Chinese social behavior in relation to porn
Background
How we decide the matter and team
Since part of our team first came to China, one of the first things that we noticed was the different way of how Chinese people approach each other and how the singular person feels about himself/herself in the society. The huge differences between eastern and western cultures in sexuality spheres made us wonder about how Chinese people behave in everyday life in relation with their awareness about sex. The team mainly consists of western people who are the most curious to discover what is happening with young people nowadays in the eastern culture. A key member of the team is a Chinese, who is the only one who has a total understanding of the searches and can have a more direct approach to the matter. He is also really motivated to be part of this team because he is also curious to understand in depth his society.
Understanding
We really know few about this matter. As sexual activities among Chinese people is also considered as a taboo we could just only base our knowledge on rumours and things that we could get watching around us and assumptions.
Methods
Procedure and participants
The present study was conducted through two different types of research, desk research and field research. We decide to first research online the porn topic and how Chinese people relate their life with it; through desk research we found interesting data from how many people were watching porn, as well as information about the sexual education of the participants. In order to narrow down the argument we decided to focus on two main researches that we found online on the website: biomedcentral.com. The data we got are related on porn behavior and sexual behavior. The first article is: ¡°Prevalence and correlates of sexual behaviors among university students: a study in Hefei, China¡± regarding the investigation about sexual behaviors conducted among 1,500 university students in 2011 in Hefei. The second one ¡°Sexual attitudes, pattern of communication, and sexual behavior among unmarried out-of-school youth in China¡± was on a comprehensive sex education program about 1,304 out-of-school youth. The number of the participants for both researches was quite large scale, that¡¯s why we decided to test the same topic we found at the beginning of the research, on a reduced scale,. After we got an overview on what is happening nowadays in China we figured out what kind of questions to ask in our survey. That¡¯s why for the field research, we decided to investigate the sexual and porn behavior. Spreading a questionnaire, through Facebook and WeChat, we achieved 100 feedbacks; the questionnaire was spread around students we know in the D&I building (college of Design and Innovation in Tongji University).
Questionnaire
Socio-demographic characteristics
The first part of the questionnaire was divided in some questions about people¡¯s gender, age, educational level (in particular if they are studying or if they already worked), what is their hometown, the relationship status and their sex orientation. Then we investigated the sexual education of the participants. In particular, we would like to know if they ever had any sexual education during the school time and finally where they get other sexual education.
Porn behavior
In the study we ask ten questions related to the porn behavior of the participants. We demanded if they ever watched porn, when they started, why and how often they watch porn, what kind of porn they like and how they have access to porn websites. We also tried to understand what people think about the government role in the porn field. In order to fit with a Chinese context, the questionnaire was translated in Chinese by our Chinese teammate.
Conclusions
How is the porn behaviour influencing the sexual behaviour in China?
In the article ¡°Prevalence and correlates of sexual behaviors among university students: a study in Hefei, China¡± the general suggestion was made that multiple factors, being in a romantic relationship, having received sex education, education aspiration, time spent online and area (rural, urban) can influence the sexual behaviour of people. As in china the openness of society is limited and pornography is illegal, it becomes a much more sensitive topic than in western countries. From the survey and the article online some different answers appeared. For example in Hefei around 42%, whereas at Tongji only 15% have never watched a pornographic video. Of course, the amount of people who were asked in Hefei is 1500 compared to 100 at Tongji, but still indications and interpretations can be made. Especially, in the more detailed information provided about porn viewing behaviour. The article fault that there is a lack of sexual education provided for Chinese students and is demanding a greater introduction of it. In the Tongji survey, 46% have checked the option ¡°educational purpose¡± when they were asked why they watch porn. This indicates that it is playing a bigger role in society by also teaching sexual information. Especially, if you consider that it has not been made for this purpose, the learning experience is different and not controllable as it would be in school or university. To show this dilemma, the opinions of individuals are being examined and can show differences and similarities to the more general proposition of the article. Aiming for a visualisation ranging from detailed and personal to an overview giving wider angle of the tense topic, that pornography is in china. Because the topic is as personal as it is general, an effort will be made in order to combine both, trying to understand what results could appear in the misuse of pornography as educational platform and what it could lead to if it continues.
Porn behavior
In the study we ask ten questions related to the porn behavior of the participants. We demanded if they ever watched porn, when they started, why and how often they watch porn, what kind of porn they like and how they have access to porn websites. We also tried to understand what people think about the government role in the porn field. In order to fit with a Chinese context, the questionnaire was translated in Chinese by our Chinese teammate.
Sources
Main references: http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-7-189 | http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-12-972
Dataset: download a ZIP format including questionnaire and analysis
The visualisations
Project by Dalila Bonomi | FAN Guangrui | Kai Christian Dreyer | Sara Gabbioni
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