Role models

Michael Suen, the city's secretary of education, spoke at the 4th Asian Conference on Sexuality Education 2010 Thursday. He said that parents should be "gatekeepers" for their children.

"Our young people nowadays are becoming more sexually active at an earlier age," he said.

He added that a new course called "Life and Society" would be offered at the junior secondary level in 2012 to strengthen sex education.

However, Tse, who is often invited to talk in schools, said sex education in Hong Kong is more like "remedial work."

"I am often invited to scare teenagers by telling them sex might bring diseases and how painful abortion is," he said. "Some teachers are afraid if you teach students how to use condoms, they are going to use it frequently."

Tse said some new immigrants in Hong Kong are also involved in compensated dating as they find it hard to make a living.

Li Yinhe, the country's most well-known and outspoken sexologist, told the Global Times that the Internet is a factor.

Pan Suiming, one of the county's leading experts on prostitution at Renmin University, told the Global Times that compensated dating is not an issue on the mainland.