China’s Sexual Past Liberates Its Present

“This is one of my favorites,” said Liu DaLin, pointing to a 3,500-year-old stone phallus from the Shang Dynasty.

Here in China, sociologists like Liu are pushing modern sexual boundaries with objects dating to the Bronze Age. The stone in question, housed in a glass case, is one of several hundred sexual antiques in his collection.

The recent opening of his Museum of Chinese Ancient Sex Culture, China’s first such public exhibition, is the latest sign of this nation’s increasingly liberal attitude toward sex, a subject taboo for most of its recent history. Sex education classes are spreading in middle schools. Sex shops are proliferating. And there is growing acceptance of premarital relations, particularly among younger people.

That said, many sexual issues remain out of official bounds, including homosexuality, promiscuity and prostitution. Change here, China specialists say, is often two steps forward, one step back--a phenomenon perhaps best seen in a recent decision over condom advertising.

For pioneers like Liu, knowing how to push social boundaries without incurring the wrath of the ruling Communist Party is an essential survival skill.

Liu, a soft-spoken 67-year-old, is no stranger to controversy. In 1985, the former soldier and state factory worker was one of the first to enter China’s budding field of sexology--a career move colleagues saw as dangerous and unwise. Three years later, he wrote China’s equivalent of the Kinsey Report, detailing sexual habits in the nation. Liu organized and financed the survey of 20,000 people without checking with authorities.

“If you ask them, they can say no,” Liu said.

Liu also has been careful to stay below the radar, knowing that how you say something in China is often as important as what you say. In the process, Liu underscores how some Chinese push boundaries without attracting state backlash.

Medical Veneer Helps Keep Officials at Bay

A case in point is the museum, housed in the Sincere Department Store off Shanghai’s busy Nanjing Road. Liu is careful to cover his message of tolerance with an academic, historical and medical veneer to deflect official concern.

The museum’s often-titillating objects are presented in a muted setting and accompanied by scholarly explanations. Academic texts are on display, including some of the 80 books written by Liu. And many of the most graphic items are in a room “for specialists”--though the door is open and the public is free to enter.

Liu also hopes globalization will help protect him from official censure. Several times, he has smuggled out parts of his collection and held exhibits in other countries. Huge photographs at the museum’s entrance show pieces from the collection on display in Australia, Japan and even Taiwan. Foreign art books show that many Chinese sexual relics are of interest abroad. And testimonials about the exhibit by famous Chinese and foreigners line the walls.

Liu’s hope is that any bureaucrat tempted to shut him down will consider the embarrassment of banning something accepted elsewhere.

Woven through the exhibits and explanations is Liu’s central philosophy: Sexuality is an integral part of human nature, open discussion on such topics is healthy, and a confident China is a tolerant China.

Liu’s one-man campaign is only part of broad-based change underway as China continues to shed the ideological yoke of Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s legacy, which held that focus on individual concerns or personal pleasure was energy taken away from communism. At the height of Mao’s control, boys and girls were segregated, and even the parent-child bond was condemned in favor of collective loyalty to the party.

“They might have given me hard labor if I’d tried to sell this stuff during the Cultural Revolution,” said Chen Hongying, a shopkeeper at the Shanghai International Health Center sex shop.

Since the 1993 opening of China’s first “family planning” store, there has been an explosion of sex shops selling everything from videos and how-to manuals to kinky clothing and “performance-enhancing medicines.”

In some areas, competition has become so keen that retailers are complaining. “When we first started four years ago, customers were lined up all day,” said Zhu Peiyi, manager of the Huaguang Sex Store.

“Now they keep hitting us up for discounts.”

Even in China’s sex shop industry, presentation is important. Retailers stress the medical and educational benefits of their products. Most videos are labeled “for newlyweds,” with names such as “Loving in New Marriage” and “The First Night Guide.” One is labeled “Dangerous! Children!”

Shopkeepers wear white coats, and many have medical training. The shops often are operated by family-planning associations. While some items lining the shelves would make most Westerners blush, the shops stress their use for sailors alone at sea, couples having trouble conceiving or those lacking in desire.

Stores Sell Sexual Aids and Aphrodisiacs

Among the items on display at the state-owned Huaguang store and two others within a three-block radius are Chinese and Western sexual aids, creams, gels, massage oils, a full range of latex products, pills made from deer, oxen and snake penises, and alleged aphrodisiacs with names like Stud 100 and Dragon.

Other signs of change in China are seen in broader social attitudes. Beijing is expected to follow Shanghai’s lead in adding sex education courses to its middle-school curricula, said Dr. Liu Yongliang, president of the Shanghai Sexual Education Assn. Other regional capitals may follow suit.

“Friends now talk about sex in ways they never would have before,” said Qu Peihong, a 28-year-old beautician working in Beijing. “You no longer feel embarrassed.”

China’s state-controlled media outlets also are changing with the times, in part because of their increasing reliance on advertising--and the interest of viewers--to pay the bills. Last October, state television broadcast a drama that showed a partial view of a woman’s breast, a major break with the past. And late-night call-in radio programs dealing with sexual issues are moving into prime time.

Surveys show a greater acceptance of premarital sex among China’s younger generation, such as the Shanghai Communist Youth League’s recent survey that found 80% of the young people questioned approved of premarital sex.

Still, liberalization can be fitful and widely divergent, depending on the city or region. A campaign to promote condom use--which aired on state-run television in December in conjunction with International AIDS Day--was yanked after two days, evidently because conservatives thought it promoted promiscuity. And students at Beijing University recently demonstrated against machines dispensing condoms on campus.

There remains little tolerance of homosexuality. At a gay bar in Shanghai, young men speak of their almost complete lack of acceptance in a society where even health professionals view homosexuality as a disease and gays’ underground meetings and dances often are broken up by police.

“People just don’t understand,” one man said. “It’s really tough.”

But even on this issue, there is progress of sorts. Homosexuality used to be prosecuted as a crime; now it is seen variously as a disease or a severe social stigma.

Back at the museum, artifacts show the Middle Kingdom’s oscillation over the centuries between sexual tolerance and sexual repression, depending on the personalities of its rulers and the social attitudes of the day, Liu said. Between the 6th and 9th centuries, China was very open sexually, and women were free to choose their husbands and initiate divorce. From the 11th century on, however, the country grew increasingly conservative.

Some Relics Destroyed in the Cultural Revolution

Liu started his 1,300-item collection in the late 1980s in part because it involved two of his greatest interests, human sexuality and antiques. Over the years, he has picked up antiques whenever he could afford them--and sometimes when he could not--through a small network of antique dealers.

Many sexual relics, paintings and artifacts were destroyed during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Some survived after being smuggled overseas, while others were forgotten until recently in China’s basements and attics.

Not all the items in Liu’s museum are graphic. In ancient Chinese culture, symbols were common to suggest sexual themes, including frogs for fertility--a reflection of their large number of eggs--birds and mountains for men and fish and rivers for women.

“I want to show that a lot of countries think it’s very important to study Chinese erotic art even as we’ve destroyed [artworks] here in China,” said Liu. “We must keep our heritage.”