We have freedom.

As adults, we have become university students are learning how to be independent from our parents and mostly decide various things for ourselves. These things include school life, study choices, human relationships, the future and other things. And sexual freedom is also included among them. Furthermore, when it comes to sexual life, young people tend to be more open about sex than in the past. However, an important thing that many people overlook is that freedom comes with responsibilities. Then, do we actually enjoy freedom with all the responsibilities that we have?

Compared to 10 years ago, people in our country have become more open about sex. We can see this through a program titled 「Witch-hunt」 that was broadcast on channel JTBC until 1 year ago. This program dealt with 20-to 30-year-old men's and women’s views about problems and concerns related to sex in our country. The program is a typical example that shows the fact that the awareness of sex in our country has increased in that this program dealt with the theme of sex, which is not easy to deal with in TV programs, and it showed increased ratings with each episode. In addition, as a result of a survey about what they think about premarital sex targeting 205 Kyonggi University students in September, about 82.9% of students answered, “I support it” and about 17.1% of students answered, “I oppose it.” And, as a result of a survey question about having had a sexual experience, about 62% of students said, “Yes, I have” and about 38% of students said “No, I haven’t.” This shows that the university students who have just become adults are more open about sexual life compared to the past when people were very conservative about sexual life. Also, it implies the possibility that the younger generation may be even more open about sexual life in the future. However, the problem is that awareness of the responsibilities related to unconstrained sexual life fall so far behind the open awareness about sexual life. In reality, we can often find crimes and misdeeds related to the sexual behavior of young people including university students through the news. This news shows the lack of responsibility associated with sexual life. We university students are mature physically but immature mentally. For this reason, although we can determine our sexual lives, we often lack in ability to cope with the responsibilities. So, we always need to think about the responsibilities behind the freedom. Then, what should we do? First of all, we have to be informed about sex. About this, students may say that they have already received sex education in school. Actually, as a result of a survey question about receiving sex education in middle school and high school, about 99% of students said, “Yes, I did” and only about 1% of students said, “No, I didn’t.” It means that almost all students have learned about sex in school. However, in a survey question about the usefulness of the sex education about 1.5% of students said that it was very useful and about 15.8% of students said that it was a little bit useful. About 30.2% of students said that it was somewhat useful and the students who said that it wasn’t useful and it wasn’t useful at all amounted to about 24.8% and about 27.7% of responses, respectively. Thereby, we can find out that students mostly tend to think negatively about the sex education that they received. Why do they think that? It’s because the education didn’t deal with the sexual knowledge they have to know. The contents of the education consisted of simple facts like “insemination occurs when the sperm meets the egg,” and it didn’t deal with useful information such as “how to wear a condom” and "management requirements for sexual health." That is, students couldn’t help getting a low level of sexual information because of the conservative sex education even though they tend to have an open view of sex. Accordingly, the Pharos would like to determine the sexual information that Kyonggi University students don’t know well and tell them about it in this Cover Story. So, we did a survey about the sexual information that students don’t know well.

1. What do you think about premarital sex?

-I support 82.9% -I oppose 17.1%

2. Have you ever had a sexual experience?

-Yes 62% -No 38%

3. Did you receive sex education in middle school and high school?

-Yes 99% -No 1%

4. What do you think about the sex education?

-I t was very useful 1.5%

-It was a little bit useful 15.8%

-It was somewhat useful 30.2%

-It wasn’t useful 24.8%

-It wasn’t useful at all 27.7%

According to the results, male students mostly said that they don’t know exactly about “the menstrual cycle, the period of menstruation and ovulation,” and female students said that they mainly don’t know exactly about “circumcision, venereal disease and cervical cancer.” In other words, it shows that students generally tend to be ignorant of knowledge that is related to the opposite sex. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or woman, you need to know exactly about the sexual knowledge of both sexes. Therefore, we would like to tell you exactly about the sexual knowledge that most students don’t know one by one.

