A Preliminary Study on Taiwanese Sexual Rights from Medical and Legal Perspective ^†

Abstract

Under the influence of sexually conservative Chinese culture, sex has always been an untouchable issue for a long time. As “Sex” has been a long-standing social taboo, sex-related knowledge and discourses have become scarce. The knowledge of the majority of Taiwanese on sex has been obtained from banned books and videos such as porn videos. This made people have the worst knowledge and information on it. No matter how open people are, the ability to feel sexuality rights among sexuality, sexuality education, sexology, trans/Gender studies, and LesBiGay due to the sexual legal norms (SLNs) in Taiwan is always lacking. Therefore, not only can young Taiwanese people enjoy the thrill of riding on the sexual waves, but as time passes, old Taiwanese people are also supposed to enjoy themselves without any pressure from society. Therefore, we developed sexual education on Taiwanese sexuality rights from a legal perspective by integrating the four essential SLNs: (1) the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act was instituted for establishing the sources of law in the various sexuality interactive behaviors; (2) the Act of Gender Equality in Employment was instituted for providing sources of law to promote male and female sexual employment; (3) the Communicable Disease Control Act was instituted for constructing the sources of law to prevent the STDs; and (4) the Gender Equity Education Act was instituted for instituting the sources of law. There is still unfair and unbalanced sexual violence in the current society. Thus, a future study is required to analyze and identify the legal determinants of sexual rights. For this, empirical suggestions were made to form more efficient SLNs for a harmonious and diverse Taiwanese society.

1. Introduction

Since 1987, martial law has been suspended due to the most powerful rise of various social movements and the long-repressed surging Taiwanese social energy. This developed tendency of social change has been driven by the economic boom in previous decades which again has changed interpersonal relationships and connections. With the realization of the social circumstances, diversified sexuality activities and products are available and gradually overflowing (not referring to adult sex toys, but all kinds of commodities associated with sexual desire as their symbolic values). The sexy body and open sexual remarks have been regarded as a new social phenomenon to attract wide public attention. However, it produced various anxieties and concerns in society. Significantly, the popular but authoritative foreign sexology reports such as the Kinsey sexology report caught the public’s attention. Furthermore, the academic achievements and discourses of professional sexologists have set up new institutes of sexology and gender research in higher education [1]. Under the influence of conservative Chinese culture, sex has always been taboo, so sex-related knowledge and discourses have become scarce. The sexual knowledge of the majority of Taiwanese people has been obtained from the circulated forbidden books and videos such as porn videos. This induced the worst sexual knowledge and information. Therefore, with the awareness and acceptance of sexuality, the sexual revolution has been paid for by the public which increased demand for sex information and knowledge. The popularization and dissemination of sexuality reports have become important in the sexuality revolution, and deepen and normalize the practices in the sexuality revolution. In 1992, the Teacher Zhang Publishing House boldly issued the Chinese translation of “New Jinsai Sexology Report”, which sold 100,000 copies in a year. At the same time, sex-related topics, themes, and writings have been dealt with by social media including popular magazines and TV programs, and a lot of columns were written about sex. Taiwanese publishers have even conducted self-made questionnaires to obtain knowledge of sexology to impress people to quickly produce local sexuality reports, articles, and papers to meet the Taiwanese public sexuality demands [2].

Since the end of the 1980s, experts and scholars who have spoken and published publicly on sexuality-targeted issues, and health professionals or physicians (urologists and gynecologists) have often talked about sex-related issues from their professional standpoints and perspectives of disease and hygiene. Regarding the exploration and experimentation of sexuality, the sexuality anxiety and pleasure brought about by the erotic frenzy were not represented. “Sex Mood Workshops” sprang up like mushrooms in Taiwan at the end of the 1990s to discuss the experience of women’s sexual desires and development and love trends. To open up in a positive, where positive concerned women’s sexuality development, taboos needed to be removed for the feelings of the Taiwanese public defenders’ uneasiness to deal with eroticism. People were driven to talk about sex but did not consider sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and sexual legal norms (SLNs). These emotions did not confront the challenge and issue of the sexual revolution. STDs and SLNs were regarded as a threat, which did not coincide with the professional position of public health or medical treatment. As a result, most experts and professionals only describe sexuality as dangerous and terrible activities and behaviors and regard abstinence as the main resolution without talking about how to protect one’s health and create one’s pleasure in sexual activities and behaviors. Intimidating words are used for STD prevention and SLN development [3].

This social atmosphere continues to equate sex with danger, making women lack cultural enjoyment of eroticism and avoid practicing due to fear and guilt. Thus, there are still questions about developing and mastering the body and desires, how to face the rising culture of lust, what to use to participate in related activities, and how to actively and positively meet the sexuality revolution. The answers to these questions have instigated feminist thought that requires active thinking for freedom from chronic repression and has continued for a long time. To discuss it simply, the sexuality revolution and openness have certainly created a demand for sexuality information and knowledge and asked ‘Does the existing information and knowledge meet the interests and needs of male and female subjects?’ The sexuality experts, professionals, and researchers have no overlap on these issues. Although experts such as doctors join the debate, they no longer continue the dialogue. On the contrary, such dialogues in social media have gradually increased the public’s interest in and reflection on sexuality issues for the male and the female.

At the beginning of 2000, a series of sexual movements opened up space for sexology development that caused erotic discourses and social movements for public health in social media. Concretely, new sexual realities brought about by rapid social changes have constantly forced public health and sex education professionals to consider how to apply their knowledge to the policy. Therefore, erotic discourses have confronted public health and medical professionals.

