While we were pleasantly surprised to learn that women in China still give birth to girls, we were nonetheless puzzled by this story in the Southern Weekly, one of the country's last bastions of progressivism...
Shen Fan's "chastity education" lasted over ten years. When Shen Fan
was in middle school, she hardly played with boys, let alone went to
any parties. She didn't play with boys, she didn't feel she needed to.
Even now, she never goes home later than 9 o'clock when she is with her
family on holidays.
Sometimes her mother tells Shen Fan her own story: When she was sent
to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, she and her
girlfriends were determined not to marry peasants. Their determination
paid off: after they went back to the cities, all of the "sisters" got
married with government cadres, doctor and businessman—all of them
urbanites. Every time Shen's mother meets these friends, she becomes
even more proud of the right choice she made.
"My parents believe that the most important thing for a woman is to
marry into a good family, and losing virginity before marriage is
losing competitiveness, which may lead to losing an opportunity of a
good marriage," said Shen Fan.
Is a girl who remains a virgin until marriage more likely to find a wonderful, sexually fulfilling husband (not that the Chinese government wants that), or a guy who is just interested in conquering a virgin, then will run off to start the cheating? Or something else?
Anyway, that's all beside the point-- check out the closing paragraph of the article, which will only further confuse you:
Now Shen Fan has a new boyfriend, but she has not told her parents,
because he cannot meet her parents' standards for a prospective
son-in-law. Another thing she does not want to let her parents know is
that they had sex. Shen Fan said she tries to avoid wearing
warm-colored clothes because that makes her feel less guilty.
Wait-- this is a story about chastity that ends with an unlocking of the chastity belt? Perhaps the writer had trouble finding any Chinese teenagers that were still virgins.
Meanwhile, the chastity and abstinence movement rolls on, further ignoring the statistics that say the program is only backfiring...
Via Danwei.
