Li Yinhe: "Criticizing the Sex Double Standard"
The following is a translation of this post by Li Yinhe.
Translation
In this thousands-of-years-old patriarchal society, double standards about sex are the norm. This double standard can be expressed in common language: the more sexual a man is, the better; the less sexual a woman is, the better.
For men, people always appraise things positively: if a man has lots of sexual experience, it proves he has money, power, is free, is charming, and even that he’s in good health. But for women, people appraise it negatively: if a woman has lots of sexual experience, it proves she is worthless, unconventional, shameless, and people will ruthlessly toss her aside just like they did to Mu Zimei.
In something that both sides obviously benefit from, enjoy, and voluntarily engage in, traditional thinking conversely holds that one side benefits from [sex] while the other loses something, this is the ‘logic of gain/loss’ about sex. This thousand-year-old patriarchal logic of gain and loss firmly holds that in sexual intercourse, the man gains and the woman pays. If a man ‘does’ a woman, he has profited, if a woman ‘does’ a man, she has lost. Because everyone things this way, and has been thinking this way for too long a time, this has already become perfectly justified, a fact that no one argues over.
The origins of this gain/loss logic lie in the fact that women were once considered the property of men, and weren’t independent human beings. The buying and selling of marriage is basically just men buying women, and something that has been paid for in money is obviously the purchaser’s property, to be looked after and protected from theft. So women don’t suffer losses/get tricked until they have lost their virginity.
This gain/loss logic was strengthened through thousands of years of “remaining a widow forever” education [i.e., education instructing girls that they must only ever have sex with their first husband, and even if the husband dies young, they themselves should sooner die than have sex with another man] , which was directly implemented by the government. If a woman lost her virginity before marriage and killed herself, or a woman refused to remarry after her husband died, the government would hold them up as examples of chaste women, and not only erect stone arches in their honor but also commemorate them in the annals of history. In the histories of the 24 dynasties, whole books are dedicated to the achievements of men, and women are rarely mentioned. Of the women who are mentioned, “chaste women” make up the vast majority [...]
After this kind of education has persisted and strengthened for thousands of years, in our society today women are lower than men in every kind of “sexual norm”, which isn’t surprising。 Whether we’re talking about the ratio of premarital sex, extramarital sex, one night stands, sex work, consumption of sex-related products, women are always below men. Nearly 100% of men have experienced the pleasure [of sex], but 26% of Chinese women have never experienced this pleasure. I heard that some colleges have initiated “remaining a woman forever” education for girls, but I haven’t heard of anywhere that does this for boys. [I have heard of] girls pledging to remain virgins, but I have never heard of a “Flawless Youth Boys Group”, or of boys taking similar pledges. In a survey a few years ago by the Women’s Federation on ideas of chastity, over 80% of rural women responded to a question about whether life or remaining chaste was more important by saying that remaining chaste was more important. No one has ever asked men this question. This just proves that the ideas about chastity in our society are one-sided, it’s just a footnote in the double standards between men and women.
The sex double standard oppresses women, forcing them to inhibit themselves and hate their bodies. Even worse, it makes women lose [the pleasure of] feeling free and independent in their actions, they don’t dare to pursue happiness, and can only live numb and inhibited.
I have a belief: a reasonable society is one in which every member suffers the least amount of being inhibited by others (because it’s impossible to be completely uninhibited), it is a society where everyone can pursue happiness and self-realization. This “everyone” of course includes women, and in fact refers primarily to women, because the oppression women suffer is always much worse than men.
My Thoughts
Having spent four years at one of the most liberal schools in America, I’m tempted to say that this article is obvious and boring; everything in it goes without saying. But of course it doesn’t; as obvious as this may seem to some of us, these issues still dominate the lives of many people in China. Virginity, especially, is a big deal, often for men who themselves are not virgins but expect premarital chastity from their wives-to-be. The hypocrisy and stupidity of that mindset notwithstanding, it’s still not difficult to see why Li Yinhe is frustrated. This is ground that many other countries decades ago, and more to the point, women are suffering because of it.
Of course, similar double standards exist in Western countries, but the degree to which these standards are enforced in China is decidedly more extreme. Whether they are entirely correct or not, many girls — intelligent ones in good colleges as that — believe their future rests primarily on the shoulders of the man they marry, and who that man is depends primarily on their premarital behavior, e.g., whether or not they have premarital sex.
