Prostitution Crackdown Adds to the Woes of China's 'Sex Capital'

[Loki]

Prostitution Crackdown Adds to the Woes of China's 'Sex Capital' (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-21/prostitution-crackdown-adds-to-the-woes-of-chinas-sex-capital)

http://wbbw1.bwbx.io/cms/2014-02-21/0221_chn_sexworker_630x420.jpg

The city of Dongguan in southern China is the focus of a new, high-profile crackdown on the country’s thriving sex industry. According to the Chinese media, police have arrested 500 people for prostitution-related offenses since the latest anti-vice campaign began on Feb. 9.

Like many cities in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan used to be a showcase of China’s reforms but now is struggling to keep up with a rapidly changing Chinese economy. Attracted by the city’s proximity to Hong Kong and the large pool of workers willing to work for low wages, manufacturing companies from Hong Kong and Taiwan saw it as a premier destination. Throughout most of the Oughts, Dongguan’s factories attracted migrant workers from all over China. But more recently, as the government has mandated higher wages and workers from other provinces no longer need to travel so far to find good factory jobs, cities in other parts of the country have become more popular investment destinations.

To see just how badly Dongguan has suffered, take a look at the official website for the city. According to the government, Dongguan accounted for 3.7 percent of China’s total trade volume last year, with $153 billion worth of imports and exports. That might seem impressive. However, in a sign of just how severe the city’s slump is, that 3.7 percent figure is less than half the total of the previous year: In 2012, 8.3 percent of the country’s imports and exports went through Dongguan.

As manufacturing jobs shift elsewhere, the sex industry has become even more important. Prostitution and related businesses could account for 10 percent of Dongguan’s economy, China Daily reports. The crackdown will force the city “to accelerate restructuring to shake off its image as the ‘sex capital of China,’” the newspaper opines. “If the crackdown continues, local authorities urgently need to find a new growth path to ensure the economic stability of the city.”

The Chinese media are using Dongguan as an example of the ills that come from building an economy around the sex industry. In a China Daily survey of a group of expatriates for their views about the city, someone named “Eric from Britain” says Dongguan “is now a very green city and very clean,” although “prostitution is still rife and there are lots of criminal gangs about.” A Bosnian living in the city says it’s unfair to judge Dongguan for its sex industry, since “the majority of users of those services are not from Dongguan. They are from Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai … and many other cities.”

And then there’s Alberto from Italy. “I am worried about the city,” he says. “What are all the people involved in that business going to do?”

he official Xinhua News Agency is unapologetic. “There has been some criticism of China’s sex trade crackdown,” Xinhua admitted on Wednesday. “However, with the deepening of the campaign and the capture of more corrupt figures, such voices will surely weaken.”

[Loki]

#BBCtrending: Is Dongguan really China's sex capital? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26247744)

18 February 2014 Last updated at 20:10 GMT

Internet users in China have taken to social media to write positive things about the city of Dongguan after state media exposed widespread prostitution there.

The city's police chief has been sacked and the government is cracking down on the sex trade following the expose.

But some social media users have been attempting to show that there is more to the town than sex.

[RussiaPrussia]

china should legalize prostitution, they have 20 million more men than women


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh8V0apgzxk

the men go crazy and beg literally for sex, there was even a story when an old bus driver licked the face of a girl and in chinese blocks you constantly see men go crazy over any girl they see, even softcore models they jerk off to. The communist government is to cruel, basically they banned prostitution and porn which is just barbaric.

These are the real problem of china where the communist goverment should be blamed on and not freedom of speech

[RussiaPrussia]

china should legalize prostitution, they have 20 million more men than women


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh8V0apgzxk

the men go crazy and beg literally for sex, there was even a story when an old bus driver licked the face of a girl and in chinese blocks you constantly see men go crazy over any girl they see, even softcore models they jerk off to. The communist government is to cruel, basically they banned prostitution and porn which is just barbaric.

These are the real problem of china where the communist goverment should be blamed on and not freedom of speech

[Selurong]

Oh shucks what a shame. Don't worry, there's an alternative...

They can have sex with me and I only charge half-price for my stud services.


I heard that most of the Male Strippers and Gigolos in Hong-Kong and Macau are Filipinos...

Not that my classmate and my cousin works there....

Ok fine. One of my best friends, my high-school classmate works there, as a "dancer"... :naughty:

[RussiaPrussia]

GUANGZHOU, China — Slack-jawed and perspiring, Chen Weizhou gazed at a pair of life-size female dolls clad, just barely, in lingerie and lace stockings. Above these silicone vixens, an instructional video graphically depicted just how realistic they felt once undressed. (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/world/asia/with-glut-of-lonely-men-china-has-an-approved-outlet-for-unrequited-lust.html?from=mostemailed)

A 46-year-old tour bus driver, Mr. Chen had come earlier this month to the Guangzhou National Sex Culture Festival “for fun,” which was not how he described intimacy with his wife, who did not attend. “When you’re young sex is so mysterious, but once you’re married it gets really bland,” he said, barely taking his eyes off the screen.

With an official theme of “healthy sex, happy families,” the 11th annual exposition sought to remedy the plight of Chinese men like Mr. Chen — and their wives, if they are married.

