Chinese couples need better sex education: experts

Chinese females take more responsibility than males on contraception, with specialists calling on better sex education and communication between husbands and wives, a survey showed.

A sample of 100 Chinese married couples who used contraceptives in 2015 showed that 55 percent of females had intrauterine devices (IUD), 26 percent had ligation operations, while only 4 percent of males received ligation operations and 14 percent of males used condoms, news site thepaper.cn reported Thursday, citing a yearbook of China’s population and employment statistics through 1993 to 2016.

Data shows that the ratio of females who received the ligation operation was at least 80 percent through the years. The number of males who received the operation was very few and has been declining. The report provided no details of the sampling, such as the couples’ age groups.

A United Nations report says male sterilization accounted for 10 percent or less of all sterilizations among couples in 29 countries out of the 47 countries covered in the survey.

“The ligation operations can cause multiple injuries to women, including a strong possibility that women could bleed after the operation, which can lead to anemia and even infections,” Yin Su, a former gynecologist in Central China’s Henan Province, told the Global Times.

“In China, people are easily trapped by conventional thinking that men would lose their manliness if they receive a ligation operation, while women, generally in a weaker position, seldom seize the initiative on the issue,” said Ke Qianting, a feminism researcher and professor at Sun Yat-sen University.

Ke said females who receive such operations and related organizations should play a more important role in spreading knowledge about the harm such an operation could cause to women, and an effective and equal communication should be encouraged between husband and wife.