It’s my own personal opinion that sex and marriage are two very different things. Cultural differences be damned, any culture that restricts the rights of women is poisonous and needs to be stomped out. I fear that in China’s case, the “stomping out” of these feudal attitudes about sex and virginity will not occur quietly, and girls will suffer as a result. In the end, though, the power is theirs. There are going to be around twenty million men from this generation without Chinese wives, and that’s assuming that every Chinese girl marries a Chinese man. Even if they do, they’ll have their pick.
So what do you think? Are the days of hypocritical virgin-chasers numbered? How do you feel about attitudes toward sex in China?
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I agree with your thoughts. I would just mention that I do find quite a lot of girls in Shanghai that are “liberated” almost to Western level.
Then again, this is the 1% of the population in Shanghai who is really well off, and speaks good English, and likes to be suntanned, and usually does art - liberal proffessions. The bulk of the population still matches pretty well the article, and I perceive little if any progress on that field in the last 8 years.
Virgin chasing is on the decline in China. That’s what I feel from personal experience talking to Chinese people, and especially from comparing the views of older Chinese men to younger ones. (All my Chinese friends are urban, so I don’t know what the “nongcunren” would say.)
@ Tait (and Uln): I’m not sure virgin-chasing is that much on the decline outside of cities like Shanghai and Beijing. Certainly, most of my female friends in Harbin complain about it frequently; nearly all of them feel they need to remain virgins in order to find a husband. Given that they hang out with crazy foreigners like me, I’d say they’re probably more “liberated” than the average Harbiners, too, and I suspect that most second and third tier cities are comparable.
I’ve attended conferences on raising hiv/aids and std awareness at vocational schools (urban and rural students whose grades were not good enough to go to high school but are a major source of the labor force in the future), and i was surprised that peer pressure among them nowadays means “have sex and get pregnant and then abortions.” Students in better schools are slightly more disciplined. And given the recent outrage over sex videos posted online by teenagers across the country, i don’t think the virginity fetish will be an issue in the long run. But I’m talking about the cities. I don’t know either about how things are in the countryside, but I believe the rural youngsters are much more open about sex than their parents, too. And female migrant workers, far away from their parents, are facing increasing risks of std and hiv/aids infections.
wooddoo:
Could you clarify a bit why you don’t think the virginity fetish will disappear given the “recent outrage over sex videos posted online by teenagers across the country”?
General:
This is something I’ve also talked about with lots of people in Tangshan, a second tier city. I remember one time, I asked my students what they perceived was a main difference, culturally, between Chinese people and Westerners and one of them shot up and said, “well, in America, you like to have sex before marriage.” I replied, “yes, that’s true,” and she sounded genuinely incensed when she said, “Why?!?!” To which I replied, “because it’s fun.”
I agree, though, that the virgin-chasers will be forced to disappear at some point in the very near future. I also think, however, that they’ll go kicking and screaming and that many more than twenty million people will go without wives because of it unless they truly accept the phrase “women hold up half the sky.”
There’s also another, somewhat-related issue, namely women’s role in the workplace. I’ve heard some argue that women were more likely to be elevated in traditionally male sectors—pilots, skilled industry (as opposed to assembly line work), hanging power lines, etc.—during the Mao era than they are now. With the market has come the return of sharper gender distinctions in jobs, in other words, even as women juggle family and work commitments. I’m not aware of any statistics on this, but the idea is intriguing.
To bring it back to the topic at hand, it seems that moral standards were tougher all-around before reform, often with devastating consequences for individuals. But perhaps the moral standards, like job opportunities, were more equally shared. If you were the head of a commune’s brigade and a man, there might be ample room for abuses, but you would also risk more public criticism—and certainly more day-to-day scrutiny—than your average boss today would.
So, men have liberated themselves with an ever-expanding array of career options at the same time that an industry of massage parlors and hair salons have sprung up to give them a lively, if maybe emotionless sex life. Women are left behind.
Not sure my analysis really holds true. But I guess my point is that there’s an economic side to this thing.
I actually started translated this (got most of the way through it) and the thought of sending it along your way crossed my mind, but you beat me to it yourself!
To Josh,
The “outrage” part was not the point. It just meant to say society was shocked by the young generation’s much open attitude towards sex. Focus on the main part of the sentence, please. Besides, outrage itself doesn’t prevent anything. The fact the outraged adults can’t do anything about it and such video clips are still popping up everywhere signals the demise of the virginity fetish.
most of my female friends in Harbin complain about it frequently;
And Western women constantly complain about being raped, beaten and dumped on by their boyfriends which happens much, much more often in the West. Grass is always greener, or maybe not.
