Good Vibrations

Sex toys and social change in Shanghai.

Anyone who thinks that China has a prudish streak has not been to Oh! Toys on Nanchang Road. Opulent chandeliers, tasseled drapes and gold mirrors lend a lavish air to this two-storey smorgasbord of all things adult — from leather handcuffs and life-size dolls to cutesy Hello Kitty vibrators and edible "body butter." Lingerie and role-play costumes fill an extensive rack on the second floor to boot.

While this open embrace of pleasure would have been shocking by local standards a few decades ago, today the local market is merely meeting demand. "Most of our customers are white-collar workers between 20 and 50 years old," Li Dong, manager of Oh! Toys, told the Global Times, noting a healthy mix of male and female, local and foreign. "Sex toys have become popular as wedding and birthday gifts."

Shanghai is not alone in this shift toward greater openness. "Ideological influences from the West clearly have been important in changing China," said James Farrer, an associate professor of sociology at Sophia University in Tokyo and an expert on sex culture in Shanghai. This swing in China's sexual mores, he stresses, is much more than a passing trend.

"Ideas of sexual liberation, sexual pleasure, and sexual diversity have come in since the 1980s. All of these are really global trends. China is not unique in seeing a rise in new types of relationships."

Riding this wave of global change, Shanghai is ground zero in China's ongoing sexual revolution — as seen in the recent profusion of high-end adult shops and sex-toy parties being frequented by a newly moneyed base of customers, both local and foreign. "The sex toy business in Shanghai has grown rapidly in recent years," Li said. "Compared with most of China, the industry is more accepted and professional."