5. What sexual information do you not know exactly?

-The menstrual cycle and the period of menstruation 24.7%24.8

-Ovulation 40.1%

-Venereal disease 44.5%

-Circumcision 31.3%

-Cervical cancer 52.7%

-Other 4.4%

6. Do you prevent conception or will do so when you have sex?

-Yes 95.6% -No 4.4%

First, we will tell you about the menstrual cycle, the period of menstruation and ovulation. Ovulation is a phenomenon in which a woman releases a mature egg and ovulation day is 14 days before the next expected day of menstruation. The childbearing period means the period 3 days before and after the expected ovulation and the time the chance of pregnancy of women is high. Menstruation is a phenomenon that occurs when the endometrium that is formed for insemination falls from the womb if a woman isn’t pregnant after ovulation. What most men don’t know exactly is the menstrual period. The menstrual period of women is an average of 3 to 7 days per month and the menstrual blood oozes intermittently during the period. Because of this, women always have to wear a sanitary pad all day during the period and change it several times a day. It depends on the person but the amount of menstrual blood decreases as time goes on and the size of the sanitary pad is determined by the amount of menstrual blood. Plus, the menstrual cycle means the period from the beginning day of menstruation to the next beginning day of menstruation, and the average menstrual cycle of a woman is 28 to 35 days, although it depends on the person. You can find your average menstrual cycle by a comparison of the cycles over 6 months. In addition, although many students think that women can’t become pregnant during the period of menstruation, they must be careful to prevent conception since a woman’s body can stay in the childbearing period depending on various situations.

Next, we will talk about circumcision. Circumcision is an operation to make the glans exposed by cutting off a length of skin surrounding the glans of the penis. Many men undergo circumcision for sanitary reasons. Circumcision is important for men because if the glans isn’t exposed secretion can be trapped around the glans and inflammation caused by pathogenic bacterium can be caused. But if the glans is exposed when a man gets an erection, circumcision isn’t necessary for men. In short, though every man doesn’t have to undergo circumcision, it’s good to decide whether to do it through self-screening or counsel with a urologist. What many people mistakenly think is that if a man doesn’t undergo circumcision, the satisfaction of both the man and woman declines. However, this is wrong information since there is no medical evidence to support it.

Last, we will tell you about cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is a malignant tumor that appears in the cervix that is connected to the vagina. The main cause of cervical cancer is Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) infection, which is contracted through sexual contact. That is, the disease can occur when the virus flows into the womb during sex. We need to prevent this because cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer that happens to women worldwide. What we must do first to prevent cervical cancer is have a vaccination. Although the disease rate is lower for women in their 20s than ones in their 30s and 40s, the vaccination is recommended for young women because the prevention effect is higher if it is done before the first sexual experience. However, even if you have had a sexual experience, the prevention effect still remains, so we recommend the vaccination for every woman. In addition, because the diseases that are caused by HPV are not limited to women, men need to get the vaccination, too. HPV infection occurs mainly through sexual contact and the disease rate of both genders becomes lower by administering the vaccine to both men and women. As well as getting vaccinated, both men and women need to try to have healthy sexual lives since HPV infection occurs mainly through promiscuous sexual activity.

Then, what can we do to have a healthy sexual life? Use proper contraception. So, to find out the awareness of students about the necessity of contraception, we did a survey targeting Kyonggi University students to see if they now prevent conception or will do it when they have sex. According to the results, about 95.6% of students answered that they do or will do it, and about 4.4% of students answered that they don't or won’t do it. It’s a good phenomenon that more than about 95% of students realize the necessity of contraception, but the problem is the attitude of the rest of the students. Having sex itself does not matter. But we shouldn’t do it only for physical pleasure because one life can be created from it and many responsibilities follow when that happens. Since we who are university students cannot manage the responsibilities, contraception is not a “choice” but a “necessity.” Then how do students prevent conception? Based on the results of a survey question about which contraception methods they use, we found that about 96.4% of students use “condoms” while the students who use “oral contraceptives” and “the morning-after pill” made up about 24.4% and about 11.7% of the responses, respectively. In addition, about 3% of students answered that they prevent conception by using “coitus interruptus.” Thus, because the results suggest that students know a great deal about condom use, we will look at the rest of the contraception methods one by one.

7. What contraception methods do you use?

-Condom 96.4%

-Oral contraceptives 24.4%

-The morning-after pill 11.7%

-The contraception patch 0%

-Femidom 0%

-Other 3%

8. What contraception methods do you don’t know about exactly?

-Condom 10.8%

-Oral contraceptives 28.7%

-The morning-after pill 21.5%

-The contraception patch 84.6%

-Femidom 68.7%

-Other 2.1%

First, we will talk about contraception methods that require drugs such as the oral contraceptive and the morning-after pill. The oral contraceptive is a preventive contraception method as a hormone drug that obstructs the ovulation of the egg by making the mucus of cervix especially sticky and thus preventing the sperm from entering. You have to take one pill a day at a regular time from the beginning day of menstruation for 21 days and then you will be on your period for a week.

