You can now buy a magazine in China with a picture of Beyoncé on the cover or sexy Chinese singer A Duo wearing revealing clothing. Leaf through the magazine and you’ll find articles on how to have a five-minute sex break at the office. Although this is standard stuff for Europeans and North Americans, five or six years ago, sexual content in China could only be found in educational pamphlets or art books. Although China is the largest manufacturer of sex toys, until very recently Chinese magazines and books with pictures of barely dressed models were deemed morally corrupt and censored and banned.
This new openness to all things sexual is the sign of a China driven by market forces. The Chinese economy is booming, the Communist government is losing its all-encompassing hold on its citizens’ personal lives and entrepreneurs are cashing in on the new Chinese male metrosexual‘s desire for cars, gadgets and pretty girls. You can now browse the internet for soft-porn, sexual fantasies and tips on how to pick up women. Erotic videos are online and some Chinese girls are posting their pictures, baring their skin and striking sexy poses for all the world to see. A big change for a country where not long ago, who you married, where you lived and what you did was controlled by parents, employers, and government authorities. Critics charge that this change has brought general degeneracy and a rise in prostitution.
While more nudie pictures of girls may not seem particularly progressive, this sign of freedom is like a small crack in the walls the Chinese government continues to construct to block its citizens from outside influences and ensure its political power over them. The Internet is one sphere where the governments’ control has been significantly lessened. Although the Golden Shield Project, also known as the Great Firewall, was started in 1998 in an attempt to block the Chinese from accessing specific IP adresses, due to the technical impracticality of this process, most Internet content is not actually regulated.
