Sex is the same everywhere, but attitudes toward it differ

Halfway through my first year of teaching in Zhengzhou I showed my students a movie. I did this after they had finished their exams, choosing a film relating to the exam's topic. It would be a nice palette cleanser, a reward for all the hard work that preceded it, I thought.

The problem was the movie contained a sex scene. There was no nudity, just the sweaty faces of two characters in the act of making love. It was a minor scene in the movie that hadn't made any impression on me, but that wasn't the case with my 19-year-old college students.

I heard gasps and looked up to face an unexpectedly awkward situation. There was an air of surprise and embarrassment throughout the room and one of the quieter students was staring at me with utter revulsion for exposing her to such a lewd act. The scene, of less than 10 seconds, seemed to stretch for hours, for both the students and myself.