly to be seen.