To Be Virgin or Not Be?: Female Students Participate in Sexual Activity Survey
In the first public study about the sexual activity of females at Beijing Foreign Studies University, it was determined that 11.5% of female students were not virgins.
There are 4 things that are striking about how this research transpired and the aftermath:
1.) The reason why the study was done in the first place was to respond to a random posting on the internet that 15.86% of females at BFSU were not virgins. Then a group of 6 female BFSU students set out to extract a more empirical number by conducing a more "official" study.
2.) When Chinatimes interviewed the Luo and Liang, two of the six females who conducted the research for their article, they were able to find out from Luo's blog that the 6 research students were virgins themselves. This was included in the article.
3.) Almost all popular online news sites ran the Chinatimes articles. Therefore this "virgin" topic quickly became a popular BBS topic with over 1448 comments on Netease and a whole page devoted to it. The funny thing is that 70% of commenters disagreed with the LOW number of 11.5% of students who admitted to be non-virgins, which they all believed to be much higher!
4.) Although the study's methodology is totally equivocal and unfounded in clinical research, the fact that this study was publicly supported by a professor at BFSU indicates the changing views of sex - especially of females. To even conduct a study on the female virginity ratio is to admit that some women may not be virgins (duh)! This points to a major public shift in perceptions of sex and virginity. As more young people are waiting longer for marriage, this doesn't mean that exploration isn't still a part of the human psyche.
Note the role of the internet in shaping and negotiating social stigmas? I wonder if 70% of commenters who felt that way more women were sexually active would admit that they felt that in public situations, versus having the privacy of the internet to write that. Privacy affords such an opening of discussions. BBS and blogs are where the hot topix are being discussed!
sidenote: Here's survey that was conducted by Pan Suiming, a scholar at Renmin University of China, in 1999-2000 and an online survey, held by the China Sexology Association and Sina.com that was conducted between August 22 and September 31, and was completed by more than 32,000 people.
