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

1. Institutionalization of Sexuality Education in Korea ● 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in Sexual Culture of Youth and the Increasing Need for Sexuality Education - The importance of one's virginity has been outdated - Sexual experience of youth has become openly acknowledged - Date rape, sexual violence and prostitution have become social issues ● Institutionalization of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 Seoul Resource Center for Young Women

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

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

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/phallo-centric knowledge of sexuality ● sexual self-determination rights as an alternative term for sexual protection - confusion and dilemma - alternative or a trap? Seoul Resource Center for Young Women

2. Politics of Sexual Self-determination Rights ● "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 Seoul Resource Center for Young Women

Critical acceptance of sexual self-determination rights ● 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 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

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)" 3. The Paradigm of Sexuality Education Based on Sexual Self-determination Rights : focusing on the important points Seoul Resource Center for Young Women

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

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

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 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

● 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 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 Seoul Resource Center for Young Women

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

● 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 Seoul Resource Center for Young Women