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Sex in the Chinese city
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - A succession
of "kiss and tell" books and "one-night stand" diaries,
full of what officials call pornographic detail, have
both fascinated and shocked Chinese readers in recent
months, marking the emergence of the topic of sex out of
the closet.
Long a social taboo, sex has
somewhat overnight become a boldly public subject,
drawing attention from university auditoriums to press
rooms and publishing houses. Scholars on sexology and
sociology have just unveiled their list of China's "top
10 sex-related news stories in 2003" and announced that
they will make their evaluation an annual event.
University academics have termed the burgeoning
changes in sex culture a Chinese "sex revolution",
drawing parallels with the 1960s sexual liberation
movement in the West. So as not to be left behind,
publishing houses have scrambled to roll out a stack of
sexually explicit books, which, much to their
expectations, have scaled the bestsellers' list in
Chinese bookstores this year.
Break-up
Dawn, a book documenting 19 women's one-night stand
experiences in search of sexual fulfillment, has sold
nearly 200,000 copies in Shanghai alone since it was
published in May. Two other titles are vying for the top
spot on the same bestseller list - Happiness that
Lasts Half-day Long and V-I Want to Lay You on a
Bed of Roses, both unabashed erotica reads.
"Talking and writing about sex is no longer a
clandestine affair," says Wang Ming, a university
professor who teaches Chinese language and literature.
"Students like to be different from their parents even
if this means showing too much affection in public
places. Writing about sex has also become a way of
asserting one's individual freedom."
Fashioning
herself as the Chinese soul mate of Catherine Millet,
the French art critic who shocked audiences by
graphically describing her one-night stands with a
succession of men, a journalist in southern China has
launched an online sex diary talking in detail about her
multiple sexual encounters.
Muzimei's sex
diaries, published on Blogcn.com beginning in summer,
have become the talk of the town, setting off public
debate about whether love and sex go their own separate
ways. More than 160,000 people had logged on to the site
by mid-November, and the number was growing by 6,000 a
day, the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News
reported. However, the links to Muzimei's diary have
been shut down twice after thousands of the site's
readers insulted the writer over the web.
"I
record my life faithfully, despite disturbances and
men's repulsion," the 25-year-old author wrote in one of
her entries. A columnist with the Guangzhou City
Pictorial magazine, Li Li - her pen name is Muzimei -
claims to have had sexual relations with 65 men, both
Chinese and foreign. "I have a job that keeps me busy,
and in my spare time I have a very humanistic hobby -
making love," Li writes. "The partner I take in my hobby
is one I choose and always changes. I rely on a
sufficient supply pool. I do not need to take any
responsibility for them; neither should I give them
love. They will not be trouble for me. They are like
CDs, which will not make a sound unless I play."
News reports say that Muzimei's diary has
attracted frowns from the government, and this month she
voluntarily stopped uploading on the website and left
her columnist job. Catherine Millet, whose 2001
autobiography The Sexual Life of Catherine M
became a phenomenal bestseller in France and other
countries in which it has been published, remained
discreet about the real identities of her numerous
lovers whom she met in the single clubs of Paris and in
the Bois de Boulogne.
Li Li, however, caused a
storm when she divulged details of her affair with the
member of a popular Guangzhou rock band. Many felt
betrayed that instead of remaining a warrior for sexual
freedom, Li had sought cheap fame by generating
celebrity gossip. An online survey by Sina.com, one of
China's major Internet portals, showed that 22 percent
of the people who visited Muzimei's site thought that
she was seeking fame at any price. Some 18 percent of
the 38,000 people surveyed condemned her behavior as
shameful. However, another 23 percent thought that her
attitude toward sex was nevertheless a demonstration of
sexual freedom and a challenge to China's priggish moral
standards.
Whether a true account of libertine
philosophy or a straight-talking testimony of sexual
exploits, Muzimei's diary is a reflection of a sea of
change in China's attitudes and the country's behavior
toward sex. There is no regret expressed about her life
of sensual pleasure, not a trace of guilt in her
accounts and no underlying chronicle of use and abuse.
The diary also confirms new findings by Chinese sexual
sociologists over the last few years that virginity has
lost its traditional social value as a crucial part of
China's sexual morality.
And as the country
quietly copes with a subtle sexual revolution,
premarital sex has become the norm rather than the
exception. According to research by Li Yinhe, a
researcher with the China Academy of Social Sciences, in
1980 the rate of premarital sex in Beijing stood at only
15 percent. But the same study revealed that by 2002
this rate has already reached 80 percent.
Li,
who has been surveying attitudes towards premarital sex
for more than 20 years, also found that China has
overcome its preoccupation with virginity. Furthermore,
a look through China's "top sex stories of 2003" reveals
how liberalized attitudes towards sex, virginity and
cohabitation are spearheading changes in law and
education. One of the stories tells of a dispute between
a local police station in western Shaanxi province and a
couple who were detained for watching pornographic films
at home. After a much-publicized lawsuit, the couple won
the suit against the police, who were charged with
intruding on their privacy at home.
(Inter Press
Service)
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