Implication for Korean Adolescent Sexuality

한국청소년의 성실태고찰

Rapid socio-cultural and economic changes in the country has brought with it changes in the society's value system. For a traditional society that is increasingly being exposed to modernization but where sex norms are still very restrictive, the adolescent sexual mores takes on added significance. Adolescents are caught between two opposing forces, the changing environment that allows for freer and liberal mores and the traditional society that cannot keep pace with the changing environment and therefore demands resistance to changes. This paper focuses on problems of adolescent sexuality in this country and considers the countermeasures for the existing problems. Amongst the problems are: (a) increasingly younger age of the adolescents who start sexual intercourse (b) non-use of contraception, (c) unwanted pregnancies, (d) increase in the number of induced abortion and (e) increase in the number of unwanted children and unmarried mothers. The Korean adolescent's sexual behavior seems to follow that of the developed countries. In other words, many western modes of life and sexual values seem to bave been copied in Korea and yet Korean adolescents lack in their knowledge of sex related matters such as reproductive physiology and contraception. Among middle and high school students, female students are reported to have less knowledge on sex than male students according to a 1988 survey by KIPH. Even among the unmarried famale factory workers, only 42.5 percent replied they know of the condom, and 25.1 percent and 23.1 percent said they had knowledge of spermicide and menstrual regulation respectively. However, 14.9 percent and 13.9 percent reported that they had a knowledge of the loop and female sterilization respectively according to the 1984 study by KIPH. Among the middle school students 0.8 percent said they had experience in sexual intercourse, while 7.3 percent of the high school students reported having had sexual intercourse. The sexual intercourse experience rate among the unmarried female factory workers is 37.8 percent. Among those female factory workers with sexual experience, 46.7 percent had more than one sex partners. Only 39.1 percent of male students and 18.9 percent of female students among those with sexual intercourse experience have used contraceptives. mostly condoms and oral pills 45.1 percent of female factory workers with sexual intercourse experience used contraceptives such as pills, condoms and rhythm methods. The pregnancy experience rate among the female factory workers who had experience in sexual intercourse is 29.5 percent, which is 11.1 percent among the total respondents. Out of the 102 pregnant female workers, 98 workers(96.1 percent) terminated their pregnancy by induced abortion and 2 workders(2 percent) in natural abortion, while 1 worker(1 percent) was in pregnancy and another 1 worker had normal birth that was subsequently sent to orphanage. In order to cope with the problem of adolescent sexuality, a drastic and strong policy measures should be taken by the government. The most effective countermeasure to the adolescent sexual problems appears to the education. The sex and population education in the school is very much in need. In addition, sex education program through mass media and at the job sit-should be promoted for a healthy development of adolescents' sexual behavior. Also, the existing national family planning program, which has focused on the married couples, should be extended to the unmarried people in its scope and contents of the program.