Chinese men are much less likely to toss their wives in the trash like many of the “liberated” men in the West do. They’re also much less likely to kill them, if murder rates and prison population mean anything. They are also more monogamous (1.3 partners in a lifetime vs. 50%+ of men cheating in the West).
A lot of improvements are welcome but save Scandinavia the West has little to teach to the rest of the world regarding the treatment of women- and that’s the women of *their* own race. Not even going to mention those in the Americas who are raped, the ones in the Middle East that are bombed, or the Southeast Asians who are portrayed as whores and victimized by white men from an early age.
Anonymous, whoa there! Some completely non-partisan generalisations you’re throwing around there…. I wonder what kind of women you’ve been talking to if they’re “constantly” complaining of being raped and beaten…
Or are you making stuff up?
But actually I do understand some of your frustration. The author of the article doesn’t understand sexual politics and many of the comments here are pretty hypocritical. To those guys who mock those with a “virgin fetish” I would ask whether they prefer their partner was a virgin or a prostitute. Let’s not lie to ourselves people.
Is it hypocrisy to be a “virgin-chaser”? Only if you accept that men and women must adopt absolutely identical standards of behaviour…… That would be a hard requirement to insist on given the obvious gender differences that exist for both genetic and cultural reasons.
So I’m bored by this article too, just for different reasons than the OP
I would ask whether they prefer their partner was a virgin or a prostitute. Let’s not lie to ourselves people.
————————————-
I don’t even know where to begin with this. Well, I do, it’s just too easy.
Perhaps why the Chinese stay married better than their western counterparts is because the women allow their men to cheat. Prostitution being absolutely rampant and more commonly accepted in China would tend to be a big contributor. In the west if it were common for men to go out, get drunk, and visit prostitutes as a normal “guy” behavior and have it accepted by their spouses, I doubt the divorce rate would be so high.
Perhaps the other factor is that Chinese women put up with more “shit” than their western counterparts. Cultural differences and dependancy on money and etc, also would make them more likely to want to leave a marriage. Finally, in China when people get divorced, the norm is for the father to get custody of the kid(s) vs. the mothers in the west.
I would find it hard to believe that Chinese women are more happy in their marriages. Instead, I think of a lot of them are stuck in it.
As for you Mr. Anonymous. How much does the Chinese government pay you to post your nonsense on boards such as these?
@ anonymous: Wow, what an extremely misleading post! First of all, I would second Moules in asking what women you’ve been talking to who are constantly complaining about being raped and beaten? Frankly, I highly doubt rates of spousal abuse or rape are any higher in the West that in China, but it’s not a surprise those things are reported far more often in the West, given the relatively little cultural stigma that exists here for a woman who has been raped, for example. In China, there are social stigmas that lead women not to report that they’ve been raped of that their husbands abuse them, but those things do happen.
Western men certainly are less monogamous, but you’re equating monogamy with happiness is a way that is patently ridiculous. Monogamy doesn’t equal happiness, for women or men. In fact, many couples in the West enjoy not not being monogamous together through things like swinging, open relationships, threesomes, etc.
@ Moules: You, too, are presenting a false dichotomy by asking people to choose whether their partner was a virgin or prostitute. First of all, there is a big difference between someone who has had sex before and someone who has sex professionally. Secondly, there are legitimately people who would prefer to be with a sex worker than a virgin. Personally, if I had a choice in things, I would prefer my partners (and future wife) were not virgins.
But I don’t demand that of them. Why? Because I believe they are human beings with the right to make their own choices. Men who chase virgins after having sex themselves are hypocritical, and saying that’s true “only if you accept that men and women must adopt absolutely identical standards of behavior” is missing the point entirely. The point is that people should be free to construct their own standards, rather than men exclusively being held to one while women are held to another.
Now, some men many prefer sex with virgins for reasons having nothing to do with “morality” — it just feels better or whatever. I have no problem with that; the problem comes when these men start judging the women whoaren’t virgins negatively, or pursuing virgins because they are morally “superior” to girls who have had sex before. If you think that kind of behavioral double standard is OK, you are misogynist, period. It’s one thing for men and women to be held to different standards regarding, say, dress, but there is nothing about the physical differences between men and women to support the idea that men should “play the field” while women should be chaste. It’s just a feudal attitude built on the insecurity that if women have sex with lots of other men they may not want you anymore because you’re not good enough.
