Submitted by admin on Thu, 2005-11-24 09:00. ::
More than a third of young people surveyed in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, have said premarital sex is acceptable, China Daily reported on Thursday.
In a survey of 391 citizens aged between 16 and 25, 36 percent said they accepted sex before marriage. However, 46 percent of the interviewees considered premarital sex intolerable, while 18 percent were unsure, saying it depended on the state of the relationship.
The survey, completed last week, was jointly conducted by the Jiangsu branch of Marie Stopes International (MSI), a London-based international non-governmental organization providing sexual and reproductive health information, and the provincial population and family planning commission.
This was followed by the theory that "premarital sex would help lovers find out whether they were truly suited to each other and can be happily married in the future."
The results echoed those of a National Population and Family Planning Commission survey in October which found that more than one third of young people in China see premarital sex as good preparation for married life.
According to a report released by the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission in 2004, premarital health checkups by the city in 2003 found that 69 percent of fiances in Shanghai had premarital sex.
According to Li Yinhe, an expert in gender studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, soaring premarital sex symbolizes the sexual liberation in China, especially among young people.
"Instead of considering premarital sex immoral, as society has considered conventionally, youngsters are now pursuing personal enjoyment," said Li at a recent lecture in Guangzhou.
However, if youngsters lack vital sex education, this sexual liberation could lead to a growth in various social problems, including a rise in abortions, experts warned.
"Compared with the rising interest in premarital sex among the young, their knowledge of healthy sex sees no evident improvement. Some of them don't know the basics of contraception, " Xu Pei, an expert from Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Hospital, was cited by the China Daily as saying.
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