Just imagine it: You're wolfing down mouthfuls of chilled mango and banana to beat the heat when suddenly you switch on the TV to hear a legislator railing against sex education in high school.
The legislator is the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Kuo Su-chun (
Next, you're hunting for a mop to clean up the almighty mess of half-digested yellow stuff you've chundered all over the living room floor, all the while thinking: Why would a KMT legislator use a biblical allusion to keep teenagers ignorant of their bodily functions?
The weird thing about sex is that most people like it. And many want to try it out when they reach this obscure phase of their lives called "puberty." Unhappily, for most hapless youngsters, puberty coincides with being in a place called "high school."
And normally, that's where the state comes in.
After decades of ignoring sex education, Taiwan is blessed with what some call Asia's highest rate of teen pregnancy. This mightn't matter so much were it not for the fact that Taiwan also has one of the highest rates of abortion in Asia, even as our modernization and wealth make betrothal less attractive and threaten to push the average marrying age for men and women above 30.
So, the government is trying to do something about it by upgrading the personal development curriculum in high schools. This is presumably to empower the kids by preventing pregnancy and making them reflect on their sexual behavior in an intelligent, responsible and mutually respectful fashion.
But oh no, says expert-on-all-things-carnal Kuo, it's all fruit -- and it's forbidden.
The problem is, fruit tastes great. If Kuo and her ilk who warn against teen sexuality had any intelligence they would steer clear of the Bible, instead warning against tasting the "forbidden gas pipe," or maybe the "forbidden latrine." That imagery would horrify slower developers into chaste submission.
But if you think Kuo was satisfied with patronizing the nation's horny teenagers, then you're wrong. Even teachers cop a blast: Apparently, they lack the expertise and experience to teach sex education.
What's that supposed to mean? That Taiwanese teachers make up one big virgins' club?
And the best thing is -- wait for it -- Kuo sits on the legislative Education and Culture Committee.
Why is it that so many people drone on and on and on about what young people shouldn't do but never present their own libidinous CV for us to emulate? If these guys are such experts, then why not be icons of carnal morality and tell us when they had sex the first time, how uncomfortable it was, what they cleaned themselves with afterwards, what turns them on, what sexy undergarments they prefer and indeed whether or not their orgasms are really worth writing home about?
The problem with this, of course, is that so many of these would-be models of sexual virtue can't afford to tell the truth about themselves, because then we would end up with a sleazy sequence of drunken seductions, extramarital affairs, dysfunctional relationships, sexual dystopia, hysterical break-ups and venereal disease courtesy of hubby's Southeast Asian business trips.
The KMT is a modern party: It must be wondering how to deal with the paradox of delayed sex education. I suspect Kuo would suggest revitalizing the China Youth Corps' Personal Development wing. Male members of the youth corps, once they turn 18, could learn about the inevitability of Chinese unification, the glorious history of the KMT and how to negotiate the hymen. The name of the course? "Three Principles of the Penis" or the "Three Wei Doctrine" (三ㄨㄟ主義): Hygiene (weisheng 衛生), Orientation (weizhi 位置) and Fortitude (weiergang 威而剛).
Come to think of it, these would make good street names in Taipei City under a new KMT mayor trying to revitalize the glory days of dogmatic streetscapes: Fortitude North Rd Sec 2 ... Hygiene Boulevard ... No. 69 Orientation Street. Come on Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), let yourself go, big boy!
Female members of the China Youth Corps would attend a different program, "How to Defer to Men in an Era of Growing Gender Equality."
This would include standard courses in maintaining a home and raising children, as well as tips on avoiding sex before marriage ("Always take your parents on a date; if they're unavailable, know when to start a silent sulking fit" and "It's patriotic for your boyfriend to lose it with the regiment's hooker during military service") and steering clear of divorce ("Another affair? Your husband was the victim" and "Middle-aged men who wear singlets in public are sexy").
The young ladies would be reminded, however, that if the budding groom is the child of an influential gangster-cum-politician, then it's OK to fall pregnant well before turning 18 -- and to expect top KMT officials at the shotgun wedding.
But don't think that the pan-green camp doesn't have its share of tedious, sex-hating wowsers. And this is a shame, tactically speaking. It may be in their interests to overcome the formidable percentage of Hoklo voters who vote for the pan-blue camp by performing ethnic stacking in selected electorates.
Taiwan-conscious kids in marginal seats, procreate your brains out! In wedlock, out of wedlock: It doesn't matter as long as you get those green votes in the bag -- even if you have to wait two decades for the payoff.
If the pan-green camp knew what was good for it, it would revisit that neglected second lecture in the Three Principles of the People warning of national annihilation if the Chinese population is not hastily increased (China now has, what, 1.3 billion people? They don't call Sun Yat-sen (
If they did this, in time, Taiwan would no longer sit near the bottom of the "duration of lovemaking" category in the Durex Global Sex Survey every year; wives would no longer need to learn how to striptease to excite their jaded husbands (see the Taipei Times' front page photo on May 29); and pan-green-camp kids would take over the schools, where the pro-Taiwan parent-teacher associations would, for example, approve The Carnal Prayer Mat (
Meanwhile, the pan-blue camp's teen sex police would become ever more strident, resulting in its supporters having higher rates of sexual neurosis, inbreeding and all the other markers of an imperial elite in decline.
Fantasy, I hear you splutter? It all depends on whether you have the guts to make your fantasies come true, dear reader.
One thing you can be sure of: They may act like honorary virgins, but media tarts who rant against teens having sex yet block programs that encourage them to be accountable for their behavior are usually the same people who spend a lifetime deflecting the issues that bring real suffering to a nation.
So I say: To all you honorary virgins, thanks for nothing.
Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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