Hong Kong women both young and old suffer from a whole bunch of sexual problems—including no sex at all—according to two studies conducted by the Family Planning Association of Hong Kong (FPAHK).
One study found that 59 percent of women between the ages of 21 and 40 suffered from at least one sexual problem for more than three consecutive months in the past year.
More than three in ten women reported having no sexual desire, and the same number of women reported having trouble getting aroused. Four in ten women were not reaching orgasm, while a third experienced pain during sex.
(For Hong Kong women aged 21 to 40. Data: FPAHK)
We think people are just sexing wrong. Don’t they know how to sex correctly? It shouldn’t hurt! Nor should arousal be all that difficult. One of the causes cited was “low foreplay enjoyment”. Isn’t enjoyment the entire point of foreplay (and sex, for that matter)? If your foreplay is neither enjoyable nor arousing, then Houston, we have a problem.
With all those issues, it should come as no shock that 18.1 percent of female Hongkongers had “low coital frequency” – meaning they had sex between zero and twelve times the entire year.
And it doesn’t get better with age for local women. Over three quarters of women aged between 40 and 60 reported even more problems. In addition to the ones we’ve already mentioned, they also experience “no lubrication” too. Ouch. Well, we know 7-Eleven sells solutions to that!
(For Hong Kong women aged 21 to 40. Data: FPAHK)
Dr Sue Lo, the senior doctor for the FPAHK and the author of both studies, actually advises older women to “use it or lose it”, as regular sex helps to keep their private bits healthy. Well go on then, doctor’s orders!
Hong Kong does not exactly have a sexually liberated society. Clearly, both males and females here need some serious remedial sex ed. Dr Lo suggests that women could be more pro-active and initiate sex themselves, because empowered women = better sex for everyone involved.
Lo said that the fact that young women don’t have much sex leads to low birth rates, and the SCMP jumped all over that, announcing the study’s results with the blaring headline “Women’s low sex drive blamed for Hong Kong’s birth rate”. Quartz also reported the same thing: “Hong Kongers’ miserable sex lives are making a baby drought worse,” said their headline. Shanghaiist jumped on the bandwagon too.
But that doesn’t make much sense to us. Perhaps these writers are not aware that in the 21st century, more sex does not automatically lead to more babies. We’re pretty sure that Hong Kong women who want to get pregnant actually manage to have babies.
We asked Lo to clarify this statement for us, and she responded that it “was just a postulation”, and that the study did not actually look at the relationship between frequency of sex and fertility rates.
Whoops.
Photo: Alba Soler via Flickr
Reader Interactions