NATIONAL, BEIJING, SOCIETY, NEWS: BFSU Female Students Went Under Attack For Their Sex Survey
By Li Mu (Lianne Li)
Six female students at Beijing Foreign Studies University have come under fire for a survery they gave to their fellow students on their sexual knowledge and activity.The state press and internet media added spices to their statistics of female sexual experience, launching a hot debate on virginity.
The survey, published on the November issue of the BFSU campus paper, 107 INVESTIGATION, was claimed to be the first effort to understand the sexual condition of female students in BFSU. Over 400 recipients from different grades returned the questionnaires designed by the girls, and the report went on the paper under supervision of a teacher.
The questionnaire featured 13 questions about recipients' attitudes and knowledge of sex and college sex education, one of which asked whether they had sex during college. Only 11.5% of the female students had sex during college, the report said. The figure was a sharp contrast to the on-line rumors claiming that only 15.86% out of BFSU graduates are virgins.
BFSU,a female-dominated school,has a reputation for pretty girls and is often looked upon as a "dyejigger" corrupting female virtues, despite there has been no research on its campus sex condition. The report caught the eye of a reporter from Chinatimes. On December 9th, he came to interview Luo and Liang, two girls on the survey team. "He kept asking us whether we were trying to rebut the internet gossip, but we denied it because that was not on our mind when we were doing this," said Luo.
However, the Chinatimes report published on December 12th was headlined as "BFSU Girls Carried Out a Sex Investigation to Rebut On-line Gossips".It emphasized the finding that only 11.5% of the responding students had sex, quoting Luo anonymously as He Ming, saying that she believed only a small number of students were sexually active and that the bad impression that had been stamped on BFSU girls was unfair.
Luo recalled that she never mentioned in the interview that the girls were "six virgins," but the reporter manufactured it by extracting it from a sentence in her personal blog, which actually pleaded for tolerance from readers on campus, saying that the six of them had no experience with sex and the other issues investigated.
Although a later article in the Legal Evening Post(Fazhiwanbao) published most of the results in the survey with no special emphasis on any one part, almost all of the major on-line news media put up the Chinatimes article and played games with it. One secondary report was headlined as 6 Virgins Carried Out a Sex Survey in BFSU. On December 15th, China Daily even put on its front page a story entitled "Sex, lies, and surveys: Point is, is there a point?"
The virgin ratio determined by the investigation became one of the most hotly debated topics of on-line bulletin boards. By December 14th, there had been 1448 comments on the bulletin board of Netease alone, with a whole page specially devoted to the topic. Many expressed disbelief and disapproval of the survey. According to a vote-in survey on sohu.com, only 18.27% of the 4000 participants considered the result convincing, and over 70% of them disagreed with the argument that only 10% of female students were sexually active.
Almost half of the visitors considered the survey to be a joke. Some said the investigation was "trying to mask things by making them obviously contradictory." Feminists openly condemned the purpose of the survey. "The gossipers are mean indeed, but to rebut it, the investigators themselves must have been supporters of masculine notion on women's virginity and the idea that sexual relationships are filthy," said a commenter on Netease.
Facing flooding public impugnment, the students argued that the report was meant to show large gaps in sexual knowledge among female students of BFSU. "The whole thing about the virgin ratio didn't flash into our mind until we were setting about doing a backdrop for reporting on the investigation," complained Luo.
The statistics showed that even among female graduate students, there were some who admitted knowing very little necessary sexual knowledge. The major source of the girls' sex knowledge was found to be books, pornographic films and the Internet; over 80% responded that they had no idea of any lectures on sex held on campus, and the school had never distributed condoms according to their memory.
Although the focus of public concern still lies on the virgin ratio, some scholars are starting to support the effort of the survey. When interviewed by Chinatimes, Fang Gang, a scholar on the Sociology of Sex at Renmin University, believes that it is important for people to know why female college students were considered to have casual sex lives. He said: "These girls are young and attractive, which is why people like to think of them that way and why they become targets of sexual desire. It's a mark of the masculine sexual possessiveness in our male-dominant society. It is not right for society or the media to distort their image."
Six female students at Beijing Foreign Studies University have come under fire for a survery they gave to their fellow students on their sexual knowledge and activity.The state press and internet media added spices to their statistics of female sexual experience, launching a hot debate on virginity.
