More Sex Please, We're Chinese

Ten years ago, I was on my first date with an open-minded young lady
Beijing, who asked me over drinks with a straight face "What do you think
of Chinese sex?" Unsure at the time if it was a come-on I diplomatically
answered, "Well, there is an awful lot of you Chinese, so you must know
what you are doing." The torrid affair that followed underlined for me
personally that after 50 years of Maoist Puritanism mainland China has
been undergoing its own sexual revolution. Today young singles in Chinese
cities use their cell phones to hook up for one-night stands while pink salon
bordellos and gay bars are permitted to operate freely. MTV dance numbers with
costumes that would make Janet Jackson smile compete with racier talk shows
where interviewees kiss and tell from behind feathered carnival masks. Today Mao might be forced to accept this version of ‘People’s Liberation’ – after all, he kept whole
harems of bright-eyed peasant girls for his own enjoyment.

It was only natural that this unstoppable force would quickly get
under the covers with China's commercial and business boom. With Chinese
factories now producing 95% of the world's sex toys and gadgets the market, both for
export and internal sales is enormous. Residents here in China all remember the
shock, surprise and smirks that greeted the appearance of vibrators, dildos, and anal
plugs in their local pharmacy about five years ago, complete with a white smocked, middle-aged sex health therapist, ready to explain their merits with a straight face.

It is only proper that Shanghai, the city most open to new trends, should be
the venue for the 3rd International Adult Toys and reproductive Health Exhibition-ADCEXPO (held August 11-13 at the International Exhibition Center in Hongqiao). I made my way there last Saturday with the lovely wife and we were greeted at the door by a pair of Chinese cheerleaders, complete with short white skirts and tops and blue pom poms. Nearly 100 exhibitors had set up shop in traditional trade show booths. On display was the whole spectrum of Chinese and foreign sexual paraphernalia available
legally in the country. And taking up up one corner was an exhibit of 250 items from Professor Liu Dalin's China Sex Culture Museum. There was plenty to see for one's 30 RMB admissions.

Companies with names like Girl's Whisper Sexy Underwear Co, Ltd and Shenzen Oddity Adult Toy Limited displayed their wares, with the emphasis on your standard battery powered vibrator with all the bells and whistles. One even moaned from little voice chip. One stiff plastic member "Angry Penis - Imitating Human Bionic Structure" might scare off buyers. Another latex female ass and vagina had all Chinese markings so my wife translated the model name as "BIG FAT SISTER." Not necessarily incestuous, a ‘big brother or sister’ often refers to your senior or older work or school mate in Asia. The female company reps, glamorously but conservatively dressed, handed out catalogs and praised their products, again with that same straight face. How do they do it?

Determined not to come home empty handed I bought a bargain box of 36 “Secret Agent 007” condoms for a mere 10 RMB while the wife flitted off and returned with two sets of skimpy lingerie for 120 Kuai. The Chinese executives were too busy making real deals (“O.K., that’s two container loads of “Angry Penis” for Changsha, payment on delivery next week.”) but I managed to casually chat up some of the foreign representatives. The scholarly gentlemen from the Alexander Institute, a producer of erotic sex therapy DVDs ( www.lovingsex.com ) designed to spice up sex-slumping married couples, complained he had not yet received official clearance to sell his products. The DVDs from his Chinese competitor a few booths down, he said “contain no sex at all, just crashing waves on beaches and trains going in tunnels.” I had to agree. The most explicit depiction of actual activity at this fair was on some of the condom boxes (Is this a 3-some here on one?). The authorities want to hold a firm line against pornography but everything else seems to be permitted these days. In this respect China is no different from some Catholic countries in Europe and South America. However, porn is here, just under the table. My wife’s friend, who runs a DVD shop, sells pirates of American porn with one best seller the 1972 classic “The Devil in Miss Jones.”

Another interesting exhibit displayed full-sized sex dolls from Japan. These aren’t the simple inflatable models, but custom-made, life-like, full bodied models, correct down to the last detail with a price to match, nearly $5000 each. I had heard of some American models, resembling mannequins, going for twice that amount. Over at the dazzling High Tech Novelties display I met Mr. Martin Tucker, an industry pioneer (You
can see pictures of his hard working assembly lines, which produce for the world market, at www.htnchina.com ) He told me about his search for inflatable dolls in Tokyo 30 years ago, when it was all whispers and late night meetings, like he was buying Uranium or something. The Japanese, I told him, call an inflatable doll, a “Dutch Wife” for some odd reason. We both agreed the Japanese were quite odd. They produce some of the most imaginative pornography in the world but they still censor the naughty-bits for the domestic audience with a circle of digitalization (the witness protection program, I call it), a modern application of a now obsolete law from the turn of the century.

The last event of the day was a fashion show of sado-masochistic costumes by the aptly named S&M house of Hong Kong. A hundred rabid Chinese men pushed up against the runway and had to be pushed back by some very loud and angry bouncers.
The show, with some masked dominatrix models showing off leather bustiers and whips, without any collared gimps or slaves, left me wondering how do you explain S & M to the Chinese? ‘Well, you see, some people feel guilty enough to want to be punished’…maybe they might lose me when I get to the concept of ‘power exchange.”
I could only stand a few minutes of the hot, sweaty jostling of the crowd as cameras snapped in the vain hope of catching some unexposed female flesh.

One former communist country does get it, however: there was a booth for next year’s EROS exhibition to be held next June 7-10 2007 in Moscow Russia www.eros-expo.ru . In addition to the usual trade show exhibits, this show will include “a Miss Erotica contest, Body Art Festival, a Naked World Art salon with sculpture, art, graphics and photography, and a Night Clubs show programs fair.” As for China, they just aren’t ready for all that yet, but perhaps next year’s ADCEXPO in Shanghai will have some new surprises. Tune in again next year.