Textbook description of masturbation condemned

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter, with CNA

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei city councilors yesterday decried sex education materials created by the Taipei Department of Education for sixth graders that contain what they said are inappropriate explanations of masturbation.

At a news conference in Taipei, KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Chih-bin (汪志冰) quoted a passage from a pamphlet used for sixth-grade sex education that said: “Masturbation is the act of touching your genitals in a way that makes you feel good... It is normal to masturbate, as it forms an important part of one’s adolescence.”

The pamphlet was created by the department in 2001 and used by an elementary school in her constituency, Wang said.

Accompanied by 30 parents opposed to the way the pamphlet was compiled, Wang said that some constituency voters expressed concerns about male and female students engaging in conversations about masturbation.

Saying that movies are subject to a rating system, KMT Taipei City Councilor Wu Shih-cheng (吳世正) asked why a similar system has not been put in place for learning materials.

It is inappropriate to teach students things they are not meant to know at their ages; sex education is not meant to help students explore their sexualities, he said.

Department Chief Secretary Liao Wen-ching (廖文靜) said that under the Gender Equality Education Act (性別平等教育法), elementary and junior-high schools are required to allocate four hours of class time to educate students about gender equality, which includes sex education.

Sex education is one of the indices measuring how well fifth and sixth-graders learn, Liao said.

There is not too much emphasis put on masturbation in the pamphlet, as only two out of 120 questions appended to it test whether students understand what masturbation is, she said.

The pamphlet also includes content about how to use a condom, menstrual cycles, nocturnal emissions and how to respond to sexual harassment, Liao said.

She conceded that the passage in question needed to be reviewed and possibly revised, but added that what really matters is whether teachers can give students accurate information and help them develop a healthy mindset on sexual activity.