There’s a growing desire among city state’s youth to have more open, wide-ranging conversations about sex-related matters, which are traditionally considered taboo.

在这个城市国家的年轻人中，越来越多的人希望就传统上被视为禁忌的性相关问题进行更开放、更广泛的对话。

When she was 14, Shermaine Sng sat through two-hour sex education classes for the first time at her Singapore secondary school, puberty and sexually-transmitted diseases among the topics covered.
She walked away from such lessons feeling more uncomfortable than she did before about the idea of talking about sex or her body.
“The instructors left us with the message that having sex before marriage is really wrong and that if we do so, it’s probably because we are immature and don’t have control of our emotions or desires,” she said.
This experience later motivated Sng, now 24, to join forces with two others who want to demystify and remove the shame associated with talking about these topics, and paved the way for Hela, which educates women with bite-sized information online on sexual health and related issues.

14岁时，Shermaine Sng第一次在新加坡中学上了两个小时的性教育课，其中包括青春期和性传播疾病。
她放弃了这样的课程，这种课程让她觉得比以前谈论性或她的身体更不舒服。
她说:“讲师给我们传达的信息是，婚前性行为是错误的，如果我们这样做，可能是因为我们不成熟，无法控制自己的情绪或欲望。”
这段经历后来促使现年24岁的Sng，与另外两位想要揭开这些话题的神秘面纱，并消除谈论这些话题时的羞耻感的人联手，并为Hela铺平了道路，该组织在网上向女性提供性健康和相关问题的简单信息。

“We realised that the fear and shame shrouding the topic of sex – sexually-transmitted infections, self-pleasure, contraception – is causing more harm,” Sng said. “For example, people will not dare to get tested … as people don’t feel safe enough to talk about it.”
In one year Hela has garnered almost 60,000 followers on TikTok and 3,500 on Instagram, most of them young adults in their twenties and thirties.
Similar accounts have cropped up in recent years to feed a growing desire by young Singaporeans to have open conversations about sex-related matters, traditionally considered taboo in the conservative Asian country.
While young people have become increasingly empowered to take charge of their health, participate in conversations and promote discussion in these areas, “liberation on this front is tricky” as societal values remain enmeshed with religion, said Nicole Lim, 26, the Singaporean creator of the Something Private podcast.

Sng说:“我们意识到，围绕着性话题的恐惧和羞耻——性传播感染、自我愉悦、避孕——正在造成更多的伤害。”“例如，人们不敢做检测……因为人们觉得谈论它不够安全。”
Hela在一年内在TikTok上获得了近6万名粉丝，在Instagram上获得了3500名粉丝，其中大多数是二三十岁的年轻人。
近年来，类似的账号层出不穷，以满足新加坡年轻人日益增长的公开谈论性相关话题的愿望。在这个保守的亚洲国家，性相关话题传统上被视为禁忌。
26岁的Nicole Lim说，尽管年轻人越来越有能力在这些领域负责自己的健康、参与对话和促进讨论，但“这方面的解放很棘手”，因为社会价值观仍然与宗教交织在一起。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Most Singaporeans attend compulsory sex education classes growing up, which promotes abstinence before marriage.
According to the Ministry of Education website, the curriculum is anchored on “prevailing family values and social norms” and students are taught about “contraception, consequences of casual sex, prevention of diseases, and how to say ‘no’ to sexual advances”.
Lawmakers have been discussing how the city state should approach sexuality and LGBTQ issues in schools and the media, following dual legislative moves last month to decriminalise gay sex and amend the constitution to maintain the status-quo definition of marriage.
The repeal of Section 377A of the penal code, which criminalises gay sex, and the introduction of an Institution of Marriage clause in Singapore’s constitution will take effect after both bills receive presidential assent.
The amendment to the constitution, among other things, will protect the current definition of marriage – between a man and woman – from being legally challenged.

大多数新加坡人在成长过程中参加了强制性的性教育课程，这些课程提倡婚前禁欲。
据教育部网站介绍，该课程以“主流家庭价值观和社会规范”为基础，学生们将学习“避孕、随意性行为的后果、疾病预防以及如何对性行为说‘不’”。
继上个月同性性行为合法化和修改宪法以维持婚姻定义现状的双重立法行动之后，议员们一直在讨论这个城市国家应该如何在学校和媒体中处理性行为和LGBTQ问题。
废除将同性性行为定为犯罪的刑法第377A条，并在新加坡宪法中引入婚姻制度条款，这两项法案都将在获得总统批准后生效。
这项宪法修正案，除其他事项外，将保护现行的婚姻定义——男女之间的婚姻——免受法律挑战。

First announced in a key policy address in August, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong characterised the dual legislative moves as “political accommodation” that balanced different legitimate views.
During a two-day parliamentary debate last month, ministers said that most residents support repealing the colonial-era Section 377A law, but also prefer to maintain the traditional definition of marriage.
Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, who spearheaded the months-long public outreach effort over the issue, said: “To a gay person, even if Section 377A is not enforced, it is there: memorialised in law, a sword hanging over his head, a daily reminder that every time he engages in private sexual activity behind closed doors in the sanctity of his bedroom, he is nevertheless a criminal.”

