The ongoing fight between art and public morality is raging in China as a series of photographs showing a couple nude in public have sparked an outcry from netizens.

The photographs, widely disseminated online, show a nude man and woman at various locations along Dali People’s Road in Yunnan Province. Taken at night with no one else in sight, the couple are seen posing in front of schools, hostels and restaurants. Although photographs published in the Chinese media have been censored, it’s clear in other photos that the couple are engaging in sex acts.

The original poster of the photos to Weibo explained them with this cryptic message:

Every city has a ‘People’s Road’, and for me the Dali version of the ‘People’s Road’ is especially familiar. Many people ask: They’ve all left, why are you still walking back and forth on this patch of road, still hanging around on People’s Road?

Local police say they’ve received complaints about the photos, and are investigating.

Crammed full of hutongs in the old part of town, locals describe the Dali neighborhood as “the last ideal country” and “a utopia”, and complain that the nude photos slander the reputation of Dali.

One person complained online, “How can students of the No. 4 Dali Middle school look upon their own school gates after this? How can the gate sentries even open the gates anymore?”

Meanwhile, another person pleaded for common sense to prevail over artistic sensibilities. He wrote, “There’s nothing wrong with being artistic! But please consider other people! At the same time (you want) other people to respect you, we must respect other people!”

Nude photographs in public have long tested Chinese patience. This past April, netizens were outraged when nude photos of a woman standing at the side of a sacred Tibetan lake were discovered online. Last June, nude photographs taken at the Forbidden City were condemned for having “insulted” the international tourist spot.

At the same time, if these photos really are obscene, China’s strict censorship laws would never allow them to be published.

Be that as that may, the Chinese media do have a habit of informing the public whenever the news is about nude photographs, like how it reported the 2014 Hollywood hacked photo scandal by publishing those photographs.

The post Art or Pornography? Nude Couple in Dali Blasted for “Slandering” the City appeared first on The Nanfang.

Global Times recently published an article written by a “Stephanie N.” Titled “Single foreign females in China don’t have it easy“, Stephanie complains that circumstances are tough for her and other foreign women when it comes to finding love in Shanghai, saying that the “odds are simply against us” and calling the entire experience “bittersweet”.

No one is spared in Stephanie’s deconstruction of the Wild West of relationships that is Shanghai. She uses this opportunity to complain about both men and women from China and abroad, implicating everyone for their part in contributing to her plight.

Stephanie begins by establishing the first rule to learn about dating in Shanghai:

Most everyone knows by now that Western men are god-like figures in China, attracting hoards of local women who are drawn to their masculine appearances and dominant personalities…

Expat men are “spoiled by choice” by “a frenzy of dating as many local women as they possibly can with absolutely no commitment to any of them”. Such an impossible situation is made possible by Chinese women who aren’t able to say “no” when it comes to expat men.

Even though they have the edge on Caucausian women with their “slender, pliable figures”, the beauty of Chinese becomes a disadvantage when it comes to foreign men who are “more blunt about what they want than the average local fellows”. Incapable of repelling sexual advances due to being “inhibited about their sexuality” and a “submissive nature in the bedroom”, Stephanie describes Chinese women as Shanghai’s renewable resource that keeps replenishing the carnal needs of its dating pool, “ensuring that most Western men here are never short on sex”.

If part of the problem is that Chinese women aren’t able to say “no”, the other half is that Chinese men aren’t able to ask the question. Stephanie describes Chinese men as “effeminate” and  “small-sized” people who don’t have the capability to have a relationship with a foreign woman. “If anything, [foreign women are] considered too dominant, turning the majority of them off with our independent personalities and strong opinions,” she wrote.

And even if a female expat is able to find a Chinese man for a romantic relationship, her “Mr. Right” will only ever be a “Mr. Right-Now”. Stephanie writes that Chinese men are interested in “engaging us in one night stands or brief flings, but then cutting things off abruptly when it’s time for the relationship to move into serious territory.”

Despite her condescending view of Chinese men, Stephanie hopes to have a relationship with a Chinese man in Shanghai, warning them to “watch out because here I come!”

