節錄:
...The country now provides 70% of the world's sex toys.
While
the bulk of the equipment is destined for export, a growing share is
now being sold domestically, to a population that has never had as much
money and freedom to experiment.
Thanks
to a sharply expanding economy and the liberalisation of many aspects
of private life, attitudes towards sex have undergone a sea change....
...A
survey by the Family Planning Agency found that almost 70% of Chinese
were not virgins when they married, compared with 16% at the end of the
1980s.
Prostitution,
the target of a fierce and successful crackdown during the Mao Zedong
era, is once again a huge business. In places like Shenzhen, brothels
are so tolerated by the authorities that street upon street of massage
parlours and karaoke bars display a selection of girls in their shop
windows.
On
weekends, gay and lesbian bars, once unimaginable, draw packed crowds
in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other large cities throughout China.
The
sex toy industry is also going from strength to strength. In Beijing,
it was not until 1993 that the first adult health retailer, as such
outlets are euphemistically named, opened. Now the capital is estimated
to have 2,000 such shops.
Most
of the early establishments were dowdy and staffed by matrons in white
laboratory coats, offering potency pills to a largely male clientele.
But increasing competition is pushing retailers to be more imaginative
in their presentation. Public advertising is forbidden, but managers
are displaying a more colourful array of products on their shelves and
expressing a wider range of ideas about their role.
"I
feel my business is standing on the front lines of a sexual
revolution," Meng Yu, who runs the G-Spot, told the domestic media. "I
believe all adults have the same right to enjoy sexual pleasure. There
should be no difference between the orient and the west on this point."
But
achieving recognition has been a hard slog. Before he was able to open
Shaki in 1995, the owner, Fang Hong, said it took him years to acquire
the necessary permits from 36 different government agencies. His
business, which has since grown at the rate of more than 20% per year,
now employs 300 people during the peak season before Christmas.
At
the company's factory in the People Love Technology Park in Shenzhen,
products are tailored to meet the different demands of major buyers in
Japan and the US.
Casting
an expert eye over a range of blow-up dolls, he said westerners
preferred large realistic figures with lipstick and wigs, while his
Asian customers tended towards petite inflatables with cartoon faces.
"I think Asians emphasise the fantasy element of play, while westerners
think more in terms of realism and utilisation," he said.
Given China's 1.3 billion population, he said domestic sales were relatively small, but were growing fast.
At
a sex toy fair last year in Shanghai, the organisers estimated that the
business was already worth 100 bn renminbi (£6.6bn) and expanding at
the rate of 30% per year....