Asians and Sex
By Jaeah Lee, Staff Writer

“Shh…ex”

Sex. It’s a heart-throbbing, blood-rushing, muscle-tensing word. It’s stimulating. It’s provocative. And yet, it’s too often unacknowledged.

In America, sex is everywhere. From politicians’ sex scandals to Paris Hilton sex tapes, “sex” draws equal attention from the media as do war and poverty. It’s hard to name a film or a television show that doesn’t at least allude to it and just as hard to name a celebrity who hasn’t been floating around in some sex-alicious rumor. American culture is immersed in sex.

And once in a while, a young Asian-American will share an unbearably awkward moment with his (or her) parents during a sizzling movie scene. No one needs to scrutinize their recent past to remember a time when you were staying in a hotel with your parents and the television turned on to the “triple-x, adults only” channel.
In all honesty, it isn’t outrageous to say that Asian parents are more conservative and strict than Caucasian parents. But it certainly isn’t true either.

Sex may be more explicit in American media than it is in Asian media, but that says nothing about how taboo or open the matter is when you enter the household of any family.

Professor Christine Balance of NYU’s Asian-Pacific-American Studies department cautions that before we even begin to think about sex in Asian culture, it is vital to consider the things that impact the way we, Asian or not, view sex.
The common assumption that Asians repress sex is largely attributed to the way western cultures perceive Asians, according to Balance. Non-Asian-Americans in particular pigeonhole Asians as quiet, shy, and cute so it is easy to assume that Asians must also shrivel up with embarrassment when they hear the word sex. For Asians who would also call themselves American, their behavior and attitude becomes more prone to submit to these labels every time they are enforced.

There are unquestionable segments of Asian history where sex has been repressed, but those moments also exist in most other cultures. Religion is another foundation of one’s attitude toward sex. Both history and religion are facets of human civilization that are blind to race or ethnicity.

Balance points out that “Sex is not only taboo in Asian culture, but in all cultures. Even in America, though sex is prevalent in the media, it remains largely taboo within families. Look at George W. Bush who’s trying to constitutionally ban gay marriage.”

Among white-American families, nonetheless, denouncing sex is slowly becoming an obsolete school of thought today not only because of the media, but because of the growing campaign of sex education within schools and households. Parents are increasingly talking to their kids about prevention, protection, and the consequences of sex largely because of the rapidly growing accessibility to the media and loopholes in its censorship—an attempt to reach their children before Hollywood or MTV does.

And while there are probably Asian students also sitting in those sex-ed classes, creating awareness seem to have a more difficult time reaching out to Asian families.

NYU sophomore John Paul agrees. “Sex is never brought up in my family. It’s not only a matter of sex being taboo but when it comes up; it isn’t further discussed for religious reasons.” Once outside of home and among friends, however, John Paul feels that sex is just as prone to come up in conversation or be joked about.
Sophomore Jerry Liu finds that even in his conversations with friends, the topic of sex rarely pops up. “We hardly ever talk about it probably because most of my [Asian] friends are innocent—they’ve never had experience with intimate relationships because of the way they were raised.”

Asian-Americans seem to rarely approach their parents or family members with sex either because it’s unbearably embarrassing or uncomfortable. Because of the closeted nature of sex within the home, some young Asian-Americans remain less at ease when approached with sex while others channel their sexual curiosities and humor through the more open American pop-culture.

Balance shares that while she couldn’t talk about sex to her parents in terms of herself, but she could openly talk about other people’s sex lives or pregnancies. Herein is an indication that Asian families have become semi-permeable to sex but it is still unspoken at the most intimate levels.

The inconsistency between a progressively open American and stagnant hushed treatment of sex in many Asian homes remains unresolved while, in the mean time, sexually transmitted disease rates rapidly rise worldwide. Burying all-things-sex in the dark only fosters this rise. AIDS and STDs don’t care how taboo or open sex is in your house, nor do they care what color your skin is.

Sex, above all things, is how we perpetuate. Face it or shy away from it; sex will always be part of life. So what will it be?