Sex experts alarmed over Hong Kong 'wasteland'

It’s not enough that people in Hong Kong have less sex, it’s that even when they have it, it sucks.

This, according to surveys dating back to 2000, anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

For years, people have been trying to explain away the low sexual frequency rep.

Low, as in as many as 35 percent of men saying that haven’t had sex during the previous six months, according to one study, and 18.1 percent of women having “low coital frequency”, as in no sex the entire year, according to another study.

“To many Hong Kong people, having sex is too much trouble,” said sex expert Dr. Ng Wing-ying, pointing to the huge work pressures and busy lifestyle of most Hongkongers, according to Time Out Hong Kong in 2012.

“Hong Kong people are too tired after work to build up the mood and have sex with their partners. In many cases, they’d rather do it themselves.”

According to an Agence-France Presse report in 2013, the biggest obstacle is privacy, saying that the city’s 7.2 million people are stacked on top of each other in rows of closely packed skyscrapers.

Astronomical real estate prices, too, tend to ground younger adults in their parents’ apartments until their late 20s, and sometimes late 30s, making it difficult if outright impossible to have a sex life.

Others blame women.

More than three in 10 women reported having no sexual desire, and the same number of women reported having trouble getting aroused, according to a study conducted in 2014 by the Family Planning Association of Hong Kong. Another third reported they experienced pain during sex.

Okay, so everything would be all better if the sex (with lubricant used as directed) was good, right?

Wrong. The quality over quantity thing doesn’t work for Hong Kong either.

Sixty-nine percent from the city are not satisfied sexually even when they have it, according to Durex in its most recent global survey on sexual practices.

Between the sheets, 41 percent of Hong Kong men experience an orgasm every time, compared with only 8 percent of women.

In contrast, the study found that 64 percent of males worldwide, compared with 32 percent of females, always experience orgasm during sex.

For the record, in Mexico, where people reportedly have the greatest sex in the world, 78 percent of men and 51 percent of women say they have orgasms every time.

Part of the reason could be that Mexicans spend significantly more time on intercourse than Hong Kong people: 22.1 minutes versus 15.3 minutes on average.

Meanwhile, mainland China is in the midst of a sexual revolution, with nearly 80 percent of Chinese people getting it on at least once a week and more than 70 percent of youths having sex before marriage.

They spend 4.6 minutes longer doing it than their counterparts in Hong Kong—proof positive, I guess, that ancient Chinese remedies like horny goat weed really work.

But, alas, despite the extra effort, only 30 percent of men and 13 percent of women say they always reach “high tide".

Even so, 42 percent of people in China say they are fully satisfied sexually, compared with 29 percent in Hong Kong.

Back in 2006, when the sexual wasteland of Hong Kong was only in its sixth year in a row of having much less sex than anyone else in the world, sex experts were duly alarmed.

"Regular and good sex is part of normal healthy lifestyle," said Angela Ng, at the time one of the city's most well-known sex therapists, a medical practitioner and host of her own radio talk show, according to China Daily.

“But if you don't allow enough time for sex, then you'll never do it."

Ng Man-lun, then dubbed Hong Kong's "Doctor Sex”, said work pressures leave couples with little interest in lovemaking.

“Anxiety, depression or separation from a spouse [while at work] force couples to have sex less often and in worse cases, stop all together,” said Ng, now associate director of Hong Kong University’s Family Institute.

Commenting on how uninterested Hongkongers remain with even the prospect of having sex, he noted last year that just 5 percent of Hong Kong locals have met a partner online or via an app, compared with 22 percent of Americans.

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CG