[...] Chinese people too repressed when it comes to sex, or are they perhaps too carefree? Is it possible to be both? What would a [...]
Perhaps why the Chinese stay married better than their western counterparts is because the women allow their men to cheat. Prostitution being absolutely rampant and more commonly accepted in China would tend to be a big contributor.
Chinese men, if they take cheating so lightly, seem to have a habit of lying about it because the average Chinese man has 1.3 partners in a lifetime. You’ve been spending your time with the wrong people.
I would find it hard to believe that Chinese women are more happy in their marriages. Instead, I think of a lot of them are stuck in it.
Nonsense. If a Chinese woman loses her husband or kicks him, traditionally her children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles whatever will provide for her financially. They don’t often end up as bitter, exasperated single moms as in the West.
I highly doubt rates of spousal abuse or rape are any higher in the West that in China
You “highly doubt” this, but I have statistics from interpol. Specify where the “West” is, I can draw up statistics. Spain, Sweden and Norway do well. On the other hand, Russia and East Europe has the highest suicide/homicide rates of Eurasia. Chinese homicide rates are anywhere from .1 to 1.5 per 100,000 depending on where you’re sampling from, and they are decreasing.
but you’re equating monogamy with happiness is a way that is patently ridiculous.
I’m not. However I contest the preposterous, wishful-thinking notion of a high number of Chinese men cheating. They simply do not, the Chinese are tied with the Indians for monogamy. It may not say much about “sexual pleasure” but it does say something about the Chinese and Indian man’s (and woman’s) respect for marriage.
If you’re going to elaborate on misogyny and sexism in China (or perceived misogyny and sexism) you should realize that Chinese women aren’t exactly free of the virgin fetish themselves. Chinese women definitely do not *prefer* men who have slept around, to say the least.
I agree with the last point. Many Chinese women stay away from men who sleep around. There was a frontpage blog piece on sina.com a while ago advocating how women should choose sexually experienced men over virgins. It might not have meant anything, but it wouldn’t have been put on the frontpage if it wasn’t news to many women.
@ anonymous: yes, but statistics are pretty meaningless when it comes to rape and spousal abuse because depending on the culture, it often goes unreported. If you were to look at the US statistics for, say, the last 50 years, it would appear there are FAR more instances of rape and spousal abuse happening now, but that’s misleading. What’s actually happening is women have been given resources, empowerment, and education, and they’re reporting these abuses far more often.
I agree women aren’t free of the virgin thing either, which is part of why many women in China don’t report rape. Times have changed since the chaste women were being written into imperial histories, but being raped still means you’re not a virgin — no good marriage for you — and still brings some shame on your family, depending on the area in China you live and the relative repressed-ness of your relatives. You’ve got to admit, especially in some situations, there is a pretty strong cultural impetus NOT to report rape or spousal abuse in China.
As for the 1.3 partners in a lifetime, I’d love to see the actual wording on that question in whatever survey you’re referring to (or some information about it at all…). It wasn’t me that brought up that point anyway, though. Whether Chinese men are monogamous or not is sort of irrelevant. They’re obviously not as pressured to remain virgins as women are, and if they were, I’d be arguing that that was bad, too.
@ Anonymous, I sympathise with your view. But it’s hard to believe that you live in China and still think that there isn’t a “high number” of Chinese men cheating. I’ve never lived in a society that is so accepting of mistresses, prostitution, massage-with-extras etc on (sometimes literally) every street.
And there’s no point in touting Chinese official statistics. Their credibility is often dubious and you end up propagandising in the face of evidence that is clear to all who have lived in both China and ‘Western’ countries. Modern Chinese society has many of the same problems that Western societies do, and some different ones that arise from China’s different stage of economic development. Ignoring these problems, papering them over, or painting misleadingly flattering comparisons with the West does nothing except salvage ‘face’. Perhaps face is more important than the truth.
@ C.Custer
I should start by expressing my admiration for this blog. I’m sure that you undermeasure (is that a word?) the unspoken praise of those who read this blog but never comment. You’re doing a great job, I very much enjoy reading what you write.