And yet, it seems what Stephanie truly desires aren’t arms to hold her during cold nights. She is looking for an end to the status quo that has marginalized expat women in Shanghai:

It would be nice to see the culture gap between Westerners and Chinese eventually narrow in order for foreign women to have a fighting chance at dating Chinese men.

But the happy ending to her lonely days isn’t just about finding love, but finding justice:

In turn, it would also be interesting to watch Western men finally get a reality check and discover that most of them are hardly “God’s gift to women” and could never get this much action back in their home countries.

Perhaps Stephanie needs to raise the plight of expat women in China by taking expat men down a peg. After all, she did write “[expat women] have to accept their singleness or grow old waiting for white guys to come to their senses”. Stephanie and other expat woman can’t help but rail against the sexual tirade of expat men who have risen to the top of the dating heap in Shanghai. It just isn’t fair, she seems to say.

But Stephanie isn’t worried, because there is only one possible outcome to all of this:

One night stands might be fun for the first several years in China, but the constant merry-go-round of meaningless flings here gets old pretty fast. Human beings are hardwired to eventually make emotional connections, and considering the cultural clashes that many mixed couples seem to encounter – whenever you see a mixed couple in public they always look miserable – it’s inevitable that most foreign males in China will ultimately prefer to marry a white woman than go native.

But as a last word, we’d encourage Ms N to heed the wise words of relationship expert Johnny Lee.

The post Expat Woman Laments Dating Scene in China: “Odds Are Simply Against Us” appeared first on The Nanfang.

Distrust of Chinese goods abroad has ensured that the US, Europe and Japan continue to dominate the lucrative world of “high-end” adult products. Yet according to Lin Degang, CEO of adult product manufacturer, Chunshuitang, the company expects to sell 30 million yuan ($4.6 million) worth of products this year, with an aggressive plan to expand into the US and European markets.

Lin expects that within two years, even the “high-end” market will be completely dominated by Chinese companies. “Chinese firms have advanced industrial design and high-tech development abilities, as well as relatively low talent cost,” he said.

Lin is not the only CEO looking to capitalize on the lucrative US and European markets. At the recent China Adult-Care Expo a number of Chinese companies were keen to show-off new cutting edge adult technologies such as wireless connections, automatic vibration, and virtual reality.

There is a certain sense of irony in China’s global domination of the sex toy industry, however. Pornography remains illegal in China, with strict regulations preventing depictions of nudity and sex. Because the country does not have a rating code for different age groups, culture or art must be made appropriate for all ages.

The post When It Comes to Sex Toys, China Is Stiff Competition appeared first on The Nanfang.

Among the details that stand out in the survey: a majority of 20-something Chinese report they are sexually active by age 18, and married couples consider divorce after only five years of marriage.

The Peking University Social Survey Research Center, in collaboration with Chinese dating website Baihe, conducted the survey over two months and involved around 80,000 respondents in online and offline interviews from all over China.

The survey found that the results in the same category differed by demographics. While 20-something Chinese started having sex before age 20, 30-something Chinese reported that, on average, their first sexual experience occurred after the age of 22.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Beijing residents led the way in having their first sexual experience at around 21 years old, which is earlier than other city residents.

Generational differences can also be seen when it comes to experiencing a “first love”. Chinese 20-somethings reported that their first love was at age 13, while 40-somethings reported their first love was at 19.

The quickening pace of romance and sex in China is also reflected in marriages, which are getting shorter and shorter. The most dangerous time for a marriage is at the three to five year mark, when the pressures of family life dramatically increase. The report shows that these pressures are especially burdensome for wives.

It’s at this three to five year mark that couples seek out extramarital affairs. Twenty percent of all married couples in China include a cheating husband, while another 20 percent include cheating wives. If you think that ratio is a little low, that’s because there is another ten percent of couples who cheat on each other at the same time.

About 11 percent of respondents married between three and five years said they would not choose to marry the same person if given the chance to do it all again, while another 9 percent reported that, if given the choice, they would not get married at all.

The post Chinese Are Having Sex Earlier And Divorcing Sooner appeared first on The Nanfang.

