An Overview of the Adolescents' Sexual Behaviors in Taiwan

The socioeconomic transformation in Taiwan has resulted in people's openness and diversity in sex relationship. Researches in the past twenty years could be summarized as follows.Most teenagers experienced first masturbation during the age of 13-15 .Among the senior highschool students, 80 of males and 30 of females reported having masturbation. Male adolescents' and female adolescents' attitudes toward premarital sex were getting closer, no longershowing double standards in premarital chastity. Among the graduating students of juniorcolleges in Taipei City, intercourse rates increased from 20.7 in 1979 to 35.2 in 1988formales and from 4.0 to 6.9 for females, both having an increase of nearly 70. Of the vocational high school students having intercourse, 69.6 of them used contraception such ascondoms (79.6), oral pills (24.1), rhythm method (53.3) and coitus interruptus (40.2).Drugstores (71.5) and supermarkets(41.6) are the main sources of contraceptives. Neither students nor teachers/nurses have sufficient sex knowledge. Their sex knowledge testresults were below 65 and 80 respectively. Only 23 of high school students reportedthat their teachers taught sex education course in detail. Only 1-5 of the9th graders andl2.4of the vocational school students have ever discussed sex issues with their parents. Pornographic magazine(61.1 of the 9th grade boys and 29.1 of the 9th grade girls) and eroticvideos (18.5 high school boys and 9.3 high school girls) are main sources of sex information. 70-96 of the respondents agreed that sexuality education was imperative and shouldbe carried out in school