Silence Speaks Volumes: Parental Sexual Communication Among Asian American Emerging Adults

Abstract

Although parents greatly influence children’s early understandings of sexuality, little is known about how sexual communication transpires in Asian American families. Accordingly, the authors examined the amount and type of parental sexual communication recalled by 165 Asian American college students. Parents were perceived as providing very little information about a range of sexual topics. Communication was most minimal from fathers, among sons, and in homes marked with language barriers. At the same time, however, most participants could recall receiving restrictive sexual messages, in particular, daughters and participants having less acculturated parents. Qualitative results shed light on the specific types of sexual messages that parents provided. Together, results suggest that Asian American parents use implicit and nonverbal ways to communicate their sexual values.

Sexual Stereotypes and Practices of University Students in Turkey

“…Until recently, empirical research in this area suffered from several limitations. The emphasis has been mostly on the role of parents and the investigation has been limited to an emphasis on the amount of communication about sexual topics chosen by the researcher (Kim & Ward, 2007). Hence, there has been a call for studies that assess the contributions of different sources to sexual learning and that explore the specific values and messages that are communicated by the content of sexual communication (Kim & Ward, 2007).…”

Acculturation and language use in intimate and sexual relationships among Chinese bilinguals.

“…Daughters are more likely to receive parental talks on sexuality, which often emphasize aversive consequences of premarital sexual behaviors. Sons are less likely to receive such talks, and when they do, parents sometimes encourage sexual exploration in the conversations (J. L. Kim & Ward, 2007). In addition, it is considered taboo to discuss sexual topics and parents usually use indirect ways to convey sexual values and expectations to their children in China (J. L. Kim & Ward, 2007;Zhang, Li, & Shah, 2007).…”

“…Sons are less likely to receive such talks, and when they do, parents sometimes encourage sexual exploration in the conversations (J. L. Kim & Ward, 2007). In addition, it is considered taboo to discuss sexual topics and parents usually use indirect ways to convey sexual values and expectations to their children in China (J. L. Kim & Ward, 2007;Zhang, Li, & Shah, 2007). Chinese adolescents often obtain limited knowledge on sexuality from teachers and parents, and thus turn to peers and mass media for more tabooed information (Zhang et al, 2007).…”

“…The distinction may be a result of different cultural context. For instance, sexual topics are long-standing taboos in the Chinese culture (H. Cheng, 1997; J. L. Kim & Ward, 2007), thus there is a limited vocabulary to discuss sex, and the existing sexual phrases also tend to carry a significant amount of negative emotions such as shame and embarrassment. It is also culturally valued to indirectly convey one's demand or disagreement in China, thus the labels for negative emotions are often deemed too direct and are less vocally used.…”

“…Although there were periods of time when restrictions on women's activities were relatively loose, the popularity of Buddhism and the emergence of religious Daoism in Tang Dynasty, and the Song government's endorsement of Neo-Confucianism ultimately determined the overall trend of increasingly limiting the female role to solely serving parents, in-laws, husbands, and sons. Neo-Confucianism has been widely adopted in East Asian cultures and contributed to various sexual and gender double standards between women and men (Brotto, Chik, Ryder, Gorzalka, & Seal, 2005; H. Kim, Edwards, Sweeney, & Wetchler, 2012;J. L. Kim & Ward, 2007;Lee & Mock, 2005;Meston, Trapnell, & Gorzalke, 1998;Tong, 2013;Woo, 2016;Woo & Brotto, 2008;Youn, 2001).…”