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China provides two critical services
to the United States. It is a major underwriter of U.S. debt
and it is our major supplier of sex toys. According to Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, at the end of 2005, China had
$820 billion in U.S. Treasury assets, the second-largest holder
of U.S. debt after Japan. The Shanghai Star estimated
that China, in 2004, accounted for 70 percent of global sex products
-- one can only imagine that its share of the U.S. market is
about the same. These two phenomena illustrate how sex is becoming
increasingly integrated into the world market economy.
The U.S. porn industry is estimated
to be a $10 billion business. Porn merchants sell their wares
to home consumers in many forms, including magazines and books,
DVDs, cable and satellite television programs (through Comcast
and Rupert Murdock's DirecTV), telephone and web services; they
also reach weary travelers through pay-per-view services at nearly
all the nation's hotel chains through Lodgenet and OnCommand.
Even Virgin Megastore has gotten into the act, opening X-rated
nooks in some of its hipper stores.
Estimates vary widely as to
the size of the U.S. "adult novelty" industry. The
Miami Herald recently estimated it at $1.5 billion in
annual sales; the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. estimated North
America sales in 2001 at $500 million. Innumerable "adult"
specialty boutiques and women's-only sex-toy get-togethers (often
called "Passion Parties") help women and men play out
their wildest fantasies. The Las Vegas-based company, Passion
Parties, claims over 28,000 sales representatives and annual
sales of $47 million.
San Francisco's Good Vibrations,
the grandmother of sex play, has been in operation for nearly
thirty years; a Business 2.0 reporter referred to it as
a sex toy "Pottery Barn as mall-friendly and all-American
as Restoration Hardware" that does $12.5 million in annual
sales. Cake, operating in New York and London, hosts monthly
parties catering to women (with men in attendance) at which dildos
and other toys are demonstrated and offered for sale. One Woonsocket,
RI, company, Athena's Home Novelties, grossed of $7 million in
2005. With little fanfare, Amazon got into the adult products
market two years ago and just might be the biggest seller; it
carries more than 40,000 sex products under its "Health
and Personal Care" section.
A growing universe of online
sites provides people with even more discrete ways to order whatever
sexual fetish turns them on. Industry pundits estimate that between
100,000 and 400,000 sites are pornographic and many of these
sell the most risqué, private sexual accoutrements; Adam
& Eve, a North Carolina adult product company, claims to
have over four million customers. And "altsex" at Google
groups is a virtual cornucopia of illicit desires. (A Nielsen/NetRatings
September 2006 survey of online audiences found that 30 percent
of all visitors to adult websites, or nearly 12.6 million visitors,
were women.)
In terms of sexual culture,
China has come a long way since the days of the Cultural Revolution.
Then, men and woman were often segregated and any overt display
of sexuality, whether in dress or public affection, including
kissing, invited condemnation if not worse. Today, much of China
remains conservative, especially in the countryside.
In some parts of rural China
one old tradition hangs on the nude funeral performance.
As retold by Reuters, China's Xinhua news agency reported that
the police in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, broke up two
groups of strippers who gave "obscene performances"
at a farmer's funeral. According to the Chinese source, "Striptease
used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai's rural areas
to allure viewers." It was especially popular with wealthier
families who often employed strippers to attract a crowd. "Local
villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral,
the more the dead person is honored," it noted. The report
claims that two hundred showed up at the farmer's funeral and
five strippers were detained. Xinhua claimed that officials "issued
notices concerning funeral management" and that they now
must submit plans for funerals within 12 hours after a villager
dies. Officials even set up a hotline so residents can report
"funeral misdeeds."
The Chinese cities tell a different
story. The sight of young people openly necking, and more, on
park benches in Beijing or Shanghai no longer seems to surprise
foreign visitors. (This says as much about a new sexual culture
as it does the lack of privacy.) A recent survey by the Family
Planning Agency found that almost 70 percent of Chinese were
not virgins when they married, compared with 16 percent at the
end of the 1980s. Durex, a leading condom manufacturer, conducts
what it calls an annual Global Sex Survey and, for 2005, reports
-- if you can believe it -- that the average number of "sex
enhancers" used by Chinese was: vibrators, 14 (for U.S.,
43), penis rings, 13 (U.S., 13), love balls, 12 (for U.S., 6)
and lotions/messages, 13 (for U.S., 43).
Today, Chinese have increasingly
easy access to the internet and pirated western DVDs, including
a wide selection of pornography. Prostitution, once fiercely
suppressed, is a growing business. In places like Shenzhen, brothels
are tolerated and many massage parlors and karaoke bars feature
scantily clad girls in their store windows to lure in passerbys.
There is an estimate ten million prostitutes in China and, based
on recent UN data, a significant increase of HIV infection among
these women; the Durex sex survey reports that 34 percent of
Chinese engage in unprotected sex, compared to 51 percent for
the U.S. Perhaps most surprising, there are reports that on weekends
in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other big cities, gay and lesbian
bars are packed to capacity. In China, a new sexual culture not
unlike that found in the West is rapidly taking shape.
Another indicator of this change
is that sex toys are becoming more popular. Beijing's first sex-toy
shop opened in 1992 and today there are an estimated 2,000 adult
shops there, with more than 2,500 in Shanghai. According to the
China Sex Health Committees, the annual sale of sex products
in China in 2003 exceeded $12 billion (100 billion yuan) and
is projected to grow at 30 percent annually. Sales of sexual
potions and medicines amounted to $6 to $7.2 billion a year (50
to 60 billion yuan). One estimate claimed that in 2004 there
were over 10,000 Chinese companies involved in the sex products
industry.
