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500 BCE
The Influence of Confucianism
Confucian ideology emphasized the need for filial piety and dutifulness in marriage. Marriage was required to render sexual activity valid and lawful, disobedience was met with reprisal. -
400 BCE
Attitude to Sexuality in Ancient China
China has predominantly been a patriarchal, patrilineal society influenced by Confucianism values and ideas.
Adultery and other crimes related to sexual activity deemed “licentious” or promiscuous were harshly punished. During the dynastic era adultery was dealt with sternly: male sexual offenders found themselves castrated and subsequently forced to work as eunuchs, while offending women sent into seclusion. -
100
Attitude to Sexuality in the Han Dynasty
The act of castration during the Han Dynasty was also sometimes used as a sentence in cases where the court and emperor were merciful, as it was considered the second-worst punishment after death. -
Jan 1, 1368
Attitude to Sexuality in the Ming Dynasty
Historically China has had a tolerance to prostitution and official promotion of it. Courtesans evolved from non-sexual companions of the social and cultural elite throughout the dynastic period. This phenomen is also linked to state control of sex and sexuality. -
Prostitution in the Latter Dynasties
The Ming and Qing dynasties began to transform and institutionalize commercial and non-commercial prostitution concurrently with the emergence of the trading and merchant classes within China.
Prostitution in this sense becomes important as it relates to elitist masculinity and is only documented from a hierarchical point of view focusing on the upper echelons of society. At one point there was a dual operation of the sex trade in both government and private enterprises. -
Attitude to Sexuality during the Chinese Revolution
The revolutionary reform under a Communist regime allows women and men in marriage to be on an equal footing, with an emphasis on family values. One effect of this was to put an end to polygamy and the keeping of mistresses. -
Attitude to Sexuality in the Kuomintang period
The need for a sexual education highlighted the ruling Kuomintang’s desire for sensual enlightenment, as it believed the aforementioned changes were necessary to restore a sense of culture and identity in modern China. The Kuomintang and the Communist Party both declared themselves the only true moral authority on sexual conduct, dismissing the rival faction as licentious and morally bankrupt. -
The influence of Communist Party
The state became the keeper of the sexual realm, determining sexuality by putting into practice the greater role it envisaged for women in the new socialist society. Policy implementation and state-driven mechanisms encouraged female involvement in the workplace. Through the reeducation of prostitutes into industrial contributors to socialism, their role became vital to the mission of the party-state. -
Mao's government cracked down on prostitutes
By November 1949, legislation was passed to close all the brothels in Beijing. Within two months of the founding of the PRC, a series of policies adopted by the central communist authorities outlawing prostitution resulted in the closure of some 20 brothels in Beijing, the “salvation” of 1,200 prostitutes, and the sentencing of more than 300 brothel owners and pimps. Throughout the country prostitutes were rounded up and sent to special detention centers to cure them of “venereal disease”. -
Establishment of the Ministry of Health
In 1949, a health ministry was established to not only to improve national health and welfare but also enforce its opposition to contraception, sterilization and abortions.
Sex had become the state’s concern. -
Attitude to Sexuality in the Mao's Era
Women increasingly assumed positions of influence in society and Maoist propaganda reinforced the notion of equality as women began to enter the workforce, taking on professions that were traditionally the domain of men. The state emphasized destroying the traditional barriers which had hampered women, and allowed women to become tools of socialist production rather than just tools of procreation. -
The New Marriage Law
The new law was not only the law account for the provision of marriage and divorce, but also is a legal statement on monogamy, equal rights of both sexes, and on the protection of the lawful interests of women and children.
Article 96 of the legislation stated: “Women in the People’s Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social, and domestic life.” Marriage became an institution that the state aligned to its socialist goals. -
Attitude to Sexuality during the Cultural Revolution
Sex was viewed as shameful and as an act of individualism that challenged the ideology of collectivism. The act itself was permitted as a tool for socialist procreation. It was “sex for reproduction”, not “sex for pleasure”, what transformed women back into tools of reproduction.The pre-marital sex was considered immoral. Homosexuality was illegal and would be punished under the statute of “hooliganism”. Suspected homosexuals were sentenced to a minimum three years’ hard labor and reeducation. -
National Ministry of Birth
The "Opening Up" China to the world came along with birth control policy. Due to population control, the new, Deng Xiaoping's regime created a separate ministry known as the National Ministry for Birth.
Government attitudes towards sex during the reformist era tended to use a perspective that merely focused on sexual morality aligned with socialist ideals. -
The One-Child Policy
In the year 1981, as the legislation and implementation of the One-Child Policy took hold, there was a vast turnaround in the discourse of sex and public perceptions. The policy limited couples to one child, and violation resulted in fines, pressures to abort, and even potentially forced sterilization for second or subsequent pregnancies.
The divorcing of sex from procreation was necessary so as to strengthen the bonds of marriage after a single child was born. -
Sex Education in Contemporary China
Since the advent of the Internet in China, people in China are becoming more exposed to international influences and ideas regarding sex and sexuality. -
Sex Education at Schools
Chinese youth take lessons on puberty at secondary school but these lessons are brief and gender segregated. Into high school, sexual education is vaguely covered through basic biology of human reproduction. Sometimes the topic is not even talked about in class, in which students are only told to read about the subject from home.
This sexual education is usually only covered in more urban areas, leaving rural areas of China with virtually no sexual education at all. -
Sex Education at Colleges
Some colleges provide more sexual education courses that include discussions on contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and infections, abortion, childbirths, and medical methods to help stay healthy when sexually active. However, these courses still skip over various topics due to social and cultural stigma, and the fear that sex will be encouraged. The courses are also never required. -
The National Health and Hygiene Curriculum
In 2008 the Ministry of Education included sex education in the national health and hygiene curriculum.