The overwhelming presence of men at the festival mirrored a demographic imbalance in China, where decades of the one-child rule and a cultural preference for sons combined with illegal sex-selective abortions have distorted the country’s gender ratio to 118 newborn boys for every 100 girls in 2012, rather than the normal 103 boys. In Guangdong Province, home to a migrant worker population of 30 million — China’s largest — the scarcity of women leaves bachelors with limited options.

Video | Sex Becomes a New Big Business in China The Guangzhou National Sex Culture Festival is a mating ritual between capitalism and hedonism, all observed by a prudish chaperone: China’s government.
Filling an exhibition center here in the capital of Guangdong in southern China, the festival was a three-day mating ritual between capitalism and hedonism, all diligently observed by that most prudish of chaperones: the Chinese government. Erotic possibilities abounded, including a transgender fashion show, sliced deer antler marketed as an aphrodisiac, naughty nurse costumes and some flesh-color objects disconcertingly called “Captain Stabbing.”

Three decades after China began shedding its priggish Mao-era mores, sex is now a big business here. Across the country, pink-lit “hair salons” staffed by provocatively garbed women compete with massage parlors and late-night paid companions who slip their business cards under hotel room doors. Those looking to enhance their encounters can shop at countless “adult health product” stores and on the Internet.

Most of the inventory is made in China. According to state news media, more than 1,000 Chinese companies manufacture around 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, generating $2 billion a year as of 2010.

The bounty of carnal titillation must contend with the firm hand of the Communist Party, which bans pornography and punishes those guilty of “group licentiousness” in the name of protecting traditional Chinese values. But the party’s moral authority has frayed of late because of the publicized antics of its friskier members. In June, a government official was sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption after a video surfaced showing him in bed with an 18-year-old woman. His fall came three months after photos depicting a coterie of six naked people, including a party official and his wife, exploded on the Internet.


The one-child rule is a factor in China’s gender imbalance.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
In an attempt to give the sex festival a veneer of respectability, government-run medical organizations sponsored booths in a side room, which were, unsurprisingly, desolate. The main draw was lust.

Thousands of visitors, nearly all middle-aged men wielding cameras, poured through the aisles in search of any visible flesh. “Guys have been taking my picture all day,” said a bikini-clad model, Liang Lin, 23, who was hugging her bare midriff defensively as a throng of men jostled desperately to get a better shot.

Not far away, a male crowd waited for a diminutive Japanese pornography star named Rei Mizuna to appear. When she finally emerged from a dressing room to hand out racy autographed photos, her frenzied fans surged forward with such zeal they shattered a glass display case.

Those unrequited desires have helped spawn a booming domestic sex toy industry. “A stuffed man doesn’t know what it’s like to be hungry,” explained a salesman at one booth filled with inflatable dolls. Just then, an older gentleman approached and tried to bargain over an $8 figure with black tresses and a vacant stare.

Across the floor, the Chinese chain Buccone sold higher-end companionship. These $6,400 rubber dolls warm up “just like a real person,” said an employee, Nie Tai, 23, and could be customized. “Some men come with photos of their late wives.”

Huang Yulong, who works for a lingerie company called Toylace, was unfazed by the festival’s libidinous fervor. “Chinese men have a fetish for tearing off a woman’s clothes, so they’re not looking for romance,” said Ms. Huang, standing beside a mannequin wearing a fishnet body stocking that seemed to have run out of thread around the inner thigh. At least, not with their spouses, she added. “Customers say they’re buying for their wives, but we know it’s for their mistresses.”

In a country where it is still taboo to discuss sex publicly, creative packaging hinted at a multitude of personal tastes and private anxieties. Among the condom brands were Freud, packed in pink boxes, and Tiger Teeth, which lay beside a colorful assortment of prophylactics wrapped to resemble lollipops.

Perhaps because the domestic sex toy industry started with a focus on exports, many items boasted of a foreign mystique, like the hand-held Great Rome 5 and King Kong.

English mistranslations were particularly problematic among male sexual enhancement products, many of which suggested unintended consequences, like Black Widow. One vendor failed to impress a potential customer when he vowed that the Casanova pills worked best. “The effects last a week,” he said.

To attract potential buyers, some companies got creative, hosting pole dancing shows and other activities. Li Jianglin, 42, a shoe factory manager, won a contest in which participants raced to inflate condoms, huffing and puffing until the first one popped. “Go, go, go!” screamed the female organizer.

Mr. Li won a cash prize worth 16 cents, strawberry-flavored condoms and a pink, battery-operated device with “overwhelm by joy” emblazoned on the box. He eyed the contraption, turning it this way and that. “The condoms are useful, but I don’t know what this thing is,” he said. “Really.”

Not all visitors appeared to be so clueless. Ignoring the festival crowds, a 66-year-old retired real-estate consultant fondled an anatomically correct gadget, which her husband promptly purchased for $8. “When men get older, that part doesn’t function very well and I have needs,” said the woman, who would identify herself only as Ms. Huang.

She marveled at how times had changed since they married in 1975. “Back then, under Mao, you couldn’t talk about sex,” she said. Asked how they learned, Ms. Huang smiled knowingly. “Instinct,” she said.

Shi Da contributed research.

[zhaoyun]

China should legalize porn and prostitution. It's society is just living in hypocrisy because all of this happens behind closed doors, but people pretend they are conservative and "honorable" on the outside. Why punish the prostitutes too? They are just poor country girls trying to get ahead.