The contraception effect begins 2 weeks after you take the pill and the success rate of contraception is about 99%. However, you should decide to take the pill through counseling with a doctor because there may be side effects depending on the person. Next, the morning-after pill is an ex-post contraception method. It's a hormone drug that obstructs implantation by increasing hormone concentration in your body artificially and explosively. You should take this pill 2 times at 12 hour intervals in the 72 hours after having sex and the success rate of contraception is about 75%. Likewise, you should be prescribed the pill through counseling with a doctor because there may be side effects such as ovulation disorders, vomiting and uterine hemorrhage.

Next, we will tell you about coitus interruptus, which some students think of as a contraception method. Coitus interruptus is when man ejaculates outside of the vagina of the woman after having sex. However, what is important is that coitus interruptus is not a contraception method because sperm can be transmitted through the urethra before ejaculation. Also, since the pre-ejaculate that is produced when a man gets an erection contains a small amount of sperm, it may cause pregnancy even without an ejaculation. Therefore, you should select other contraception methods that have a higher contraception effect.

At this time, we would like to introduce contraception methods that are unfamiliar to students. First, a femidom is the feminine version of a condom. A femidom is a contraception method that serves as protective film to block sperm movement by wrapping the inside of the vagina. A femidom is disposable like a condom, and it is safer than a condom because the success rate of contraception is more than 99%. Although it is inconvenient to insert it into the vagina, you can have safer sex with a femidom and a condom together. Next, is the contraception patch which is a contraception method that is attached to the bottom of belly, thigh or hip of a woman, and the hormone in this patch is absorbed through the skin. The period of use is similar to the period of taking the oral contraceptive, and the only difference is that the contraception patch is attached to the skin. It is simple to use and the success rate of this type of contraception is as high as that of the oral contraceptive. You should buy this through the counseling of doctor since knowledge of it’s side effects is insufficient.

By looking at these various contraception methods, we have examined some important and accurate sexual knowledge and the right contraception methods for a healthy sexual life. And what is more important is that we now know how to manage our sexual health. In this regard, we did a survey asking students if they know a lot about their sexual health. In response, about 16.7% of students said that they know a great deal and about 29.9% of students said that they know a little bit. About 40.7% of students said that they somewhat know, and the students who said “I don’t know a little bit” and “I don’t know at all” were about 10.2% and 2% of the responses, respectively. The students, except for about 12.8% of students, claim to know about their sexual health. Is that real? To continue, we did a survey that asked if the students had taken a medical examination regarding their sexual health and the results indicated that, about 87.8% of students had not done this while only about 12.2% of students answered, “Yes, I had an exam.” We have to take a medical examination to know exactly about our sexual health. The students who said that they haven't visited a urologist or an obstetrics doctor to learn about their sexual health explained that the reasons were that demonstrating interest in sex was not good, that they didn’t feel the need of an examination and that they felt ashamed. However, if you go to general hospital for a regular checkup, going to a urology or obstetrics professional is a good way to prevent sexual diseases. For women, if you have severe cramps there may be some problems with your sexual health and since female genitalia is inside the body, it is prone to infection if you don’t keep it clean. Actually, you have to have a regular checkup in the obstetrics department because vaginitis, which is a common venereal disease for women, can occur before and after menstruation or after having sex. For men, you need to have a regular checkup in the urology department because if you don’t keep male genitalia clean, urethritis can occur, and it can lead to prostate cancer. Both men and women need regular checkups for sexual health since you mostly don’t feel the symptoms of venereal disease and it can be treated with medicine. It is a fact that urology and obstetrics are unfamiliar to us and there is a social stigma attached to students who visit these doctors. But, just as we go to a hospital because of ill health, we need to take examinations for our sexual health. In this regard, it is a good idea to visit the health center in our school since the health center offers discount events at which students can get the vaccination for cervical cancer that we mentioned above at a cheaper price.

9. Do you know exactly about your sexual health?

-I know well about it 16.7%

-I know a little bit about it 29.9%

-I somewhat know about it 40.7%

-I don’t know a little bit 10.2%

-I don’t know anything at all 2%

10. Have you taken a medical examination to check your sexual health?

-Yes 87.8% -No 12.2%

In this article, we have looked into various types of sexual knowledge. But, what is more important than knowing something is practicing it. We hope Kyonggi University students will manage their sexual health well and have healthy sex lives.

Remember!

Freedom comes with responsibilities.