Pink to Viagra’s blue, Jin’ge, manufactured by Guanzhou Baiyunshan, is available in 30,000 drugstores in China and anticipates sales of over a billion yuan ($156 million) by 2017. In order to meet the company’s ambitious target, it has come up with an impressive sales tactic: competitive pricing. A 50 milligram Jin’ge pill costs just 48 yuan, 60 percent less than competitors; a ten pack retails for 345 yuan ($53).

Before the debut of Jin’ge, Viagra controlled more than 50 percent of China’s ED supplement market, while Cialis controlled about 34 percent. However, Pfizer’s Viagra patent in China expired in May 2014, after which Guangzhou Baiyunshan beat out 20 competitors to earn the rights from the State Food and Drug Administration to manufacture a generic equivalent.

Li Chuyuan, president of Guangzhou Baiyunshan’s parent company, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Co Ltd., said Baiyunshan had started research and development on ED medicine that uses sildenafil, Viagra’s main ingredient, in the 1990s but had to halt its research after Viagra was patented in China in 2001.

In order to offer such low prices, while still developing a reputable product, Baiyunshan hired Nobel laureate Ferid Murad, “the father of Viagra,” for its research and development. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Deputy General Manager, Wang Wenchu, revealed plans to eventually sell Jin’ge on the international market. But even in the domestic market, non-Chinese customers are more willing to buy the drug than their Chinese counterparts.

Forty-six percent of Chinese men over 40 (about 127 million), suffer from erectile dysfunction, while only 4 percent seek treatment.

Wang hopes that Jin’ge’s competitive pricing will encourage Chinese men to overcome their reluctance to seek help. “The lower price has helped quickly expand sales channels,” said Wang.

Spreading awareness of men’s health and ED medicine is key to increasing sales among Chinese men, said drug retailer Lin Jingyan. “More Chinese men have been looking for ED medicine, which contributes a growing percentage of sales revenue to our store.”

The post Chinese Viagra Offers Cheap Alternative to Stiff Competition appeared first on The Nanfang.

On November 23, Financial Times correspondent Patti Waldmeir wrote a column on how China’s new two-child policy is doomed to fail because Chinese mothers don’t want additional babies, and that the country is suffering from a “sex shortage.”

Simplified to “too many abortions, too little sex and too few sperm,” Waldmeir mused that the lack of sex among Chinese “has something to do with the fact that a large proportion of 20-somethings still live with their mother (and for that matter, their grandmothers) in cramped urban flats. Surely that’s better than the best contraceptive.”

Well, if you want to know where the line is drawn in the sand, this is it.

The People’s Daily Online responded to the Financial Times with a furious op-ed written by Jiang Bin that blasted Waldmeir for not crediting her sources and for writing “biased assumptions and groundless accusations.” Jiang slammed Waldmeir for using the terms “maybe” and “likely to be” as part of her column as well as not being “respectful to facts nor responsible for the readers”.

Jiang refuted Waldmeir’s assertion that young Chinese still live with their parents with the only fresh evidence presented in the op-ed (along with six netizen comments). Jiang writes:

We happen to have our statistics here, if Ms. Waldmeir would like to take the time to read it. Peking University Institute of Social Science Survey released a report entitled “China’s Development Report of People’s Well-being” in 2012, which shows that 75.2 percent of married couples do not live with their parents in China.

But let’s disregard that Jiang quoted a source about married Chinese, whereas Waldmeir did not make that distinction. Instead, let’s go back to Waldmeir’s original thesis that Chinese aren’t having babies in part because they’re not having sex. It’s clearly seen in the People’s Daily Online screenshot, as it is in the Financial Times’ headline: “Wanted: more people to make babies in China.” If we do this, we can see that Jiang has deviated from Waldmeir’s point in order to bolster her own argument.

Jiang asks how Waldmeir, a non-Chinese journalist from a non-Chinese country, possibly knows about the intimate details of the sex lives of Chinese white collar workers? Well, if Waldmeir reads Chinese news media, she may be able to figure it out.