On the dichotomy: I presented the choice between virgin and prostitute to bring out the preferences of most men. It’s an unrealistic scenario, and yes, some may choose the sex worker, but realistically the vast majority of men would choose the virgin. And not because most men think it morally wrong to be a sex worker (I think many understand the importance of economic need in the decision to do that kind of work). Generally speaking, men simply have an inbuilt preference for women that have had fewer partners - it’s purely a matter of numbers. Whether that is because men generally have issues of self worth (I doubt this, although it may be true for some individuals) or for other reasons (cultural or pseudo-scientific i.e. wanting to maximise the genetic return on their investment in a sexual partnership) is irrelevant. Having a preference is not hypocrisy. In your language: nobody is holding a (promiscuous - sorry I can’t think of a less value-laden word) woman to any standard by having a preference for another type of (less promiscuous) woman. I don’t hold McDonald’s to a standard when I chose to eat at Burger King, so to speak
I agree with you that there is hypocrisy if the man believes that the virgin is morally superior to the sex worker. But (in my circle of male acquaintances at least) that’s not a commonly held belief; whereas the preference for the virgin/less promiscuous remains overwhelming.
In both China and the West, women are relatively free to conduct themselves as they see fit, in a social sense. That is not a bad thing. But let’s not demonise men who prefer a less promiscuous partner. That would do the men no good, and would potentially mislead young women who may subsequently discover that their sexual conduct has consequences later in life (for example in the choice of available marriage material). To recognise this is not to condone oppression (the word used in the original article) - McDonald’s shareholders are not oppressed when I exercise my choice to tuck into a Whopper!
I realise that anecdotal evidence may be a contradiction in terms. But there are women like this in both China and the West. I have heard them say that they wish they had known that many men felt that way: they might have made different choices in order to avoid having to deceive their current partners. Haven’t we all had our female friends confide that the ideal number of exes to tell their new boyfriends about is two or three? Anything more is slutty, anything less is unbelievable
In this respect, life is simpler for a man!
@ Moules:
Thanks for the compliments! As for the rest of your comment, would I be correct in guessing you live (or lived) in Shanghai or Beijing? What you’re saying doesn’t mesh at all with my experience in most places in China, but I never lived in the more Westernized cities like that. The men I’ve talked to all seem to attach some pretty harsh moral judgement to the virginity thing, and the women I’ve talked to certainly don’t seem to feel like they’re “free to conduct themselves as they see fit” like in the West. In fact, I get reminded constantly that China isn’t the West and they can’t just do whatever they want more or less whenever this topic comes up.
And while men are free to have preferences, that particular one seems a bit hypocritical depending on what it stems from. Do they like virgins better because the sex feels better? That seems fine to me; just like you might say a Whopper tastes better than a Big Mac. However, I’ve never heard anyone in China justify the virgin fetish on those grounds, or any grounds whatsoever really. “It’s a preference” isn’t good enough on its own; many people have “preferences” against black people or Jews, too. So to really get into it we need to know where that “preference” is ultimately coming from. My guess is that for some men it’s just like a preference for large breasts or whatever, but for many others it comes more from social cues and ingrained ideas (from some of the cultural stuff Li Yinhe lays out in this article) than from preference that has much to do with the actual experience of being with someone.
And as for just wanting to be with someone who’s had fewer partners, again, that strikes me as just insecurity wrapped in some kind of morality blanket. “If she’s had a lot of partners before, she will either think I’m not as good as them or won’t think one man is enough for her, so I prefer women with less experience than I have…” seems a bit hypocritical, no?
It’s hard for me to even understand their side enough to discuss it, though. Honestly, isn’t what’s important in a wife that you be the lastperson who has sex with her, not the first?
I, for one, would probably choose the hooker over the virgin.
This is an interesting article, and the discussion is also very good. I actually find it amazing that in this day and age anyone would prefer chastity over the alternative. I’ve met women who were 25, 26 years old and still virgins, but they were also sort of socially stunted, didn’t understand relationships very well, and emotionally adolescent for the most part.
What I’ve noticed is the most typical route to marriage is for most people to wed their high school/college sweethearts - basically the first boyfriend/girlfriend you have is the one you’re supposed to marry. I have a lot of married coworkers, and judging from what they tell me it’s pretty clear they’ve been with the same person since they were 15 years old. While I think this is cute, I can also imagine how bad my life would be right now if I’d married my first girlfriend, or the first one who would let me have sex with her.
