Discourses of heterosexuality in Vietnam have centred on reproduction within marriage. Alternative discourses centring on an awareness and knowledge of sex are associated with modern, urban and middle-class subjectivities influenced by Euro-American and globalised preferences. For educated urban middle-class Vietnamese, heterosexuality is an expression of modern identity and sexual satisfaction is valued for itself (Bui 2010: S22, S27). This alternative discourse of modern sexual identity has not, however, been newly invented in post-reform Vietnam. Discourses about urban middle-class sexuality in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam (then-Republican South Vietnam) similarly expressed modern sexual identities. In the mid-1930s in urban women’s media, debates centring on women’s liberation drew not on observations of Vietnamese society, but on ideals of women’s place in society imported from Confucian and European learning on the one hand and Marxist concepts on the other. One caricature of an idealised modern woman was known as the ‘new girl’. She was sporty and fashionable and loved to go dancing, bar-hopping or just settle down with a romantic novel. She ‘fell in love easily’ and promoted equal rights and suffrage, but ‘tried to evade (Confucian) responsibilities’ (McHale 1995: 188—89). Like the ‘new girl’ of the 1930s, urban middle-class women in post-reform urban Vietnam are marked by a modern sexual identity. The self-help manuals that are widely available in bookshops in Ho Chi Minh City encourage women to learn a ‘new’ discourse on love, sex and health which involves not only bodily attractiveness but also ‘scientific’ knowledge of sex and sexual pleasure (Nguyen-vo 2002: 147).
Various globalised and ‘traditional’ cultural ideals influence Vietnamese discourses of heterosexuality. Rural views of sexuality are constructed as natural and naive in contrast to urban views which are seen as scientific, modern and progressive. Normative heterosexuality in Vietnam is aligned with marriage, while an expectation of chastity governed conventional femininity and masculinity in earlier times. While male chastity was emphasised from a metaphysical or pseudo-medical perspective centred on a transfer of sexual energy from man to woman within the context of a (polygamous) marriage, female chastity was a moral issue enforced by constraints of shame (rather than guilt). For a Vietnamese woman to have an affair would have been possible so long as the affair was kept secret and thus avoided shame (O’Harrow 1995: 174—75).
In post-reform Vietnam, moral chastity no longer governs femininity. For women in rural northern Vietnam, virginity is a ‘gift of love’ and premarital sex is morally acceptable on the premise that it leads to marriage (Gammeltoft 2002: 125, 127). In Hanoi, too, chastity is no longer a highly desired attribute of a bride. Virginity, has become ‘just a feeling’ (Martin 2010:
S12). Young Hanoian women say they do not regret premarital sex with someone they love and, because young men considered ‘multiple dating’ a normal practice for themselves, they do not object to dating sexually-experienced young women (Nguyen 2007: 303). For young women, multiple dating enables them to make the best possible choice of a husband. Nevertheless, popular anecdotes circulate about the availability of hymen reconstruction surgery (Martin 2010: S11). This speaks to an ongoing consciousness of the moral value placed on female chastity in discourses of marriageability (see also Gammeltoft and Nguyen in this volume).
While male chastity was also an expectation for marriage, normative male heterosexuality in (pre-revolutionary) Vietnam incorporated having multiple sexual partners in the forms of the practices of polygamous marriage, concubinage and prostitution. Such practices continue in post-reform Vietnam. A 1993 CARE study found almost half (44 per cent) of men interviewed in Ho Chi Minh City had two or more sexual partners in a two-week period (McNally 2003: 118). The men reported regular outings with friends to drink and seek prostitutes. The commercialisation of female sexuality figures prominently in post-reform Vietnamese sexuality discourses (Fahey 1998: 230; Hoang 2011). For Vietnamese men, buying heterosexual sex enables them to show their dominant masculine position and enhance status by demonstrating financial and social power. Buying sex for other men is another means to achieving a higher social position, particularly in business (Horton and Rydstrom 2011: 550—51; Nguyen-vo
2008) . Extra-marital sex, however, challenges the discursive model of happy family life (Horton and Rydstrom 2011: 557).
Urban heterosexuality reflects normative discourses of femininity and masculinity which differentiate between the genders, but urban men question their own abilities to negotiate the ‘new’ expectations of sexual assertiveness of urban women. Both men and women are reportedly concerned about male sexual performance, as female pleasure is considered an indicator of a man’s prowess (Bui 2010: S23; Martin 2010: S14). At the same time, Vietnamese gender stereotypes mean that women are assumed to be subordinate to men. Marital violence and harassment by men is widely tolerated by Vietnamese women because it is believed to result from men’s typical character and bolder temperament. Despite being illegal under Article 21, paragraph 2 of the Marriage and Family Law of 2000, violence in marriage occurs but is often hidden (Rydstrom 2010: 179—81). One in three (32 per cent) ever-married Vietnamese women has experienced physical violence, one in ten (10 per cent) sexual violence and more than half (54 per cent) emotional abuse perpetrated by their husbands (Jansen, et al. 2010: 20). Social pressure compels women to maintain a sense of respectability and concern for their reputations, which can be easily tarnished. Complaining of harassment or abuse may attract a reprimand. Further, family interests may be protected over a woman’s interests when her sexuality has been violated (Lainez 2012: 151; Nguyen 2012).
Examples of premarital sex, multiple dating, extra-marital sex and marital violence highlight the gaps between actual sexual practices and idealised happy family life. These examples also highlight the persistence of older ideas about female heterosexuality in the context of family life.