The legislator is the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Kuo Su-chun. As our own
Taipei Times reported her as saying on June 20: "Schools should not force
students to take such classes; they could push students to taste the forbidden
fruit."
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 steps 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": Hygiene,
Orientation and Fortitude.
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, 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 "Father of the
Nation" for nothing).
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 as a compulsory
text.
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.