The survey, published on the November issue of the BFSU campus paper, 107 INVESTIGATION, was claimed to be the first effort to understand the sexual condition of female students in BFSU. Over 400 recipients from different grades returned the questionnaires designed by the girls, and the report went on the paper under supervision of a teacher.
The questionnaire featured 13 questions about recipients' attitudes and knowledge of sex and college sex education, one of which asked whether they had sex during college. Only 11.5% of the female students had sex during college, the report said. The figure was a sharp contrast to the on-line rumors claiming that only 15.86% out of BFSU graduates are virgins.
BFSU,a female-dominated school,has a reputation for pretty girls and is often looked upon as a "dyejigger" corrupting female virtues, despite there has been no research on its campus sex condition. The report caught the eye of a reporter from Chinatimes. On December 9th, he came to interview Luo and Liang, two girls on the survey team. "He kept asking us whether we were trying to rebut the internet gossip, but we denied it because that was not on our mind when we were doing this," said Luo.
However, the Chinatimes report published on December 12th was headlined as "BFSU Girls Carried Out a Sex Investigation to Rebut On-line Gossips".It emphasized the finding that only 11.5% of the responding students had sex, quoting Luo anonymously as He Ming, saying that she believed only a small number of students were sexually active and that the bad impression that had been stamped on BFSU girls was unfair.
Luo recalled that she never mentioned in the interview that the girls were "six virgins," but the reporter manufactured it by extracting it from a sentence in her personal blog, which actually pleaded for tolerance from readers on campus, saying that the six of them had no experience with sex and the other issues investigated.
Although a later article in the Legal Evening Post(Fazhiwanbao) published most of the results in the survey with no special emphasis on any one part, almost all of the major on-line news media put up the Chinatimes article and played games with it. One secondary report was headlined as 6 Virgins Carried Out a Sex Survey in BFSU. On December 15th, China Daily even put on its front page a story entitled "Sex, lies, and surveys: Point is, is there a point?"
The virgin ratio determined by the investigation became one of the most hotly debated topics of on-line bulletin boards. By December 14th, there had been 1448 comments on the bulletin board of Netease alone, with a whole page specially devoted to the topic. Many expressed disbelief and disapproval of the survey. According to a vote-in survey on sohu.com, only 18.27% of the 4000 participants considered the result convincing, and over 70% of them disagreed with the argument that only 10% of female students were sexually active.
Almost half of the visitors considered the survey to be a joke. Some said the investigation was "trying to mask things by making them obviously contradictory." Feminists openly condemned the purpose of the survey. "The gossipers are mean indeed, but to rebut it, the investigators themselves must have been supporters of masculine notion on women's virginity and the idea that sexual relationships are filthy," said a commenter on Netease.
Facing flooding public impugnment, the students argued that the report was meant to show large gaps in sexual knowledge among female students of BFSU. "The whole thing about the virgin ratio didn't flash into our mind until we were setting about doing a backdrop for reporting on the investigation," complained Luo.
The statistics showed that even among female graduate students, there were some who admitted knowing very little necessary sexual knowledge. The major source of the girls' sex knowledge was found to be books, pornographic films and the Internet; over 80% responded that they had no idea of any lectures on sex held on campus, and the school had never distributed condoms according to their memory.
Although the focus of public concern still lies on the virgin ratio, some scholars are starting to support the effort of the survey. When interviewed by Chinatimes, Fang Gang, a scholar on the Sociology of Sex at Renmin University, believes that it is important for people to know why female college students were considered to have casual sex lives. He said: "These girls are young and attractive, which is why people like to think of them that way and why they become targets of sexual desire. It's a mark of the masculine sexual possessiveness in our male-dominant society. It is not right for society or the media to distort their image."
2 Comments:
At 2:45 AM , Jane said...
I really appreciate all the members of 107 Investigation. The word "appreciate" contains both of its meanings. Never mind the misunderstanding and gossiping from the mass media. Well anyway, it sounds ironic that journalism majors are hurt by the journalism,or we say, media, in reality. I don't know how to comfort you all, girls, but to support you and your every effort made to do the investigation out of the genuine pursuit of truth and spirit of humanistic care. To observe and speak out the truth is just what a real journalist should do, isn't it? Wish you great success! And don't forget to have fun doing what you like.
cheers,
Jane
At 8:45 PM , Anonymous said...
I am rather curious. Why is no one asking how many male virgins there are? It seems to me with the more men than women, there are probably more lonely men, having no or limited sex than women.
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