Like this article from the China Daily from the end of last year, a story in which the Nanfang reported over half of all surveyed Chinese white collar respondents said they have sex less than once a month:

Or if you want something more trustworthy, how about this October 2015 news article from the People’s Daily Online upon which the Nanfang reported over 70 percent of surveyed Chinese said they are unsatisfied with their sex lives due to reasons of stress and depression:

And because they’re always up to date on such matters, here’s a 2013 news article, again from the People’s Daily Online:

It may be that all Jiang wanted to prove is that married Chinese couples don’t live with their parents, and needed to set the record straight with Waldmeir’s column. And yet, we’re still waiting for any arguments from Jiang and the People’s Daily Online that can refute Waldmeir’s claims of a Chinese “sex shortage” that is fueling a lack of pregnancies.

All the same, Jiang is able to toss in the final insult at Waldmeir by saying, “No wonder this paper has lost its legacy of being a well-known opinion field, and has been sold to Japan.”

On the upside, at least Jiang is acknowledging that the Financial Times used to be famous, as respectfully shown in Jiang’s writing by refraining from using the terms “maybe” and “likely to be.”

The post People’s Daily Slams Financial Times Column Saying Chinese People Don’t Have Sex appeared first on The Nanfang.

I spent some time investigating how Tantan works and was shocked by what I found. Tantan doesn’t take even basic technical precautions to keep your password, location, and other private data confidential.

Tantan broadcasts your GPS coordinates several times a minute for all to see.

Information like your exact location coordinates, password and private conversations are sent unencrypted, in plain view, visible for anyone to see. By failing to use encryption, this hot Chinese dating app is endangering young women and men by making them easy targets for sex predators, identity thieves and other criminals.

I reached out several times to the creators of Tantan back in March of this year to disclose this huge security problem and give them an opportunity to correct it, but was ignored.

I reached out to Tantan repeatedly via email and weibo with no response.

Thanks to the now infamous Ashley Madison hack, we’ve all seen what happens when dating services are compromised and information assumed to private leaks out into the open: relationships suffer, people get stalked or blackmailed and people even die.

Read my full investigation of Tantan’s security problems in my original blog post.

The post Don’t Get Screwed by Dangerous Chinese Tinder Clone Tantan appeared first on The Nanfang.

The announcement comes after a successful pilot program held at ten of the province’s universities and colleges this past March.

At least one condom machine will be installed at each of the 128 post-secondary schools in Zhejiang over the next year. Students will be able to get a free box of condoms by swiping their student ID card on the machine, which presumably will make their identity known. As such, it’s unclear how many will use the free condoms.

Zhejiang health and family planning official Li Danhe admitted that it wasn’t easy trying to persuade parents to go along with the plan. “Some colleges said they were concerned such a move would encourage sex and would incur opposition and complaints from students’ parents,” said Li.

Further south, the rate of HIV infection is skyrocketing among university students in Guangzhou, growing at an annual rate of 46 percent. This increase is reflected in the national rate, especially in cases involving “male-to-male” sexual transmission.

Meanwhile, China’s younger generation have shown themselves to be considerably less prudish than their parents when it comes to pre-marital sex. A Ministry of Education survey from this past June shows that some 60 percent of respondents say they approve of sex before marriage, while only 16 percent are against.

However, sex education and awareness programs in Chinese universities have faced resistance for some time now. In 2004, Peking University called off plans to hand out free condoms on World AIDS Day because school administrators feared it would encourage students to have sex.

Despite this progressive plan, educational institutions in China still don’t appear to be reforming their conservative attitudes towards sex. Recently, a Xi’an, Shaanxi college has face controversy online for forcing its female students to sign a chastity pledge to refrain from pre-marital sex, while a Jilin school was reported to ban students from public displays of affection such as feeding each other in the school cafeteria.

The post Zhejiang Universities to Hand Out Free Condoms to Students appeared first on The Nanfang.

Based on the statistics of 162 defendants in 151 rape cases spread out over three years, judge Guo Zhao in Haidian explained that victims who engage in “exaggerated and excessive” behavior risk becoming the target of rapists. Judge Guo said rape defendants have confessed that they often decide to commit rape upon the sight of a young, pretty woman wearing revealing clothes.

