• Western theories and their inadequacies
• Our identity as cosmopolitan HK Chinese
• Proliferation of talks
• Co-construction of knowledge with students
• The education of desires in HK

• To provide students with a preliminary understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of the study of sex and its relationship with medicine
• To enable students to formulate the sexual problems of their patients objectively and effectively
• Knowledge & techniques in managing particular types of sexual problems and diseases (by the respective speciality & in post-graduate teachings)

• Lecture 1: The vagina dialogue (Ho Sik Ying & Chang Sea Ling)
• The Vagina Monologues (Eve Ensler, 1998)
• V day (Feb. 14)
• V Day Fund - An international movement (reclaiming the body and fighting against sexual violence)
• A college campaign

• What do you call your "down there"?
• If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?
• If your vagina could talk, what would it say?
• If you have to say something to him/her, what would you say?

• Performance of the Vagina Monologues by Dr. Chang Sea Ling (Video clippings)
• The vagina workshop (p. 43- 50)
• Vagina fact (p. 51)
• Class response (Social Sciences)
• Class response (medicine)
• Compare the response of the 2 classes

Promiscuity

Pornography

Cross-dress (drag)

Fetishism (obsession with objects)

Celibacy (no sex)

S&M (why so popular)

• What do these words mean? Why are they so unfamiliar (language problem vs. the lack of exposure to sex and the language for speaking about it)
• Why do we have to talk about sex in public (for confrontation and analysis/ talking cure vs. silence as resistance, talk -> no knowledge for control)
• Why so embarrassed: to private vs. regulation of women's sexual aesthetics
• What is pornography (nudity as a form of art)

• What do the medical students know about them?
• What do they mean to you?
• Where did you learn the words?
• Do they have other names?
• What did you (or your parents) call them when you were small?
• What are they in Chinese?

Virginity as a disciplinary practice to regulate women

Orgasm = ejaculation

Vaginal orgasm - defines women's need to terms of the needs of men

Clitoral orgasm - to reclaim female pleasure

• The clitoris is pure in purpose.
• It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure.
• The clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8000 nerve fibres.
• That’s a higher concentration of nerve fibres …, and it is twice … twice … twice the number in the penis.

• "My vagina is a shell, a round pink tender shell, opening and closing, closing and opening. My vagina is a flower, an eccentric tulip, the centre acute and deep, the scent delicate, the petals gentle but sturdy.
• "I’ve lost my clitoris" It’s gone
• "It was me, the essence of me.
• "It was the doorbell to my house and the house itself.
• "I didn’t have to find it. I had to be it.
• "Be it. Be my clitoris.

• Disciplines through aesthetics
• The social and cultural forces that shape our experience of the aesthetics
• The look, shape, colour and smell of the genitals
• Secretions & other discharges (menstrual blood) are associated with negative aesthetic evaluation
• The social regulation of women’s bodies

• To look at & see our body parts
• To understand our bodies – a "grounded-in-the body" way of knowing and acting
• To talk about it (use the proper terms)
• To explore our desires (Don’t be afraid of knowing it)
• To express them (*open verbal communication)
• To believe in ourselves (see what we see)

• The science of sex
• A medical discourse
• Typology of sexual desires and behaviours
• Codify sexual behaviours as disease (e.g. erectile dysfunction, vaginismus)
• Contributions
• Problems of quantifying and classifying forms of sexual stimulation & desires (Bristow, 1997)

• It has played a major role in enabling sex to be debated more widely and seriously at all levels of society.
• At times, it provides useful technical advice on how to solve sexual problems at both the emotional and physical level.

• Personal history: relationships, struggles
• Recognition of desire vs. averting illegitimate desires
• Desire (reciprocity) – S.L.
• Principles (self-identity & relationship) – S.Y.
• Happy person vs. good person
• The tension within oneself, between self and others

• What is sexual in one context is not in another (eg. Bare breasts)
• Sexual meanings are socially learned
• Culture (including science) tries to 'naturalise' sexual acts + values: heterosexuality, monogamy, reproduction
• Sexual attitudes are different across cultures (eg. Mobasa: homosexuality is acceptable, normal)
• NO universal standards for defining normality and abnormality
• We should question the claim of such standards and explore underlying assumptions and values
• In understanding the scientific study of sexuality, anthropologists try to understand how categories of typologies emerge - what are they? Who classified them? How and why?
• Anthropology: A cross-cultural studies of human cultures and behaviours
• Political philosophy: To study how categories and typologies emerge and the social context in which they become popular or useful
• To unravel larger social, cultural, historical forces that shape desires
• There is no "objective" reality or the view from nowhere, everyone is "positional".
• The normality and abnormality of a particular sexual behaviour, identity, or style depends largely in the interpretative lens through which it is observed.
• There is a need to understand sexuality and sexual norms in its specific historical context.

• The study of men and woman as sexed beings/ sexual beings and their expressions
• Beyond morality
• Unravel larger social, cultural, historical forces that shape desires
• Anthropology: cross-cultural studies of human cultures and behaviour
• The relationship between social wk and sociology
• The contribution of political philosophy –historical constructedness (contingencies) of identity categories

• To look at & see our body parts
• To understand our bodies – a "grounded-in-the body" way of knowing and acting
• To talk about it (use the proper terms)
• To explore our desires (Don’t be afraid of knowing it)
• To express them (*open verbal communication)
• To believe in ourselves (see what we see)

• 2 codes ("Western" and "Chinese")
• New ideals of "proper femininity"
• Explicit speech vs. non-verbal communications
• Medical language vs. swear words
• Genital pleasure vs. Good sex as total experience

Same organ, same orgasm?

• The boundaries between the erotic vs. political, creative, and everyday activities.
• Desire as a creative force for revolutionary change.
• We have been taught to suspect this resource.
• The erotic as a sign of female inferiority & needs to be suppressed in order for us to be strong.
• The power of our unexpressed or unrecognised feeling.
• The sense of satisfaction & completion that comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person.
• The sharing of joy – physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual – lessens the threat of their difference