Background

Sex is something that is difficult to ignore in our life and it is everywhere in our cultures, which is reflected in films, TV commercials, magazines and fashion. A study has shown that many people find it extremely hard to talk about sex; it can be a sensitive and awkward topic that raises feelings of embarrassment, shame or inadequacy (Sliver 2014). People are taught to be silent about sex, which is generally viewed as an acceptable topic for conversation. Furthermore, research has found out that although the world is becoming closer with rapid development of technology and communication, when it comes to sex, the gap between Westerners and Asians doesn’t seem to get smaller (Chong 2013). Not only because the cultural difference make their perspectives differently, but the education most Asians received sees sex as a taboo. In some countries, such as Brazil, condoms are available to young people in school, while in others, for example in some part of Indonesia, their possession is a criminal offense. Additionally, Westerners are more open-minded when in comes to sex in general, it is an acceptable topic in most society without embarrassment, and it results from the sexual revolution, which is a series of changes that widely happened in Western countries in 1960s to 1980s especially regarding sexuality (Kelly 2011).

Most of us have acknowledged that Australia is one of the most multicultural countries in the world with 26% of Australians born overseas and 49% of people at least having one parent born oversea, which has formed 100 religions and 300 ethnic group in this country (Australian Bureau of Statistic 2016). As in RMIT, it has around 46% of international student from different backgrounds with various perceptions. Individuals who immigrate from one country to another often undergo a process of reevaluating traditional values brought from homeland and selecting the norms and option from new surroundings.

With above, we expect to gather a variety of information and people’s attitude towards conversation of sex in general and would like to raise the awareness that talking about sex is nothing to be embarrassed about, give a message that there is no need to feel being judged when discussing about sex and also encourage people to feel more comfortable and open-minded when it comes to sex.  

Audience Research

The target audience has been targeted all students in every university in Australia, but we will be focusing at RMIT University since RMIT students already have a great number of international students from different backgrounds. RMIT is rated having the highest proportion of international students in Australia (Australian Education Network n.d.). Department of Education and Training (2018) reported that top 5 countries of international students are from China, India, Nepal, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Besides, Chinese students account the highest amount among all the countries and sex is a taboo topic in Chinese culture. According to those researchers above, this is why RMIT has stood out among all the universities in Melbourne and considered as a suitable and right target audience that will allow us to achieve our aims of creating a documentary video under the topic of Sex Taboo.

Although a majority of young people believe that people are more open-minded in terms of sex and relationship nowadays, there are still lots of them facing the difficulties of talking about sex as the expectations of the societies back home. Moreover, researchers (Parker 2014) have found out that minority of young people were positive about the sex and relationship education they had received at school, as well as show that a greater proportion of students thought it was important for young people to have information and guidance on almost every topic regarding sexuality.

References:

Silver, M 2014, ‘Why is it so difficult to talk about sex?’, The Sydney Morning Herald, blog post, 1 September, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-talk-about-sex-20140901-10asfj.html>.

Chong, C 2013, ‘Perception of sex: East vs West’, Meld Magazine, blog post, 18 September, viewed 1 April 2018, <https://www.meldmagazine.com.au/2013/09/sex-perception-western-asian/>.

Kelly, G 2011, Sexuality Today, 10th edn, McGraw-Hill Global Education, Boston.

Wellings, K, Collumbien, M, Slaymaker, E, Singh, S, Hodges, Z, Patel, D & Bajos, N 2006, ‘Sexual Behaviour in context: a global perspective’, World Health Organisation, viewed 2 April 2018, <http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/sexual_health/lancet_article2/en/>.

Parker, I 2014, ’Young People, Sex and Relationship: The new norms’, Institute for Public Policy Research, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/young-people-sex-relationships_Aug2014.pdf>.

Department of Education and Training 2018, INTERNATIONAL STUDENT DATA monthly summary, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/International-Student-Data/Documents/MONTHLY%20SUMMARIES/2018/Jan%202018%20MonthlyInfographic.pdf>.

Australian Education Network n.d., List of Australian Universities By Size, viewed 3 April 2018, <http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/directory/list-of-universities-by-size/>.