So it would appear that our little world of foreign blogging in China is having its ass raked across the coals lately. Thanks to one man and his sexual exploits displayed on the net for all to see. And I say, good on ‘im!
Basically, some uppity Chinese "professor" stumbled across Sex in Shanghai, a foreigner’s blog out of Shanghai that details his interactions with China, pointedly slanted towards the sexual nature.
The professor disliked SiS’ references to Chinese women and the sexy things they do, and even more so was not pleased about SiS’ allegations that Chinese men are a little lost in how to bed a woman, and once bedded, are quite useless.
Today, with tremendous anger, I will tell you the story of an immoral foreigner and I call upon all Chinese compatriots to get together and kick this immoral foreigner out of China.
This piece of garbage’s favorite show is to use obscene and pornographic language to describe the bodies of Chinese women and how they made love. For example, "My dearest Tingting, you have a very good and beautiful body. I cannot stop thinking about your beautiful skin, your lovely, smooth and soft breasts, you sexy, smooth and fine waist, your sweet and pretty legs and arms … oh, of course, you are so pretty, so sexy and so perfect between your legs!"
I can understand that some women do this for the money and others do this in order to be able to go overseas. But, our female compatriots, when you make friends with foreigners, please always remember this: Are you willing to be the female star in a pornographic blog? Do not let others play with your body first, and then with your dignity. I also have something to tell the Chinese men: Please think about how these foreign trash have dallied with your sisters and made fun of your impotence. Do you want to say that this is no big deal? Do you still want to treat the foreigners as important? Do you still quiver when you see foreigners? Please straighten out your backbones. What a tremendous shame this has been!
Those are a few quotes from ESWN’s translation of Professor Zhang Jiehai’s blog post "The Internet Hunt For The Immoral Foreigner" (in English here, in Chinese here).
I’ll admit that my only knowledge previously of Sex in Shanghai was a mix of resentment and envy that his blog was constantly on China Blog List‘s top 10, and I’ve not been. Incidentally I’m considering changing the title of my blog to "Super Sex In Shanghai".
Today I visited SiS and there is a well-said response to Mr. Zhang’s post and its rather lynching like tone for a call to arms amongst Chinese netizens to "hunt to find this foreign trash until we kick him out of China."
I don’t want to get into the he said/ta shuo argument here. Rather, what I couldn’t help but think about while reading these two things was a Bullshit episode I recently watched. Bullshit, for those not in the know, is an awesome TV series hosted by Penn & Teller, in which they pick an every-day issue and debunk it as complete bullshit.
The episode I watched recently (thank you BitTorrent) was regarding abstinence. The show talked about how teaching the "No Sex Before Marriage" line is essentially cruel and unusual. It denies people of consenting age a pleasure they’re entitled to as a human right, but more importantly it often denies them access to information on how to make that experience safe under the ignorant guise that what they’re teaching is the safest way (and therefore the ONLY right thing to do).
China, like many parts of the West, has a very puritanical view towards sex & abstinence, and it’s nothing but archaic. It’s nearly completely one-sided (in emphasis and practice) towards women and it’s just stupid.
As this is a China-centric blog, I’m going to use Chinese examples, but please don’t think I’m high and mightily preaching this as limited to China. It’s certainly present in my home country and likely near every other as well.
When I first arrived in China I heard again and again from Chinese people how being a good Chinese girl means being a "traditional" Chinese girl. This, of course, was a euphemism for "keep your damn foreign paws off our women folk". There was a strong "look but don’t touch" attitude (‘Isn’t she beautiful? Yes, she’s a traditional Chinese girl.’) and though it’s spouted off as being "traditional" (sometimes called "religious" in the West), in fact it’s complete chauvinism that’s been embedded into our "culture".
No one ever says this about men for the simple reason that woman accept that most men will have sex before they’re married. However, men get all proprietorial when it comes to their women. It’s a bit like when I go shopping for… well… near anything. I never take the box in the front that’s been opened a bunch of times to be looked at, and I would never, NEVER buy the display model. Most people want virgin products when they’re at the supermarket, and it’s unsurprising that this attitude is carried over to girlfriends and wives in cultures that make the women little more than a product.
Going back to the Sex In Shanghai posts issues for a moment, I think it’s important for the society in this country to recognize (before they lynch us foreigners) that Chinese women like to have sex. They really do. I’m not speaking directly from experience (I’ll leave that for SUPER SEX IN SHANGHAI!), but it’s stupid to assume otherwise. It’s often alleged that foreigners ‘lure’ Chinese girls with promises of a "future together" … fuck off. Maybe that’s how the Chinese girl justifies taking her panties off in the first place, and how she faces the family-inflicted shame when it ‘just doesn’t work out’ (irresponsible foreign bastards), but I’d hazard a guess that when she’s all hot and bothered and in the moment, a kid, a dog and a nice house are not on her mind.
Simply put: protecting the chastity and morality of a society’s women is for the benefit of men – men that want a "clean" and "pure" virgin for a wife and can’t handle the thought of a) another man touching their loved one, and b) not equating to that image.