新加坡总理李显龙在8月的重要施政报告中首次宣布，将双重立法举措描述为平衡不同合法观点的“政治迁就”。
在上个月为期两天的议会辩论中，部长们表示，大多数居民支持废除殖民时代的第377A条法律，但也倾向于维持传统的婚姻定义。
法律和内政部长尚穆根(K. Shanmugam)率先就这一问题开展了长达数月的公众宣传工作，他说:“对同性恋者来说，即使377A条款没有强制执行，它也在那里:在法律上被铭记，一把剑悬在他头上，每天都在提醒他，每次他在神圣的卧室里闭门进行私密性行为时，但他还是个罪犯。”

In response to questions from MPs on how schools would broach sex education in schools, Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli stressed that the curriculum “reflects the national posture on the heterosexual family as the basic unit of society”, and would remain secular and based on research and evidence.
Conversations on how sex education should be conducted are also taking place in other Asian countries including Japan and South Korea.
In the former, a petition calling for schools to adopt a comprehensive sex education, where students are taught about relationships, sexual diversity and gender equality, has garnered over 43,000 signatures.
Pilcon, the non-profit organisation pushing the petition, said the existing curriculum was no longer relevant as young people today are more exposed to sex than generations past and do engage in sexual activities.

在回答议员们关于学校将如何在学校开展性教育的问题时，社会和家庭发展部部长Masagos Zulkifli强调，该课程“反映了国家对异性恋家庭作为社会基本单位的态度”，将保持世俗，并以研究和证据为基础。在包括日本和韩国在内的其他亚洲国家，人们也在讨论性教育应该如何进行。
在前者中，一份请愿书呼吁学校采取全面的性教育，向学生传授有关两性关系、性多样性和性别平等的知识，已获得超过4.3万个签名。
推动请愿的非营利性组织Pilcon表示，现有的课程已经不再有意义，因为现在的年轻人比上几代人更容易接触到性，而且确实会参与性活动。

Meanwhile, in 2019 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called for a revamp of South Korea’s sex education curriculum, urging that information on LGBTQ issues, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy be included.
In a government-backed survey in 2019, which gathered views from 16,500 South Korean students, more than a third said they found sex education ineffective and obsolete.
However, the issue goes beyond sex education, and also lies in conservative attitudes towards sex, which are at odds with an increasingly liberal youth.
Conservative segments of Singaporean society believe the government’s decision to base the sex education curriculum on family values and the heterosexual family unit is a step in the right direction.
The Catholic Family Life (CFL) charity said that amid high divorce rates and fewer people tying the knot, “the virtue of chastity, even though it is not in line with common mentality, is necessary to help marriages and family life flourish”.
It said the challenges most partnerships face are “rooted in a hedonistic mentality that distorts the beauty and depth of human sexuality”, adding that abstinence from sex before marriage would strengthen the bond of a couple.
Others believe, though, that such abstinence should not be seen as the only option, and that these kind of beliefs may result in unintended biases about sex.

与此同时，2019年，联合国儿童权利委员会呼吁修改韩国的性教育课程，敦促将LGBTQ问题、性传播疾病和怀孕的信息纳入课程。在2019年由政府支持的一项调查中，收集了16500名韩国学生的意见，超过三分之一的学生表示，他们认为性教育无效且过时。然而，这个问题已经超出了性教育的范畴，还有对性的保守态度，这与越来越自由的年轻人产生了分歧。
新加坡社会的保守人士认为，政府决定将性教育课程建立在家庭价值观和异性恋家庭单位的基础上，是朝着正确方向迈出的一步。
天主教家庭生活(CFL)慈善机构表示，由于离婚率高，结婚的人越来越少，“贞洁的美德，即使不符合一般的心态，是帮助婚姻和家庭生活没满的必要条件。”
报告称，大多数伴侣关系面临的挑战“根植于一种享乐主义心态，这种心态扭曲了人类性行为的美丽和深度”，并补充说，婚前禁欲将加强夫妻关系。然而，也有人认为，禁欲不应该被视为唯一的选择，这种信念可能会导致对性意想不到的偏见。

Singapore’s Sng said: “When it’s assumed that sex isn’t supposed to be enjoyable for women, underlying sexual health issues can sometimes be missed.
“Too many of us are subjected to judgments about our sexual history, like being too ‘wild’ or ‘easy’ and that makes it difficult to know, let alone ask for, what we really want in bed.”
Echoing these sentiments, Lim said she was “socialised into thinking that sex was a shameful thing to partake in”.
“The fact that we are a conservative Asian society, which led us to a more conservative approach to topics related to sex, and an abstinence-focused sex education growing up, has then led to us also being less interested in discussing such difficult conversations as adults,” she said.