There are other vices that can get women in trouble. According to the study, staying out late is another bad habit that can lead to rape.According to the study, staying out late is another bad habit that can lead to rape. The study said 60 percent of rapes occur between 9pm and 3am. At this late hour, women still out galavanting are more likely to “provoke and entice” strange men, and don’t take the first opportunity to protect themselves. Furthermore, another reason women get raped in China is because they are too “bold” and are willing to go to dangerous places that ordinary women have the sense to stay away from.

The Haidian court also explains victims usually know their rapists. In 45 percent of the rape cases analysed, the relationship between the victim and the rapist is either as co-worker or friends.

In short, the court study seems to be saying rapists are men who can’t control themselves and can’t be blamed if they are enticed by women with “vices”.

The study says the main reason a man commits rape is because he is young with exuberant, but repressed, physical needs. They usually work by themselves in a foreign city and are separated from their wives (if they are married), and rape because their physiological needs can not be met.

Mostly aged 18 to 30, the majority of rapists have no stable income, are poorly educated, and have a low awareness of the law. As the study says, their anti-social tendencies are manifested by going online to indulge in perverted fantasies that eventually lead to rape.

In another study conducted by the United Nations, the Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific found that a fifth of male respondents in China admitted they have forced a woman to have sex with them, 86 percent of which cited sexual entitlement as their motive while 53 percent said they raped out of boredom. Fifty-four percent of men and women agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “If a woman doesn’t physically fight back, it’s not rape.”Fifty-four percent of men and women agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “If a woman doesn’t physically fight back, it’s not rape.”

Of course, Xinhua, who reported on the story, isn’t exactly helping matters by including photos such as this one in their report.

Related:

• Meth The Latest Date Rape Drug of Choice in China?
• Sensational Rape Case in China Has Women Fearful Nationwide
• Chinese Ridicule New “Rape Safe” Underwear
• Man convicted of rape in Guangzhou after failing to use condom during one night stand

The post Women Who Smoke, Drink, Wear Sexy Clothing Will Be Raped, According to Beijing Court appeared first on The Nanfang.

Over 70 percent of Chinese say they are unsatisfied with their sex lives, which they say are hampered by stress and depression according to a recently study.

It’s clear a healthy sex life is important, as nearly 90 percent of respondents said satisfaction with their sex lives contributes greatly to their marital happiness and self-confidence. But more than 40 percent said they had reduced their sexual activity because of depression or stress.

Approximately three-quarters of respondents said the biggest obstacles are depression and pressure from life and work, which has prompted many to smoke or drink alcohol. But when Chinese seek help for their sexual problems, they are overwhelmingly turning to familiar Chinese practices rather than solutions from outside the country. The survey found that nearly 90 percent of Chinese men who suffer from a low sex drive, premature ejaculation, or erectile dysfunction have turned to traditional Chinese medicine.

In contrast, the survey found only seven percent of Chinese men have been treated with Western medicine for problems related to their sex lives. “Compared with the rate in many Western countries, the number in China is very low,” said Peking University No.3 Hospital physician Liu Defeng, adding, “Most of them feel shy about telling doctors about their problems, or are overly concerned about the side-effects of pills.”

The demand for Western pills that treat erectile dysfunction has made way for the production and sale of counterfeit pills in China. Last year April, a total of 140,000 fake Viagra pills were confiscated in Shenzhen while in 2012 a pharmacy in the city was busted for selling counterfeit versions of the drug.

The survey asked 72,000 people, primarily aged between 26 and 55, about their sex lives. It was conducted by the Chinese Medical Association’s Society of Andrology and the China Sexology Association. Over half of all surveyed respondents are office workers, while nearly two-thirds were male.

Related:

• Sex Before Marriage is A-Okay, Say Young Chinese
• Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival Wraps Up With Striptease, SM Performances

The post Huge Majority of Chinese Unsatisfied with Their Sex Lives appeared first on The Nanfang.