People generally don’t marry for love in China, and the marriages themselves are rarely domestic bliss. There is a tremendous sense of obligation to the whole thing. Basically your parents gave you life so you owe them a grandchild. You must work hard to provide for this child, give him/her everything he/she wants (grandmother raises the kid while you are at work all day) and then one day your offspring can give YOU a grandchild to dote over. I’ve met a lot of women in unhappy marriages - the goal of marriage in China is not to create happiness, but rather produce offspring. It’s about fulfilling your social obligation. I think this is probably the biggest reason why people stay together. I know women whose husbands work in other cities, gay men with families leading double lives, men who regularly visit prostitutes.
I really don’t think China will ever get away from this sort of thing, because it’s not the sort of country where you can just say “no, fuck YOU dad” and do what the hell you want. Everything is tied into these social relationships - the people who move around and distance themselves from their families adopt more western-style morality, but these people are rare.
I don’t think you can really look at sex and marriage in China without first addressing the intensive family and social pressure involved in finding/choosing a mate. This is a culture where the parents of unwed children meet every week in public parks to play matchmaker, and marriage is more often a practical matter than it has anything to do with romance or love or even sex.
I also wanted to add that from what I can tell, these high school relationships that inevitably lead to marriage are very one-sided and rigidly defined. It’s almost as if the boy puts a claim on the girl in high school, therefore he has the right to be her husband regardless of whether or not he even treats her well. I have a friend whose “boyfriend” of 5 years hasn’t even visited her in a year, is barely even nice to her, likely visits prostitutes regularly (she is still a virgin), and has struck her on several occasions, but she can’t get past this idea that they’re “supposed to be together” because they’ve known each other for so long. She’s willing to admit that if they are married, she will undoubtedly be unhappy, but she is obligated to marry him because they’ve been together since high school.
I admit I don’t really understand. This seems stupid to me, but she’s not a stupid person. This exact situation, however, is quite common.
yes, but statistics are pretty meaningless when it comes to rape and spousal abuse because depending on the culture, it often goes unreported.
Again, that’s a white man’s fantasy. “Oriental women”, according to the Japanese, Hong Kong, Singapore etc police agencies are no less likely to report rape than anyone else.
They’re obviously not as pressured to remain virgins as women are
But the fact remains, the majority of Chinese men find one partner and stay with her until they die. That implies that they are both virgins.
Of course there is a double standard. There are no commonly used pejoratives for men who sleep around in the “West”.
“high number” of Chinese men cheating. I’ve never lived in a society that is so accepting of mistresses, prostitution, massage-with-extras etc on (sometimes literally) every street.
AGAIN, you’re spending your time with the wrong people. There are whoremongers out there but they generally do their own thing, decent society generally rejects them.
And there’s no point in touting Chinese official statistics. Their credibility is often dubious and you end up propagandising in the face of evidence that is clear to all who have lived in both China and ‘Western’ countries.
They aren’t “official statistics”. Stop using the “Communist propaganda” defense, it’s tiring and insulting to your reader’s intelligence. It was a survey done by some NGO or corporation regarding fidelity, and Indians and Chinese respondents reported 1.3 partners per lifetime according to the survey. I lost it, but I’ll look for it.
Every time an expat hears anything remotely positive about Chinese society it’s always “Communist propaganda”. There’s no way these colored people can do anything better than us! Impossible! We’re so progressive!
I have a friend whose “boyfriend” of 5 years hasn’t even visited her in a year, is barely even nice to her, likely visits prostitutes regularly (she is still a virgin), and has struck her on several occasions, but she can’t get past this idea that they’re “supposed to be together”
And I have a friend, a white girl, whose father raped her and beat her to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore and dropped out of high school and ran away from home (she is quite bright). Your point? Your story is not typical of Chinese relationships. Are you insinuating that Chinese women are stupid and helpless and need saving by white men? My mother and all of my aunts would stab any man who would dare to lay a finger on them.
People generally don’t marry for love in China
Bullshit. Generally people in developing countries are more likely to marry for money, but this is another white invention about Chinese society. If you think the Chinese women who marry Western men are doing it for love, you’re definitely crazy. Chinese women are more likely to marry Chinese men for love, Japanese/Overseas Chinese/Westerners for money.
@C.Custer - Yes, I lived in Beijing for a time. I loved parts of it. Some of the people showed how great the place can be and what a lovely place they’ll turn it into in the future. I’ve never actually lived in another mainland Chinese city although I’ve spent many continuous weeks here and there in a some of the smaller cities in some of the provinces. But I agree that I probably bring a BJ/SH/GZ bias to this. And I agree with the rest of your comment too.
