LOOKING AT BEIJING THROUGH YOUNG PEOPLES EYES

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Women's Worlds 2005 9th International
Interdisciplinary Congress on Women
Sexual Self-determination Rights and Sexuality
Education
LEE Myoung Sun Seoul Resource Center for
Young Women
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1. Institutionalization of Sexuality
Education in Korea
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
? Conventional Recognition of Sexuality - "It's
better never to talk about sex" - "Sex is
something that you'll come to understand when you
grow up" ? Changes in Sexual Culture of Youth
and the Increasing Need for Sexuality
Education - The importance of one's virginity
has been outdated - Sexual experience of youth
has become openly acknowledged - Date rape,
sexual violence and prostitution have become
social issues ? Institutionalization of
sexuality education in school, Development of
non-governmental sexuality education centers,
Publication of various teaching materials for
sexuality education
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Institutionalization and Changes in Sexuality
Education
1) Controlling and Policing Sexual Desire
(1970s-1980s) ? Introduction of sexuality
education in schools in the 1970s - centered
around the importance of virginity -
biological knowledge including pregnancy, birth
control, and the process of delivery ?
Institutionalization of sexuality education in
the 1980s - 'passive' intervention of the
state in sexuality education in school
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
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2) Policies on the Protection of the
Sexuality of Youth(1990s) ? Runaways, sexual
violence, prostitution have become social
issues ? Sexuality education as a part of
policies on the protection of the sexuality
of youth ? Active intervention of the
state/government
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Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
3) Sexual Rights and Subjectivity of Youth
(2000-) ? Wide recognition of sexual rights and
sexuality of youth ? Introduction of a
gender/feminist perspective in sexuality
education - challenged unequal relationship
between men and women - recognition of sexual
politics, intervention in male-dominated/phal
lo-centric knowledge of sexuality ? sexual
self-determination rights as an alternative term
for sexual protection - confusion and
dilemma - alternative or a trap?
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2. Politics of Sexual Self-determination
Rights
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
? "Sexual self-determination rights are the
rights to determine and choose one's sexual
activities based on her/his autonomy without
any force or domination " ? Activism against
sexual violence as a platform (since 1990-)
Sexual violence is a crime not because it damages
chastity but because it violates one's
sexual self-determination rights ? Making
"sexual self-determination rights" as an
essential term for promoting sexual autonomy
in sexuality education Political activism is
urgent and calls for changes in public knowledge
about women's body and sexuality
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Critical acceptance of sexual
self-determination rights
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
? The limits of the liberal understanding of
"an individual with free will" - An individual
is always influenced by social structures such
as class, age, sexual hierarchy, gender, and
family - The sexual power of the minority groups
such as women, people with disabilities, and
sexual minorities are limited - The problems
of "blaming the victim" in sexual violence and
prostitution
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Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
? The perspective of "The autonomous adult" -
Who is qualified to exercise sexual
self-determination rights? - Who makes the
standards of the autonomous adult? ? The term
which enables the society to imagine and have
aspiration regarding the ideal system of the
future, thus realizing the desire to actually
create the ideal system (Scott, 1999)
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
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3. The Paradigm of Sexuality Education Based
on Sexual Self-determination Rights
focusing on the important points
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
1) Expanding the rights of a sexual subject
"Sexual subjects exercise their own sexual
choices, freely pursue their sexual desire and
pleasure, have the rights to choose and refuse
sexual relationships, and are able to resist
unwanted sexual advances and create new
possibilities for their sexuality(LEE Myoung
Sun,2005)"
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2) "Sexuality education", instead of "sex
education" ? "Sexuality" is constructed
socially, culturally, and politically ? From
phallocentric sex ?to move towards integrated
understanding of sexual desire, pleasure,
identity, body images, sexual practice, and
gender identity ? Training for promoting
communication skills, self-assertiveness, and
equal relationships
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
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3) Critiquing the objectivity of scientific
knowledge and creating feminist knowledge
? Critiquing the "objective, scientific
knowledge on sexuality" Social values and
interpretive judgments already intervene
through the course of development of
medical/scientific knowledge on
body/sexuality (Harding, S. 1986) ? "Healthy
sexuality," "moral value" Is it
value-neutral? Critiquing the "neutrality"
of patriarchal value system and
male-centered sexual norms ? Producing and
developing the new knowledge on sexuality as
a feminist practice ? Examples) various ways of
explaining our body such as menstruation and
the hymen
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
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• 4) Gender-sensitive Sexuality Education
• an understanding of sexuality based on
• a gender perspective
• ? The difference of attitudes toward sexuality
  between males
• and females
• - The difference of assertiveness and power in
  exercising sexuality
• - The difference of sexual experiences
• (10-18 of high school students have had sexual
  experiences,
• in which the number of male students is 1.5-2
  times higher
• than that of female students)
• Teenage boys regard sexual drive or intercourse
  as their primary issues
• whereas teenage girls regard pregnancy, birth
  control, and abortion
• as their primary issues

Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
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Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
? The need of active intervention for sexual
equality and gender-sensitive approach, based
on the differences of sexual experiences
between males and females ? Examples)
training the communication skills and
negotiation ability in contraception
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Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
5) Consciousness of and Activism in an
Unequal Social Structure ? Sexuality is not
personal but political ? Sensitivity of social
constraints in sexual self-determination
rights consciousness raising workshops for
the socially weak, the sexual minorities,
and the sexual hierarchy ? The practical guide
and activism to change and protest against
the unequal society that bears issues such as
sexual violence, prostitution, and unwanted
pregnancy ? Developing as a subject of free will
and a potential to change, with overcoming
victim/assaulter dichotomy
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4. New Experiments
? Sexuality education based on sexual
self-determination rights as a strategic point
of feminist sexuality education ? The need for
the various applications and experiments in
sexuality education Embodiment of sexuality
education as an action more than a
theoretical approach
Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
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Seoul Resource Center for Young Women
? Experiments of Seoul Resource Center for Young
Women in Sexuality Education - Management of
Sexuality Education Center participatory
class that involves active discussion and
gender-sensitive sexuality education programs
based on feminist perspective - Production
of materials and manuals for sexuality education
video film/manual for teenagers("R.U.Ready")
sexuality education manual for
instructors("Wings to Our Sexuality") -
Intervention in sexuality education in school
and workshops for the instructors