Elaine Jeffreys and Haiqing Yu deliver a succinct yet in-depth exploration of sexual behaviors, discussions, and cultural transformations in the post-1980 People's Republic of China (PRC). Strategically broken up into eight definitive and comprehensive chapters, the book addresses sex as it relates to marriage and family planning, youth sex culture, sexual identities, commercial transformations, public health, and educational institutions. It provides the academic and general reader alike with a clearly communicated overview of sex trends and attitudes in China. The book offers a thoroughly researched and refreshing PRC analysis, lending the reader an impression of sex within Chinese culture as an entity in itself—not to be compared with or examined through a Western lens.
Commencing with an historical tracing of major Chinese political shifts since the 1950s, including mobility restriction post-1958, China's “opening up to the world” in 1978, and the one-child policy, the introduction serves to ground the non-expert in the socio-political atmosphere of present day China. Jeffreys and Yu dismiss the popularized idea that the Mao-era government actively repressed sex and sexual behavior. By eloquently interweaving examples of how explicit policies, and the political atmosphere at large, have influenced and in turn been influenced by sex and sexual culture in a rapidly transforming PRC, the authors argue that the introduction of sexual transformations and discourses in reform-era China are not only due to globalization, but national policy developments.
Supplemented with detailed personal vignettes of individual Chinese citizens, the second chapter effectively drives home the importance of traditional marriage in Chinese culture before launching into any further analysis. The authors note that despite rapid urbanization and its associated socio-political liberalization, the existence of financial and welfare systems, which reinforce children's continued reliance on parents well into adulthood (and likewise ensure parents’ care in old age), mean that marriage and parenthood are family matters—not personal decisions. Thus they are expected of virtually all young Chinese citizens. This understanding serves as a platform from which the authors analyse implications of the one-child policy, among others, on family relationships, and elaborate deviations of the norm by younger generations. Internet forums matching gays with lesbians serve as one example of such deviation. Parent-placating formal marriages are achieved, while at the same time, through mutual agreements, personal decisions and lives are externally preserved.
Chapters 3 and 4 continue to explore these themes by investigating evolving perceptions of sexuality and sexual behavior by youth and LGBT communities in the PRC. The authors attribute easy access to contraception and widespread acceptance of abortion arising from the one-child policy to the relaxation of taboos surrounding pre-marital and casual sex. These have been flourishing alongside Internet blogs and popular media programming, which provide a foundation from which “netizens” express their personal opinions, learn, and emulate each other's performances though sex-blogging, cross-dressing and challenging traditional gender roles. Though China has historically been accepting of homosexual behaviors, recent decades have demonstrated marked transitions surrounding the entry of these groups into public spheres—largely through commercial methods linked with the “opening up” of the PRC. Cafes, cruise-lines, and clubs are among the many arenas which now cater to gay and lesbian customers.
Chapters 5 and 6 delve further into the commercialization of sexual behavior. The first focuses on policy fluctuations surrounding prostitution regulation, with an emphasis on public debate calling into question corrupt policing in this sphere. The latter transitions into public health consequences associated with the inconsistent regulation, and subsequent marginalization of sex workers. The authors highlight the significance of the PRC's policy approach to combatting HIV/AIDS through public announcements, celebrity-endorsed adverts, and programs promoting safer sex practices, despite historical public disapproval for similar campaigns.
This book is devoted to describing the ways in which national policy developments have influenced, and been influenced by, sexual attitudes and behaviors in the PRC. The jargon-free easily understandable tone, as well as the introduction's provision of a brief, yet thorough, historical summary of Chinese political shifts throughout the past century, a map of China, and a chronological ordering of important events since the 1890s, all show that the authors not only welcome, but explicitly invite the non-expert into their discussion. Their apparent assumption of the non-expert's full understanding of how party-politics in China operate is therefore inconsistent with the body as a whole. With the exception of a brief passage devoted to discrepancies between national and local regulation of prostitution, largely absent are linkages between individual policies and sex-related matters in China to the PRC's political structure as a whole. While the authors inevitably draw on this structure to support their argument, readers are left to their own devices to situate the effects of these policies within the larger governmental organization that has introduced and enforced them.
This failing becomes particularly salient when trying to understand how national PRC policies are implemented at provincial levels, especially in light of recent movements in China by citizens demanding more from their government in regard to public health. While not straying from the book's main objective, a simplified explanation of the PRC's governmental organization would have served to maintain consistency and augment the existing introductory explanations nicely, by providing the reader a frame of reference to ensure full comprehension of the text to follow.
Further, in light of the recent phase-out of one of the most central policies to this work, the one-child policy, the relevance of this book has undoubtedly transformed. While it is incorrect to imply that this book is now irrelevant, it is necessary to highlight that it better serves as an historical contribution, than a modern analysis. While the conclusion's recommendations for areas of future research may still be applicable, it is also true that with the introduction of the two-child policy, these recommendations must be expanded.
Despite the policy shift that has impacted the political relevance of Jeffreys and Yu's book, their work is a well-written, well-researched body of knowledge for both the scholar and interested reader alike.