@Frank - Your observations about the importance of the family and obligation are largely in tune with some of my experience. But they don’t fit with other observed experience of some of the really ‘loose’ and ‘fuck you’ behaviour that I’ve seen some mainland kids get up to. Your and Custer’s comment got me thinking that China is awfully large and there are massive differences between the coast and the west, the cities and the villages etc etc. The social fabric here is changing very quickly. There are both the morally very traditional/regressive (chose your preferred adjective) and the very liberal/dissolute. It’s no wonder that some of the kids in the big cities at least, are shallow and a little ‘f***** up’.
@anonymous -
1) How is it possible credibly (underline this last word) to estimate the incidence of unreported rape? Given that a woman choses not to report a serious crime to the Police, I find it unlikely that she subsequently discloses it in a survey.
2) There is a logical gap between an assumption of a (Chinese) man finding one partner and staying with her for life and the conclusion that they were both virgins at the time.
3) I wish that decent society generally didn’t have to reject whoremongers - that will come only when the incentives to pimp or whore are removed. And no, it’s not me that’s spending time in wrong places (incidentally, you write in an offensive way - why are you so angry?). It’s a simple fact that within five minutes walk of almost every home or hotel I’ve stayed in in a large city in Han China over 5 years there has been at least one massage place/brothel (not counting the one in the hotel itself). In BJ/SH/GZ I could take you to maybe five or ten streets in each city where you can see ten brothels without having to take a step. So, you may think that “decent society rejects whoremongers” but the fact is that in many developing countries, “decent society” seems to have no such luxury. In many places in China families live cheek by jowl with brothels and kids coming back from school walk past scantily dressed hookers every day. Again, I say to you that I sympathise with where you’re coming from, but your arguments have no credibility when you whitewash the facts.
And yes, I accept that the above paragraph does not apply to towns and villages.
4. Grateful if you would post your survey, but if applicable, I will continue using the “communist propaganda” argument (as you so sweetly name it). It goes right to the heart of some of China’s biggest issues. I don’t really understand your next paragraph: most expats are here because they chose to be, they came here to discover the best of China and the Chinese culture that wasn’t lost in China’s recent past. Why do you bring colour into it? Stop it, or every time we read your posts we’ll have to start humming “We are the yellow people, and we are rising”
Seriously, do you work in a women’s refuge? That’s twice in two posts that you’ve said you have personal contact with rape victims…
5) Last point (I’m bored in the airport waiting for another delayed flight, but even so there is a limit to how long my posts can be) - I agree with you that Chinese people sometimes do marry for love - I’ve been struck by how sweet the Chinese concept of romantic love is. But I think that it is very young love and sometimes those kids get into tough situations afterwards. Concepts of romantic love would make a good post topic. Sorry, I can’t end on a conciliatory note
You should lose the racial perspective and get that Chinese victim chip of your shoulder.
@anonymous
I love how some people will argue with anything, even just another person’s observations. I don’t really buy any of this white projection stuff considering the things people in china say about foreigners. Marriage is a little different in China. If you think my observations are bogus then please elaborate.
@ anonymous: Tone down the racism or you will be disemvoweled.
1.3 partners for life? hahahahaha. That made me chuckle. I guess all those prostitution shops, massage parlors, KTVs, night clubs are all visited by ghosts?
I would assume that there are countries that are worse (Thailand comes to mind), but I haven’t seen any other country that has more rampant prostitution than China.
If the real statistic is 1.3 then I guess over 1 billion of those Chinese die virgins in order to offset the prostitution.
My guess is that when people are polled, they don’t count their trips to the local whore as being a “partner”. Lots of Chinese guys I know call it a financial transaction (kind of like getting a foot massage). I know some guys that go to those places at least 3 times a week.
Being someone who has willingly remained throughout college, a virgin. And being a fairly good looking guy, I have had plenty of chances (I don’t care if you’re not going to believe me), but for me, doing such an act with only the woman that I love, and wish to spend the rest of my life with, is something important. And before you bring religion into it, I’m an “apatheist” of sorts, so don’t bother. So I do wish for my partner to be a virgin, but as the author of the article states, its incredibly hypocritical the way Chinese men go about this. If they were remaining virgins, and expecting the women to be the same, it would be fine. But this, is a load of BS. This is exactly the kind of attitude I constantly encountered from the Chinese men I met while I was in China and the ones here at my university. Its incredibly disgusting and chauvinistic of them, and they should be ashamed.
