Rise in Japan teen sex ignites education debate
Tokyo - Sixteen-year-old Monami Okubo sees nothing wrong with sex before marriage.
"I really don't think there's any reason to wait," said the bespectacled first-year high school teen, wearing her school uniform as she chatted with friends in Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district. "It's not realistic."
Attitudes like Okubo's are troubling for Japanese policy makers alarmed by a leap in teenage sexual activity.
Nearly half of all 17-year-old girls have had sex, up from around 17 percent in 1990. For boys, the figure is 40 percent, nearly double the 1990 figure, according to Health Ministry data.
A resulting jump in sexually transmitted diseases among young people and rising teenage abortion rates have touched off debate about sex education in a nation where pornography is widely sold but taboos about frank discussions of sex linger.
The debate pits those urging more detailed sex education against those who say schools are already far too explicit and some who want to promote U.S.-style abstinence-only education.
Ruling party lawmaker Eriko Yamatani says explicit sex education is partly to blame for the rise in teen activity.
"This is teaching kids from primary school that as long as you use contraception it's OK to have sex," she told Reuters.
Yamatani, 54, supports some sex education in schools but worries that some of the methods used -- such as anatomically correct nearly life-sized male and female dolls and textbooks with illustrations of people having sex -- are too graphic.
Girls, she said, should be learning that they "can become mothers and their bodies are sacred, their bodies aren't theirs alone. They are very sacred things that give birth to new life.
"So, as a result, it's desirable to have abstinence until marriage," she added. "This message has to be thoroughly taught."
Sex education is part of basic health curricula in most primary schools, while middle and high school students get sketchy information about contraception.
Nothing Useful
On the other side of the debate are educators who feel more concrete knowledge is needed, especially in a society where natural curiosity about sex is fanned by suggestive scenes in the media, the prevalence of erotic comics and a relatively lax attitude toward sexual exploitation of young people.
"There's porn all over the place," said Yukihiro Murase, a lecturer in sexology at Hitotsubashi University near Tokyo.
"It really is quite a stimulant."
Data suggests that the message about the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is either too muted or simply ignored.
The number of abortions in women under 20 is over 40,000 annually compared with 19,000 in 1980. Abortions have long been common in Japan, where condoms are the main form of birth control.
And the number of teens diagnosed with chlamydia -- which can cause sterility -- shot up to 6,163 in 2003 from 3,639 four years earlier, according to Health Ministry figures. Other surveys suggest the real numbers may be even higher.
"Many schools teach the names of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), but kids think the only people who get these are middle-aged men," added Masako Kihara, an associate professor at Kyoto University. "Or they think it only happens in cities."
Many Japanese teens have a high turnover in partners -- as many as three or more a year -- but believe they're safe from sexual diseases because they only have one partner at a time.
"We need to teach that there's a real risk to them. If you make it specific enough, they'll finally understand. Things like saying that you are basically having sex with everyone your partner's had sex with for the last few years," Kihara added.
The Education Ministry is trying to walk a fine line between the opposing camps.
"There are parents who don't want us to teach in great detail, so we can't teach the whole class that way," said a ministry official.
"Something must be done to prevent STDs, but at this point we ask teachers to instruct pupils in danger of this privately."
For many teens, though, practicality takes priority.
"I'm curious about sex, and it's really better to know things like contraception," said 16-year-old Aki, who said she had a boyfriend. "I dislike the idea of abstinence being forced on me.
"Knowing about contraception and how to protect myself is the best thing. It's reassuring."
