Students completing military service have sexually conservative views

By Choi Sung-jin

College students who finished army service have committed far more date-rapes than those who have not, a study shows.

Also, one in two university students have made sexual harassments verbally, including sexual insults and lewd jokes, according to the study commissioned by the Education Ministry.

“All this indicates how widespread sexual harassments using language are among students, as seen in the recent controversies about sexually denigrating remarks in closed chat rooms on KakaoTalk mobile messenger,” the report said, based on a survey of 1,441 students.

Of the 461 students who served in the army, 33, or 7.2 percent, have committed date-rapes _ having sex in defiance of their girlfriends’ intention _ or attempted to do so while only two, or 1.2 percent of 167 students who are yet to join the army, have done so, the report said.

The research team attributed the wide gap to the far more conservative “sexual perception” of students with military service. The veteran students, for instance, tended to think men should be sexually strong and take the lead in sexual relationships while women’s values depend on how sexy they are and women should oppress their sexual desire.

The study also found 45.6 percent of students have the experience of sexually rating other people’s looks and making them subject to filthy talk.

In an opinion poll of 652 male and 789 female students last November through Google’s online survey, many students showed conservative, or male-oriented, sexual attitudes, saying, “I will use my sex appeal to receive good reviews,” “Pornography has a positive function of sexual education,” and “Prostitution is necessary to prevent sexual assaults.” And those who said so have more experiences making verbal harassments, it said.

“To reduce the perpetration of sexual violence, it is necessary to educate students to have more progressive awareness and attitudes about sex and the sex industry,” the study said.