@ FYIA Dragoon: I think it’s also important to point out that you (presumably) respect other people’s choices to NOT remain virgins until marriage. I’m assuming that because you say you’re not religious and usually that holier-than-thou crap comes hand in hand with religion.
1.3 partners for life? hahahahaha. That made me chuckle. I guess all those prostitution shops, massage parlors, KTVs, night clubs are all visited by ghosts?
No, the way this works is you have one or two guys who go to the same girl a million times a week and also have a girlfriend or a wife. These few people may have fewer partners, but they are still cheating lots and lots of times. Almost everyone else thinks they’re disgusting. And not all KTVs are whorehouses, whether or not you’ve “inspected” each and every one of them I can’t say.
to estimate the incidence of unreported rape?
Lots of ways. The best way is just to measure violence against women in general- often the very serious stuff, murder, assault. If you want to look for “cultural bias” you can see Singapore and Hong Kong have high reportage rates. Often the friends/families of rape victims find out.
There is a logical gap between an assumption of a (Chinese) man finding one partner and staying with her for life and the conclusion that they were both virgins at the time.
No there isn’t, unless you have an agenda. I really doubt the average prostitute serves 100 different men a month, it’s just not possible. I know you want to rant about how you think you’re culturally superior, but no, there is no great and widespread victimization of poor, poor Chinese women that the “West” plays up to a ridiculous level.
It’s a simple fact that within five minutes walk of almost every home or hotel I’ve stayed in in a large city in Han China over 5 years there has been at least one massage place/brothel
That’s funny because when I’m in Shanghai, Beijing or Qingdao the areas I frequent have few of those. Again, you are probably spending lots of times in foreigner-dense areas so yeah I’m sure you’ll see lots of “modern” stuff.
Meanwhile in America 90% of the time you can’t go anywhere without seeing crackheads, homeless, prostitutes and the obese. That doesn’t mean Americans are all homeless, obese crack-hoes. That would just be wishful thinking to some.
they came here to discover the best of China and the Chinese culture that wasn’t lost in China’s recent past.
No they aren’t. Many white males in Asia are teaching English because they have a fetish for “Oriental women” (just as Hollywood has conditioned them to) and aren’t qualified for anything else. They often heap contempt and hate on their hosts, lots of English teachers post on stormfront and amren. There are a few who aren’t like this, but they’re rare. Usually women.
Seriously, do you work in a women’s refuge? That’s twice in two posts that you’ve said you have personal contact with rape victims…
If you live in America or Australia or some parts of Europe and claim to not have contact with rape or child molestation victims, statistically speaking you’re incredibly lucky or you’re just lying to yourself.
You should lose the racial perspective and get that Chinese victim chip of your shoulder.
My perspective is mostly rooted in truth, that you refuse to see because of “racial” or “cultural” bias, whatever you want to call it.
For some reason I’ve been Chinese for a long ass time and I don’t see much of a hooker or cheating problem. My family at least is matriarchal and open minded yet they couldn’t be called “modernized” by “Westerners”.
Lots of Chinese guys I know call it a financial transaction (kind of like getting a foot massage).
Yet none of the Chinese guys “I know” frequent “massage parlor” or indeed cheat at all. Like I said, birds of a feather…
This is exactly the kind of attitude I constantly encountered from the Chinese men I met while I was in China and the ones here at my university.
You must attract a certain type of people.
@ anonymous: Tone down the racism or you will be disemvoweled.
Tell them to tone down their “cultural bias” (more like thinly-veiled “racism”), and I will.
and assuming all of you are right, why is it that STDs spread so slowly in China if every man is whoring 3 times a week and each prostitute has 1,000 different customers a week?
let me guess, you’ll say “communist statistics!”
OK, this debate has become pointless. Rather than listening to you guys argue about made up statistics*/yelling about whose experience is more real, I’m going to close the comments on this one. Take a deep breath, and lets all move on to another topic, one I think that is interesting and will be ignored because it doesn’t have sex.
Or, if you want a new post to yell about, check out this one.
*I don’t care where you say it’s from, post a link to the data on a legitimate site or it’s made-up.
[...] are going to grow up, and many of them are going to want to marry someone. We’ve covered this before, of course, but the ChinaHush makes me want to emphasize another aspect of this demographic [...]