Press Releases 1997
Sex Hotline well received by public
The Dr. SEX Hotline is popular among youths with more than 60 per cent of callers at the age of 20 or below.
Sponsored by the AIDS Trust Fund and the Health Care & Promotion Fund, Dr. SEX Hotline is organised by the Hong Kong Sex Education Association (HKSEA) and the Department of Health.
It is a 24-hour telephone hotline, operative via the interactive voice response system, which provides comprehensive information on sex for youth and other targets in Hong Kong.
The hotline aims to dispel misconceptions and help cultivate positive beliefs and concepts about sex-related issues, including sexual behaviours/attitudes, sexual inclination, sexual offence, contraception, unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in youth.
Dr. SEX Hotline was officially launched in July 1996. As at the end of February 1997, the Hotline has received 202,342 calls, with a mean duration of 4.44 minutes for each call. Some 47.8 per cent and 17.4 per cent of the callers were in the age group of 11-20 and ten or below respectively. Overall, nearly 40 per cent of the callers were female. Over 90 per cent of the callers chose to listen to messages in Cantonese.
Cumulatively, the most frequently used messages were those under "physiological, psychological and behavioural aspects of sex" accounting for 44.7 per cent of total. Of which, one-third listened to sex acts and behaviours messages. The second most commonly used messages were under "myths about sex" - 22.6 per cent.
The other categories of messages, such as "sexually transmitted diseases", "love and marriage", "pregnancy and contraception", and "sex and law" contributed to 5.5 per cent to 10.6 per cent of all the messages used.
From the findings of usage of Dr. SEX Hotline in the past 8 months, the Department of Health and HKSEA considered that the following points were important:
- hotline is an accessible and user-friendly method of delivering sex education for targeted groups;
- there is a big demand for information and education on sex, especially for the youth;
- users of Dr. SEX Hotline were interested in a wide variety of sex-related issues, as included in the Hotline;
- AIDS education can be effectively integrated into the broader scope of sex education.
In an effort to extend the service to other target population, messages in Putonghua has been recently added to the Dr. SEX Hotline. The callers can now select Cantonese, Putonghua or English to listen to the messages.