Attitudes Towards Sexuality in Chinese and Western Societies

As most people might expect that when it comes to discussing intimate sexuality, the views between the Chinese society and the Western society are very distinct. The Westerners’ view upon sex and intimacy are always considered as much more open-minded than the Chinese people. However, it is not always true about this assumption. In fact, there were times when Westerners were extremely conservative upon sexual related matters, mostly because of religious influences. This essay discusses the main differences of Chinese and Westerners perspective towards sex and intimacy, by considering cultural, sociological, and religious factors from the past till the modern times.

There were times when Westerners were extremely conservative upon sexual related matters, mostly because of religious influences, which was when Christianity controls the society and took over the dominance of an empire. During the 5th to 15th century, in the Middle Ages (or Medieval Period), sexual desires and affection were condemned by the political and religious bodies. Enjoying sex was considered as a sinful act, no matter of the marital status. It was also a mortal sin for married couples if they conducted sexual activities without the purpose of procreation. When it comes to sexuality, gender inequalities were distinct, and men took controls over sex and intimacy. Under this phenomenon, women were treated as objects instead of a living human, basically regarded as ‘childbirth-machines’.

The Catholic Church had been preaching conservative sexual notions for over a thousand years. St. Thomas Aquinas, an Early Theologian, propounded that pleasure in sex is always sinful; sexual position for the procreation process other than ‘man-on-top’ were all unacceptable, had clearly reflected that female pleasure were never concerned. To be straightforward, sexual intercourse other than ‘man-on-top’ were all considered as ‘acts-against-human-nature’. For instance, masturbation which was considered abnormal was a shameful conduct.

After a long period, some people started to pursue freedom and individualism, and began to deny that sex is evil during the Renaissance (started around the 16th century). The values which the Western society pursued at that time were similar to the sexual attitudes which modern Westerners hold. It was until the invention of birth control instruments in the 20th century which granted people to start enjoying carefree sexual activities and eventually reduces their guilt for the enjoyment. Contraception was an invention that has greatly influenced the entire world’s attitudes towards autonomy of engaging in sex. Starting from the 1960s, women’s movement enlightened people to be more open-minded towards freedom in sex and were more willing to engage in sex compared to the past decades. During that time, more and more people (in urbanised areas) started to adapt sexual activities to be a source of excitement, joyfulness, and an expression of love.

There was a time in the history of Chinese society which sexual intercourse were considered to strengthen the man, eventually allowed men to have multiple sexual partners in order to nurture themselves. However, it was similar to the Western world, that women desires were never taken into consideration. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, people were advised to leave personal desires behind everything so that the whole society could achieve collective success. At that time, sexual activities only lasted for minutes, and ended with men’s ejaculation, whereas women’s enjoyment were neglected, and orgasm was very rare for women.

A great change to China’s conservative society occurred in the late 1970s: the ‘Open-Door’ policy was introduced in the country, the Chinese’s life changed dramatically as the country started to rush towards modernisation. As described by Bullough and Ruan, the ‘Westernisation’ of China is “the worship of individualism, the proliferation of pornographic films and videotapes; changing attitudes in marriages and sexual behaviours; greater individual freedoms and choices; greater tolerance toward sexual activities; and an increasingly egalitarian relationship between men and women”. Comparing to previous centuries of the Chinese empire history, modern Chinese society holds much more positive attitudes towards sex and intimacy, even though most of the people are still not as open-minded as Westerner. Nowadays, the Chinese society supports and prioritise monogamy in marriage and sexual activities, regardless of gender. However, they are already much more open-minded compared to the past, e.g. some people accept sex before marriage.

Simpson and Gangestad propounded the ‘Sociosexuality’ concept in order to assess whether a society holds open-minded or conservative sexual behaviours. According to this concept, the lower people score in sociosexuality, the more they posses a restricted sociosexual orientation. These group of people support monogamy, court longer, and make heavy emotional investments in a relationship. Moreover, the study by Simpson and Gangestad showed that Hong Kong people possessed a restricted orientation. In the Chinese society, conversation related to sex is usually not to be discussed publicly. These topics are considered inappropriate, and are almost a taboo in the traditional Chinese cultural ideology. The Chinese society is normally regarded as a sexually conservative society. In contrast, the higher people score in sociosexuality, the more they posses an unrestricted sociosexual orientation. These group of people enjoy their freedom in sexual activities, started to engage in sex at an earlier age, own more sexual partners, invest less emotionally in a relationship, and prefer less intimacy in a relationship. Typically, the Western world pursues an unrestricted sexual orientation.

After the rise of the sexual liberation movement in the 1960s, Westerners started to accept discussions of sexuality in their daily conversations. What they possessed is a sexually liberal society. The research of Schmitt revealed that Westerners achieved much higher sociosexuality scores than the Chinese people from Hong Kong. Hence, it could be believed that people living in sexually liberal societies might pursue more sexual freedom than people who are living in sexually conservative societies. 

In a nutshell, it is obvious that Westerners are often less restricted than Chinese people are in intimate sexuality. Although Chinese nowadays are more and more open-minded towards sexual relationships, the people are still living in a sexually conservative society and most of the Chinese people still regard traditional conservative values upon sexuality as the best ideology that their people should hold.