Sex in China

June 1986 Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich

"On days of sunlight, the planet teases us in her white dress and rouge."

-- Mao Zedong


CHENGDU, China -- A young, nervous prostitute introduces herself by saying, "You want to know my name? My name is Shanghai! I think Shanghai sexy name!"

Chinese authorities don't agree.

Shanghai recently spent six months in jail for prostitution.

"The guards beat me in jail, they beat everybody," she said in an interview.

Her "boyfriend," who was arrested with her, received three years imprisonment.

He is still behind bars.

The communists' puritanical -- often obsessively rigid -- attitude towards sexual freedom is a frequent complaint expressed by many young Chinese adults. Many of them say the laws are too strict.

One young man, from a relatively wealthy family, shook his head with dismay and said in an interview, "I was expelled from university for introducing two-step dancing in the dark.

"That's when a boy and girl dance together with all the lights out. It is completely forbidden in China.

"Even though we are wearing all our clothes and just dancing. Now I'm classified by the Public Security office as a troublemaker in my neighborhood.

"I have this bad reputation, just because of dancing."

One year after Chairman Mao Zedong brought communism to China, his government issued The Marriage Law of 1950.

The law guaranteed free choice in marriage, and made it illegal to consort with concubines, or perform child weddings.

Dowry, traditionally given by the groom's family, was frowned upon. Birth control became popular.

Maoists celebrated women's liberation with the slogan, "Women hold up half the sky."

But in 1983, at the start of an anti-crime crackdown, the government extended its death sentence to include "anyone who lures or houses a female, and makes her engage in prostitution for the purpose of seeking profits."

Sexy Shanghai says she is now "more careful" about sleeping with men for money, but still offers herself to locals for about three US dollars, or more, if she can get it.

"Chinese visiting from Hong Kong pay me 75 dollars," she boasts.

To avoid the arrest, Chinese hookers sometimes communicate with clients by use of elaborate signals.

One American Embassy diplomat based in the Chinese capital said in an interview, "The disco in the Minzu Hotel in Beijing was closed because Africans were screwing the Chinese disco'ers.

"The way you showed that you wanted a prostitute was by putting a one yuan, or five yuan, currency note in your shirt pocket, and letting it be seen."

An American philosophy student said he tried to talk to a Chinese woman in the street in Guangdong, and was confused when she kept displaying a small metal box used to hold artists' paint.

"I opened the box and found only two tubes of paint inside," he said in an interview.

"So I told her I wanted to take her to the park to watch her paint, but then I realized she was a prostitute. She later came to my hotel room."

A much more embarrassing subject for the government is homosexuality.

Officially, it does not exist.

One gay American musician, however, said he was approached several times by Chinese men while he toured the southern cities of Guangdong and Kunming.

"One man took me to the public urinal in Guangdong , which is where we did it," the American said in an interview.

"I was surprised that it would be in such a public place.

"But others were also there. It was quite a little scene.

"In Kunming, on the street while I watched some singers perform, a man started to fondle me.

"We didn't have anywhere to go though, because I was leaving on a train in a few minutes. I was surprised that this goes on in China and that they approached me so publicly and without any fear.

"The Chinese like us foreigners, I guess, because we have body hair."

Premarital sex, meanwhile, is also illegal in China.

Both partners risk losing their jobs -- or worse.

Some young couples do meet in public parks to tamely caress, but female virginity is still prized by most Chinese.

As a result, most relationships between the sexes usually conform to the law, but with some outbursts of romantic enthusiasm.

For example, couples sometimes practice conservative Western dances in their offices or homes, during the evening, while listening to music tapes.

Favorites include the smooth, dreamy love songs of Teresa Teng, smuggled from anti-communist Taiwan island.

While twirling about, however, couples usually keep their bodies from touching, and hold hands with elbows hardly bent, and arms stiffly extended.

Even this is too risque for many Chinese.

A public evening dance was recently held in an outdoor basketball court at a school in Yangshuo -- a quaint, small town along the Li River in the southern province of Guangxi.

More than 150 people purchased tickets, but merely sat atop the bleachers listening to the music from troubled loudspeakers.

Only two couples danced. All four of the people were girls.

Public dances in larger cities such as here in Chengdu, capital of Szechuan province, usually result in more active boogying.

Visiting foreigners are repeatedly asked to teach the natives the latest steps.

In cinemas, meanwhile, things are also loosening up. Dry political propaganda films from Mao's 1966 to 1976 Cultural Revolution have given way to some innocent love stories.

But when Eugene O'Neill's play, "Anna Christie," was recently adapted to Chinese, and performed at Beijing's Central Academy of Dramatic Arts, the government forced some changes to the American script.

"For example, embracing and kissing are omitted out of keeping with Chinese custom," the official China Daily newspaper reported.

The play, which portrays a prostitute's reconciliation with her father and boyfriend, was nevertheless hailed a success. For the Chinese performance, American Director George C. White set the action in 1930s Shanghai, not the United States.

The government, meanwhile, still condemns any concepts or behavior that it deems immoral, and labels such acts, "spiritual pollution."

Though undefined, this pollution apparently includes the Western influences which motivated a senior official's son to wiggle his eyebrows after departing from Shanghai's house and lament, "We like girls with big breasts.

"Chinese girls have small breasts," he explained in an interview.

"That is why American girls are better than Chinese girls"

Historically, however, some of China's first nude drawings appeared in Taoist sex manuals more than 2,000 years ago.

The books were considered scholarly, and taught people how to be healthy, and enjoy harmonious mating.

Many of the Taoist anatomical charts resembled detailed scientific drawings of acupuncture points, and were annotated with lengthy descriptions.

But in late Imperial China, most female patients would not allow doctors to examine their unclothed bodies.

Realistic nude figures, of carved ivory, were used by doctors and their female patients instead, so women could indicate painful areas by pointing to the figurine.

These ivories now fetch high prices on the international antique market.

In the Qing dynasty, popular fads included the wearing of amulets which portrayed nude couples -- a symbol which people believed could chase away evil demons.

In a similar way, according to the late Robert van Gullik's book, "Sexual Life in Ancient China," a 17th century warlord in Szechuan displayed naked female corpses in front of a besieged city's walls, because he believed they would magically render his enemy's guns unable to shoot.

The gruesome act never became a popular military tactic.

Website, more Asia news by Richard S. Ehrlich plus the non-fiction book of interviews, documentation and investigative journalism, titled: "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews

at: http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent