--- title: Young Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex description: Yau Wai-ching, 25, says a lack of affordable housing means young people do not have enough sexual privacy canonical: https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/ author: Nash Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-05T09:34:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:47:55.677Z og:title: Young Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex og:description: Yau Wai-ching says a lack of affordable housing means a lack of sexual privacy og:url: https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte33ff33cb38b3189/6988a8be428a9e9e4bcd481e/gettyimages-610801596.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5760 og:image:height: 3240 og:image:alt: HONG KONG-CHINA-POLITICS-DEMOCRACY-INDEPENDENCE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Young Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex twitter:description: Yau Wai-ching says a lack of affordable housing means a lack of sexual privacy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte33ff33cb38b3189/6988a8be428a9e9e4bcd481e/gettyimages-610801596.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A 25-Year-Old Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._ by [Nash Jenkins / Hong Kong](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins / Hong Kong Oct 5, 2016 9:34 AM UTC  This picture taken on Sept. 15, 2016, shows Yau Wai Ching, from the political party Youngspiration, who was elected to the Hong Kong Legislative Council as a member for West Kowloon in the recent 2016 legislative elections This picture taken on Sept. 15, 2016, shows Yau Wai Ching, from the political party Youngspiration, who was elected to the Hong Kong Legislative Council as a member for West Kowloon in the recent 2016 legislative elections Isaac Lawrence—AFP/Getty Images by [Nash Jenkins / Hong Kong](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins / Hong Kong Oct 5, 2016 9:34 AM UTC It’s no fun being young in Hong Kong. There’s the whole matter of communist encroachment, for starters: in recent years, the semiautonomous territory’s democratic freedoms have been undermined by its sovereign leaders in Beijing, imbuing the new generation with a [deep anxiety](http://time.com/4199493/hong-kong-booksellers-china-democracy/) for its political future. On top of that, members of said generation still by and large live with their parents in some of the [densest and most-cramped](http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-hong-kong-the-apartments-are-fit-for-a-mosquito-1433237582) apartment blocks in the world, leaving them with few opportunities to, well, blow off steam. Enter 25-year-old Yau Wai-ching. She’s a radical anti-Beijing activist whose election in last month’s [Legislative Council election here](http://time.com/4478978/hong-kong-legislative-council-election-legco/) evinces a mounting popular frustration with the local political old guard, seen by many as feckless in the face of Beijing’s sovereignty. Her stances are extreme — she’s championed an unprecedented separatist movement for this maritime territory of 7.5 million people, a bold rebuke to the nation of 1.4 billion to which it belongs — and her words are frank. This week, she went on the record to lament the fact that young Hongkongers don’t get to have much sex. “If we want to look for a room to bang in, we fail,” she said, [according](http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=174793) to the local English-language paper the _Standard_, using a Cantonese slang term that literally means “to strike something.” She added: “This is a matter of fact.” There was a broader political point to be made, of course. She went on to damn the Hong Kong government’s failure to adequately address the bleak state of local housing, which she chalked up to the political establishment’s general disdain for the younger generation. (She is [not the first](http://time.com/4479970/hong-kong-nathan-law-legislature-demosisto-democracy/) to draw attention to this ideological chasm.) “But does the government even care?” she told the _Standard_. “In order to make society care, I won’t hold back even if it means criticism.” In a Facebook post [cited in local media](http://hongkong.coconuts.co/2016/10/05/new-legco-elect-hong-kong-young-people-have-no-room-bang), Yau added: “Under debt, young people are facing limited options \[when it comes to\] spaces to bang in … What dreams can we have for our future?” Despite its reputation as a cosmopolitan hub of global commerce, Hong Kong is a deeply conservative town. A 2008 survey [cited](http://www.scmp.com/article/631527/hks-youth-most-conservative-about-sex-global-survey-finds) by the _South China Morning Post_ found it to be the most prudish place in the world on matters of sex — more than half of the young people surveyed said they were too embarrassed to buy condoms — and political issues like gay marriage are fringe topics at best. “I don’t know what’s in her mind,” one online commenter wrote, according to the _Standard._ She takes office next week. She will be the second youngest lawmaker in Hong Kong’s history. ## Transcript Sexual pleasure is only one part of what men and women want from each other. They want intimacy, they want closeness, they want understanding, they want comfort, they want fun, and they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them, and I think people are always seeking that. In every generation. [ MUSIC ] My name is Shirley Zussman. I just reached a hundred years of age, and I am a practicing sex therapist. I was invited with my husband to a lecture in New Jersey, in 1966. Masters and Johnson were the speakers. No body knew about them. Human sexual response had just been published, what I saw was a couple who will say that people had problems in an area in their lives that was very important and they were recognizing that it was all not just. Glamorous and wonderful to be sexual. One had to almost had to learn how to be a good partner and to endure the pleasure not only for yourself but for each other. And I thought we can do that. Why can't we do that? And we applied for training with Masters and Johnson at that time. The patients that came to us were people who read the paper. The only way they do anything about the work that was being done there. And the problems they came with, was somewhat different than the problems they come with today. Mostly, women came because would put out orgasmic, they didn't know how to achieve an orgasm, but they wanted one. It was so over that ,. Goal they had for themselves and how do I get there. That was one Masters and Johnson's contribution that there was a relatively simple way to start learning about your body. In other words, get, get to know your, who you are sexually and physically and that was. And encouragement for masturbation for learning what makes you feel good. I see a big change in the we view casual sex. In the 60's I think it was not just casual it was frantic. I'm shocked at the lack of connection with people; because of iPhones, even I love my iPhone. There is so much less actual physical connection, there's less touching, there's less talking, there's less holding, there's less looking, [ INAUDIBLE ]. People get pleasure from looking at each other. But the most common problem, I would say, in the sex therapy that I live in, is a lack of desire. You have to look at your priorities. You have to decide what is important to make you feel good about yourself and your life. And to help make your partner feel good and to establish something that is gratifying that really fills a need that we all have to be close to somebody. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/"},"headline":"A 25-Year-Old Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex","datePublished":"2016-10-05T09:34:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:47:55.677Z","description":"\"Does the government even care?\"","url":"https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Hong Kong","China","World"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte33ff33cb38b3189/6988a8be428a9e9e4bcd481e/gettyimages-610801596.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nash Jenkins / Hong Kong"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte33ff33cb38b3189/6988a8be428a9e9e4bcd481e/gettyimages-610801596.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"HONG KONG-CHINA-POLITICS-DEMOCRACY-INDEPENDENCE","caption":"HONG KONG-CHINA-POLITICS-DEMOCRACY-INDEPENDENCE","creditText":"Isaac Lawrence—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/","name":"A 25-Year-Old Hong Kong Lawmaker Wants More Space for Sex"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now","description":"A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-20T13:40:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/","duration":"PT3M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4519215/yau-wai-ching-bang-hong-kong-sex/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```