- Title: CHINA: Sex toys gain popularity among Chinese people
- Date: 21st August 2009
- Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (AUGUST 14, 2009) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF "SWEET SECRETS" SEX TOY STORE WINDOWS DISPLAYING DILDOS WITH STAFF SITTING IN BACKGROUND CHEN XIANGRU, FOUNDER OF SWEET SECRET, HOLDING DILDOS WHILE TALKING TO SALES PEOPLE SALES PEOPLE LOOKING ON CHEN TALKING FINGER ON BOTTOM OF DILDO TWO SALES PEOPLE HOLDING DILDOS AND LISTENING TO THE VIBRATION TRAINING IN
- Embargoed: 5th September 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: China
- Country: China
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA569RSX9B9672DC2CA6OAJ8KWZ
- Story Text: China has seen more than just economic development over the past 60 years since the founding of the People's Republic.
Fast-changing attitudes towards sex has created opportunities for sex toy companies like "Sweet Secret."
Once a profitable exporter selling sex toys to Europe and the United States, the company based in southern China's Shenzhen suffered a slump in overseas orders due to the financial crisis.
With its up-and-running production line, the company's founder Chen Xiangru decided to turn to the domestic market for help.
Armed with the country's first registered trademark for a sex toy company, Chen set up Sweet Secret' first retail shop in Beijing in August, in a four-storey building packed with a few hundred shops selling sex-related products from Chinese versions of Viagra to toys.
One of the challenges Chen faces is training her sales staff on understanding the products they are selling-- very few of them even knew what a dildo was before being interviewed for the job.
But the days or weeks it takes to bring "Sweet Secret" staff up to speed on what handcuffs might be used for in bed are nothing compared to the 15 years Chen has waited for the Chinese market to be ready for her products.
Sex was still a taboo subject in 1994 in the small town where she came from, when she started the company.
"When I first started this company, I was really embarrassed about what I did for a living. When people asked me what my job was, I told them I made toys. But, when I began to create and manage the new brand, I was guided by my perception to create products that support health and harmony," Chen said.
"Sweet Secret" made about 5-7 million yuan (700,000 U.S. dollars to 1 million U.S. dollars) worth of products a year before the financial crisis, when sales fell by about 30-40 percent (since 2008).
When the company took a turn to the domestic market, Chen said "many young Chinese" were ready to work for the company.
Chen added that a group of people born in the 1980s contacted her saying they have been running online sex toy shops and had been hoping to start their own shops.
Cheng Chong is one of them. He said his parents think his job is shameful, but he thinks he's helping people.
"When people didn't have enough to eat during the 60s and 70s, they took no interest in and weren't conscious of this matter. When people's living conditions have improved, from the 90s into the 21st century, people have more stimulation in spiritual aspects," Cheng said.
Throughout Chinese history it was common for men to have more than one wife, and prostitution was legal in many of the dynasties through the centuries.
That all ended in 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded.
Under Chairman Mao Zedong's rule, sex became a taboo. Holding hands or kissing in public could land you in prison on charges of "obscenity." People didn't have much freedom to choose their lovers freely.
Party leaders and factory bosses became the main match makers and to them, a good candidate for a person looking for a partner was someone who was devoted to Communism and poor, someone who fought hard for the new China or had suffered tremendously before China had been founded.
The Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 applied a set of even stricter rules for couples.
Spouses would address their partners as "revolutionary comrade" instead of husband or wife. Any intimacy in public was seen as "obscenity" and punishments for violations could be severe.
China's "Opening Up" launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 shaped the country in a way it had never seen before. With the country opening up its doors towards the west, Chinese people started to see a different lifestyle.
However, neither Mao Zedong nor Deng Xiaoping could have foreseen the explosion in the sex products industry that would eventually happen - -it is now worth about 500 million yuan (70 million U.S. dollars) a year, according to the China Sex Association.
Although it is changing rapidly, Chinese people still have mixed feelings about the sensitive topic.
Dai Weicheng, born in the year 1985, said his generation thinks like their peers in the west, while his parents' generation still lives in the Mao times.
"Since China opened up a long time ago, there has already been sufficient demand in this market. So I believe that our perspective has changed a lot, nearly integrating with those of Europe and the U.S. I don't think it necessary to rule out such things," Dai said.
Sweet Secret said the design of products caters to different groups of people. Some of the dildos have been made into the shape of a remote control, which is easy for a woman to carry around in a purse. Some dildos have wireless control, which is made into the shape of a car key.
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