新加坡的Sng说:“当人们认为性对女性来说不应该是快乐的时候，潜在的性健康问题有时会被忽视。”
“我们中有太多人会被别人评价我们的性史，比如太“狂野”或太“易上手”，这让我们很难知道，更不用说要求我们在床上真正想要什么了。”
与这些观点相呼应的是，Lim说她“被社会同化，认为参与性行为是一件可耻的事情”。
她说:“事实上，我们是一个保守的亚洲社会，这导致我们对与性有关的话题采取了更保守的态度，并且在成长过程中接受了以禁欲为中心的性教育，这也导致我们成年后对讨论这些困难的话题不那么感兴趣。”

A tricky balance
Experts who spoke to This Week In Asia say the challenge lies in developing a curriculum that strikes the right balance between reflecting the social values of the majority while being able to address the concerns of a more liberal youth.
Michelle Ho, an assistant professor of Feminist and Queer Cultural Studies at the National University of Singapore, said that while the sex education curriculum remains focused on promoting abstinence before marriage, it has been upxed to include issues like consent and respect, same-gender relations, and the impact of digital media on sex and sexuality.
However, there is still room for more diversity of perspective in what young people learn about sex in the classroom, she said. One way is to include more experiences of the LGBTQ community and tackle newer issues like digital forms of sexual violence.

接受《亚洲本周》采访的专家们表示，挑战在于制定一套课程，在反映大多数人的社会价值观，和能够解决更自由的年轻人的担忧之间取得适当的平衡。
新加坡国立大学女性主义和酷儿文化研究助理教授米歇尔·何说，虽然性教育课程仍然侧重于提倡婚前禁欲，虽然性教育课程仍然侧重于提倡婚前禁欲，但它已经更新，包括同意和尊重、同性关系以及数字媒体对性和性行为的影响等问题。
然而，她说，对于年轻人在课堂上学习的性知识，仍有更多不同视角的空间。一种方法是纳入更多LGBTQ社区的经验，解决数字形式的性暴力等新问题。

Sociologist Tan Ern Ser, from the National University of Singapore, said sex education should not be “overly prescxtive” but instead teach students to think about their decisions around sexual matters.
Similarly, Tan Joo Hymn, a project director at the non-profit Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware), which advocates for gender equality, said the “just say no approach” promoted by the Singapore curriculum does not allow youths to grapple with grey areas.
One example of this is with pornography, where ethically-produced porn or consensual sex is not differentiated from content depicting degrading situations, she said.
“A sex-negative, abstinence-focused education in school may also ring hollow to young people bombarded by sexualised images everywhere they look, from social media to advertisements on bus stops,” she added.
This bombardment may also make it hard for youths to understand the authenticity and accuracy of information, said Melisa Wong, executive director at pregnancy crisis and support centre Babes.
She added that this highlighted the need for a comprehensive and holistic sex education to start at an earlier age.

新加坡国立大学社会学家谭恩泽表示，性教育不应该“过于死板”，而是教学生思考他们在性问题上的决定。
同样，倡导性别平等的非营利组织妇女行动与研究协会的项目主管Tan Joo Hymn说，新加坡课程倡导的“直接说不”的方法不允许年轻人与灰色地带作斗争。
她说，色情作品就是一个例子，在色情作品中，合乎道德的色情作品或两厢情愿的性行为，与描述有辱人格情况的内容没有区别。
她补充说:“在学校里，消极的、以禁欲为中心的性教育对年轻人来说可能是空洞的，从社交媒体到公交车站广告，他们到处都被性图像轰炸。”
这种轰炸可能也会让年轻人很难理解信息的真实性和准确性，怀孕危机和支持中心Babes的执行董事Melisa Wong说。
她补充说，这强调了从较早的年龄开始综合和全面的性教育的必要性。

But beyond that, it is clear that many believe that overall attitudes towards sex and sexuality need to change. In July, a member of staff at a prestigious Singapore school was reprimanded for making anti-LGBTQ claims during a lecture, such as correlating paedophilia and domestic violence with homosexuality.
Tan from Aware said the incident sparked major public outrage but “similar incidents may be passing undetected”.
“Schools should explicitly teach students to interrogate the discrimination that LGBTQ persons face in society, and articulate ways to counter that discrimination, for example, by debunking homophobic myths,” she said.

但除此之外，很明显，许多人认为对性和性行为的整体态度需要改变。今年7月，新加坡一所著名学校的一名教职员工因在一次演讲中发表反lgbtq言论而受到训斥，比如将恋童癖和家庭暴力与同性恋联系起来。
妇女行动与研究协会的谭表示，这一事件引发了公众的强烈愤怒，但“类似事件可能会在未被发现的情况下发生”。
她说:“学校应该明确地教导学生质疑LGBTQ人群在社会中面临的歧视，并清楚地表达反对这种歧视的方法，例如，通过揭穿恐同的神话。”