However, the sex movement has uncovered the blind spots of sexuality, sexuality education, sexology, trans/Gender studies, and LesBiGay, as well as the indifference to human sexuality rights in society. Therefore, academic conferences were held to have different analytical perspectives and propose different points of view to enrich the research and thinking of “sexuality” regarding sexology to combine gender studies and homosexual studies (lesbian and gay studies), and research in interdisciplinary perspectives. As a result, since the Fourth International Conference on Sexuality Education, Sexology, Trans/Gender Studies, and LesBiGay Studies (Four Sex Symposiums) was hosted in 1996, the topics have been officially discussed by the public health, medical, and sex education professionals. Sexology was defined by Taiwanese academic legitimacy to announce related professional discourses for the first time in Taiwan. This conceptual view emphasized sexual norms and normality. The Sex/Gender Research Office of Central University, known for promoting sexual liberation, has actively collaborated with the Gender and Space Research Office of National Taiwan University and the Gender and Society of Tsinghua University according to the Taiwanese past cross-examination experience and public consent.

Significantly, the developed mainstream research of sexuality, sexuality education, sexology, trans/Gender studies, and LesBiGay often fails to consider and discuss the related issues using the theoretical presuppositions in various research directions such as human culture, society, history, and rights. The majority of research topics regarding sexual preference have been shunned. The reason was that academic sexology focusing on indoctrination and a normal/abnormal distinction created more anxiety and reluctance to recognize and respect differences, and inhibited thought about erotic justice. How social restrictions for erotic justice are allocated on sexual issues regarding the topics is also lacking in pertinence to the ever-growing sexual issues.

With the awareness of human rights, most researchers and experts have paid more attention to sexuality rights and researched the scope and topics of sex research, the importance of sex research, the pragmatic presentation of sex, the possibility of sex research, the effect of conservative ethics and outdated laws on the research, academic autonomy, and the diversified philia and sexual preference link case related to the academic legitimacy of sexology and sexuality.

Foremost, the sex rights movement and sexology research are facing the changing social reality: various new legislations and enforcements (SLNs) in Taiwan still limit sex research in society with taboos (especially age and gender stereotypes). The new legislation (SLNs) includes the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act as the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Welfare for establishing the sources of law in the various sexuality interactive behaviors (in 2009), the Act of Gender Equality in Employment as the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labor for providing sources of law to promote male and female sexual employment (in 2016), The Communicable Disease Control Act as the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Welfare for constructing the sources of law to prevent the STDs (in 2019), and the Gender Equity Education Act as the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education for instituting the sources of law to develop sexual education (in 2022). The social space of sexuality imposes increasingly tight legal norms due to the rapid development of diversified sexuality. The circulation of various sexual speeches, articles, videos, and sexual information developed under the jurisdiction of the laws is inhibited. However, to “protect individuals from inappropriate information”, new public opinions have been formed to “purify” the media, education, publishing, and academia. The development of these legalisms has further standardized the territory of sexology, and at the same time promoted the positive development of sexual rights [4].

Therefore, we preliminarily discussed the impact of these four new legislations and enforcements (SLNs) on Taiwanese sexuality rights development from a legal analytical perspective, as illustrated in Figure 1.

2. Literature Review

To recognize the impact of the SLNs on the four legislations, the definition of sexual harassment and the handling and prevention of incidents need to be stipulated under the law. What is not regulated must be dealt with under other laws. Except for Articles 12, 24, and 25, the Gender Equality in Employment Act and the Gender Equality Education Act do not apply to the regulations of the present Act” [5]. In the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (2016), Article 1 reads, “The Act is enacted to protect gender equality in right-to-work, implement thoroughly the constitutional mandate of eliminating gender discrimination, and promote the spirit of substantial gender equality” [5]. In the Communicable Disease Control Act (2019), Article 1 is written as “To arrest the occurrence, infection, and spread of communicable diseases, this Act is specifically formulated”; Article 2: “Competent authorities” in this Act mean the Ministry of Health and Welfare at the central level; the municipality governments at the municipality level; and the county (city) governments at the county (city) level.” [5]. In the Gender Equity Education Act (2022), Article 1 states “This Act is prescribed to promote substantive gender equality, eliminate gender discrimination, uphold human dignity, and improve and establish education resources and environment of gender equality” [5].

3. Evaluation Method

We comprehensively explored the impact of the sexual legal norms (SLNs) of the (1) Sexual Harassment Prevention Act, (2) Act of Gender Equality in Employment, (3) Communicable Disease Control Act, and (4) Gender Equity Education Act on the development of the Taiwanese sexuality rights from a legal perspective to view the Taiwanese sexual rights from the legal perspective as shown in Figure 2 [6,7,8,9,10,11].

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

No matter how open people are, the ability to enjoy sexuality rights for sexuality, sexuality education, sexology, trans/Gender studies, and LesBiGay is limited due to the SLNs in Taiwan. Therefore, young Taiwanese are on the verge of sexual waves, while old Taiwanese may enjoy their rights without any pressure from society. We integrated the four essential SLNs: (1) the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act was instituted for establishing the sources of law in the various sexually interactive behaviors; (2) Act of Gender Equality in Employment was instituted for providing sources of law to promote male and female sexual employment; (3) Communicable Disease Control Act was instituted for constructing the sources of law to prevent the STDs; and (4) the Gender Equity Education Act was instituted for instituting the sources of law to develop sexual education on the development of the Taiwanese sexuality rights from legal perspective. However, although sexuality rights have been positively developed owing to these essential SLNs, there is still unfair and unbalanced sexual violence in the current society [12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Further study is necessary to analyze and identify the legal determinants of sexuality rights and propose effective suggestions to form efficient SLNs for a more harmonious and diverse Taiwanese society.