"As sexual and family
concepts undergo great changes and sexually transmitted diseases
remain rampant, sex toys have become a better choice for safe
sex and self-discipline," said Professor Gu Donghui, vice-chairperson
of the Department of Sociology at Fudan University. The sex toy
market has grown even faster since 2003 when such products were
removed from drug administration regulation they are now
considered medical aids or health equipment and fall under different
monitoring.
According to the China Sexology
Society, the major users of sex products are the handicapped,
people with sexual dysfunctions, singles, soldiers and women.
"There are 20 million handicapped people in the country
and sex products play an important role in their sex lives,"
reports Professor Tong Chuanliang of the International Peace
Maternity and Child Health Hospital. Even more people use them
to improve the quality of their sex lives, reflecting the deeper
changes in popular attitudes towards sex. "People attach
more importance to their sex lives and its quality as their life
conditions improve," observed Tong. And women are driving
this change in sexual life. "They do not want to fall prey
to men's sex toys and are not willing to play a passive role
in sexual life," Tong added.
According to a survey conducted
by Sohu, a popular Chinese website, 69 percent of Shanghai women
agreed that a harmonious sex life is necessary for a happy life
and family, with 88.9 percent saying they would be willing to
try new positions or sexual techniques to have more fun. "Although
they have the courage to challenge traditional sexual ideas,
their knowledge about sex still lags behind their thoughts,"
noted Professor Tong. (This seems especially important in light
of a finding from another survey that found that only 21.5 percent
of men claimed to know where the clitoris is located and 59 percent
thought sex toys would not help them improve their sex lives.)
Change in China's sexual culture
is driven by the same state-sponsored entrepreneurialism that
defines its economy as a whole. An indicator of this is evident
in Shanghai's recently established annual sex fair. The first
International Adult Toys and Reproductive Health Exhibition took
place in 2004 and drew an estimated 6,000 visitors, including
2,000 industry insiders. The 2005 fair attracted 30 to 40 percent
more visitors than the previous one, as well as about one hundred
domestic and foreign companies that deal in sex-related products.
This new sex culture is spawning
a generation of Chinese sex-preneurs, enterprising
and often quite imaginative manufacturers of sex toys.
According to The Economist, Wu Zhenwang is "China's
sex toy king." His company, Wenzhou Lover Health Products,
produces devices made from rubber, plastic, leather and a sponge-like
material that simulates female flesh. His catalog includes the
Vertical Double Dong, the Occidental Vagina, the Waterproof Warhead
Vibe and a variety of goods for those into sadism and masochism
mostly targeted for the the overseas markets. Wenzhou products
are branded under the Loves, LustyCity and Daily Planet labels
and it controls an estimated 60 percent of the the domestic sex
toy market. In the face of dropping prices and squeezed profit
margins, Wu faces the same expand-or-die syndrome that drives
all capitalist enterprises. In response, the Wu family plans
to open a thousand retail outlets across the country, with at
least two in each provincial capital.
Fu Erqiang runs a sex toy plant
in Fushun, Liaoning province. "People are becoming more
and more open to sex. But it's a very slow process, this liberalization,"
he acknowledged. "It's getting better, but the market here
is small compared to other places." His company has about
ten employees and is responsible for such products as the Sexual
Love Chair, theSexual Love Magic Balland
thePassionate Knight, a sexual apparatus for women. "Generally
speaking," Fu observes, "women want to add more spice
to their sex lives, and modern women in pursuit of special feelings
in sex buy this product. It's also for couples doing a long-distance
relationship."
Fang Hong opened the Shaki
adult toy factory in the People Love Technology Park in Shenzhen
in 1995. His business employs 300 people during the peak season
before Christmas. Reflected the old, pre-entrepreneurial climate,
Fang admits that it took him years to acquire the necessary permits
-- from thrity-six different government agencies to open
his factory. His products are targeted to the customers in Japan
and the U.S. As an observant Guardian reporter noted,
"At the Shaki factory, there is no excited talk about sexual
revolution, nor even the slightest titillation or shocked giggles."
The workers sit in silence for eight hours a day earning $80
to $100 a month, "knocking out so many cheap thrills for
the world that they become numb to what they are doing."
One of the female employees admitted, "For the first few
days, this job felt a bit strange, [b]ut after that you forget
what you're holding. It becomes just another object."
Globalization shows that the
world is round and everything eventually comes full circle. From
the Dickensian sex toy factories in China to the glamour of New
York's Kiki de Monparnasse (selling a $450 titanium vibrator)
or Henri Bendel (which sells a $688 silk whip), sex toys have
become an important accoutrement to the market driven sex economy.
From Bangkok to Las Vegas, Amsterdam to San Francisco, Tokyo
to Rio, sexual culture has become universalized. Being post-modern
means adopting (or at least accepting) an international appetite
toward sexual pleasure.
Nothing demonstrates the market's
power to drive sexuality than the feeble attempts by religious
fundamentalist to resist its endless temptations. The valiant
effort to resist the commodification of female sexuality finds
its most pathetic expression in the attire prescribed for devout
Amish, Hassidic and Muslim women. Whether wearing the headscarf,
long-sleeved top and long skirt or wearing the higah or
higab, let alone the covering veil, the niqab,
women remain the most burdened by the market's commodity culture,
even in its negation.
Sex toys are but one, and perhaps
the most innocuous, feature of the globalizing sex economy. The
international commerce in children and women in prostitution
and sex slavery is the darker aspect of this process. Whether
one can exist without the other remains an open question.
David Rosen is completing the manuscript for "Perversions:
America's Secret Passion for Deviant Sexual Pleasures."
He is author of, most recently, "130 Parties in 30 Days:
Matt Gonzales & Indie Culture," The
Political Edge, a collection on the 2004 San Francisco mayoral
election (ed., Chris Carlsson, City Lights, 2005).
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