Don't sensationalize sex scandals

The detention of a film director for seeking sexual services has become a media sensation. Details of the sex scandal have been splashed across all kinds of media, including some mainstream media outlets. But the excessive coverage of sex scandals is harmful for Chinese adolescents because they receive inadequate sex education in schools, says an article on jschina.com.cn. Excerpts:

Chinese adolescents have access to a lot of sex-related information, but they are still deprived of proper sex education, which is dangerous. Some middle schools have initiated courses on the subject. Yet teachers find the topic too embarrassing to elaborate on and, hence, just touch the subject leaving students more confounded than before.

Moreover, the methods used to impart sex education to students are monotonous, because teachers are used to reading directly from textbooks and treating sex completely as a biological subject. Sex education for minors should cover a wide range of topics, including psychology, ethics, character building, morality and social realities.

Another worrying factor is that few parents in China can - or prefer to - answer their children's questions on sex in interesting and understandable terms. Some parents even try to steer such conversations toward other topics or criticize their children for being too curious.

With neither schools nor parents doing their jobs, the onus to educate children on sex has fallen on the media. Yet by inappropriately representing sex scandals, media outlets seem to be misleading adolescents. It's high time that the media refrained from reporting sordid details of sex scandals and fulfilled their social responsibility of helping adolescents gain proper knowledge related to sex.