Page 2 of
2 China sex mag: They read it for the
articles By Sunny Lee
not to offend readers who
are still reluctant to accept sex and sexuality in
printed media.
"Chinese people are
conservative. We are in the local market, so we
have to be careful with readers as well," Jin
said.
Yet he said the government is more
open than before in adopting a more flexible
attitude toward "fashion magazines", a category
to
which
his magazine belongs.
The magazine, like
any other in China, is available at virtually any
newsstand, bookstore, subway station, hotel or
airport. And if it's in a supermarket, there is
even a good chance that it is displayed next to a
condom rack. This may make China look as if it is
going through a sexual revolution.
Certainly, today's China is not the China
of Mao Zedong's day. The nation is boasting
spectacular economic growth, and people are
upgrading their lifestyles to keep pace with the
constant modernization. Nonetheless, some
observers say the magazine is a bit too much
"ahead of its time" compared with China's overall
level of openness.
Fang Wen, professor of
sociology at Peking University, says publications
like FHM are "leading the economically affluent
urban middle class to behave radically", adding
that despite the rapid changes in urban Chinese
people's lifestyles, most Chinese remain
conservative.
People in urban areas are
more exposed to Western culture and are more
willing to express their opinions publicly and
thus "dominate the social discourse, giving
outsiders a misleading and incomplete picture of a
'liberal' China", Fang said. He cautioned that
this shouldn't be seen as reflecting China as a
whole.
Pan Suiming, a sociologist at
Renmin University in Beijing, says the magazine
reflects the overall trend in Chinese magazines
toward sexual explicitness. He said the trend has
been noticeably evolving and intensifying over the
past five years. While acknowledging that Chinese
women are more confident today in displaying their
physical beauty, the trend is predominantly driven
by commercialism, he said.
"On one level,
it is 'self-expression', and on the other level,
there are those who capitalize on women's value
only in terms of their bodies. That's unfair," Pan
said.
However, Pan said the government for
now won't interfere too much in the matter as long
as it doesn't invite a strong public outcry,
adding that he expects the trend to continue and
even strengthen.
Fang agrees with Pan in
that some Western media's analysis that sexual
revolution is happening in China is only a
"partial view". However, he differs with Pan in
that he believes the phenomenon won't be a lasting
one.
"There will be a counter-force. For
example, the 1960s [were] characterized as a
period of sexual revolution in the United States,
but it was countervailed by the conservative
'80s." Fang also noted that "sexual revolution",
if it ever happens in China, still won't occur on
a level of magnitude comparable to the US.
"It won't happen in China. Only the
economically affluent in urban areas will
experiment with it."
In other words, Fang
is also saying that something observed in major
China cities shouldn't be taken as a reflection of
"China", where the majority of the population
lives in rural areas.
While scholars have
their own take on the issue, average people have
mixed responses as well. A reader in Beijing,
whose last name is Zhou, says he reads the
magazine regularly and likes it very much because
it is "very real ... The magazine carries stuff
that a young man needs in his 'real' life." He
added that its sexual content is a big selling
point for him.
But some of the very women
who actually appear in the magazine have some
different stories to share. For example, Huang
Shengyi, who was the cover girl for the magazine
last August, suffered a personal setback
afterward. After seeing her pictures, many
advertising agencies gave her the cold shoulder,
citing concerns that her poses were too sexual and
had tarnished her image.
Another cover
girl, Shao Yuhan, received much media attention
because her mother became very indignant about the
magazine after seeing her daughter's pictures and
wrote an open protest letter, criticizing the
magazine for leading a promising singer like her
daughter in the wrong direction. That protest
eventually earned an apology from the magazine,
which said it was not like Playboy magazine.
The editors of the magazine want to
emphasize that it shouldn't be seen only for its
sexuality and sexual appeal. They try to make that
point by explaining the publication's so-called
four guiding principles: to be real, funny, sexy
and useful.
"That's our slogan, listed in
the order of importance," Jin said. He emphasized
that the "sexy" part comes only third, not first.
"That's important," Jin said.
Wang added,
"I don't understand why everyone is only
interested in sex." She paused for a moment and
said, "But I guess it is natural."
Sunny Lee is a journalist based
in Beijing, where he has lived for five years. A
native of South Korea, Lee is a graduate of
Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies
University.
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