State Sponsored Sex

If Elvis Presley were still alive he would be 75 years old. During the 1950’s, Elvis was rising to fame in America with his talent and showmanship. His sexually suggestive style earned him legions of female fans and landed him in the headlines, displacing America’s other preoccupation, the threat of the the “red menace” in places like China. Elvis was part of an ongoing American social evolution where boundaries were being pushed farther and faster. Pushing back against this social liberalism was America’s long-standing conservative religious beliefs.

At the same time, Communist China was clamping down on the same behavior. But rather than conservative backlash, the motivation in China was the purification of society from pernicious influences like drugs and prostitution. In America, church often leads the charge against vice. In China, the Communist Party battled both vice and what they saw as ancient superstitions like Western religions and Buddhism.

China’s effort to eradicate drugs and the “opium for the masses” was partially successful. Widespread drug use, already on the decline, was all but eliminated. To fill the religious void, the central Party established state-sponsored churches. In this way, the churches owed their allegiance to Beijing, not Rome or some other foreign power.

When I arrived in Shanghai I was still a consistent church-goer. Back then the only person I had to admonish for fidgeting was myself. Now with kids, well, let’s just say I’m in the religious reserves. Truthfully, part of me liked to attend church in China because for the first time in my life church attendance felt rebellious. Knowing the government took a dim view of organized religion, in particular a Western import, made Sunday morning feel a little subversive, which is weird for a Sunday morning.

I was really a faux insurgent because our church was in fact state-sponsored. We were establishment. Once or twice the choir director and pianist, both Americans, were questioned by official-looking guys. We expressed outrage over this harassment but were secretly excited about it, like we were starring in our own John Le Carre novel.

Our church service was held in a large room on the second floor of a modest apartment block deep in the city center. Despite the fact that church services were held there every weekend, the residents always seemed a little surprised to see us. The neighborhood had the usual assortment of business establishments, save one. It was that one that piqued my interest; which, considering it’s merchandise and proximity to our church seemed not just wrong, but a venial sin. As it was, I was on thin spiritual ice to begin with.

The store in question sold sex toys. I knew this because unlike those places back home, located in dodgy neighborhoods with blacked-out windows, this one was all clear glass and mirrors. Its merchandise prominently arranged in window display cases. This was a state-sponsored sex store. It was so orderly and antiseptic that is looked more like pharmacy than a carnal superstore. And instead of some burly guy with a beard and tattoos kicked back flipping through the latest issue of Hustler, several lab-coated matrons stood at attention looking like Chinese versions of Dr. Ruth. Honestly, who wants to buy a blow-up doll or vibrator from mom; except someone with one seriously warped fetish? I would take the burly lech over Chinese mom any day.

Was the Chinese government’s message lost in translation? What were they trying to communicate; that sex was okay, even mom approves? Or was this simply a bureaucrat’s way of satisfying a central government edict of one sex toy store per million residents with no intention of actually serving any customers or selling any merchandise?

My husband resisted my entreaties to visit this store. I guess he was concerned that our driver might actually think we had sex. And to be fair, given its proximity to our church, neither of us wanted our fellow parishioners thinking we actually had sex. However, one day we arrived early to church so after getting dropped off by our driver and seeing him drive away we walked back down the street to the sex products store.

One of the paradoxes of China is oftentimes the lack of controls or regulations relative to the United States. For instance, on this block there was a church, a primary school, residential apartment buildings, other businesses, and the sex toy store. In America, sex has yet to fully emerge from the closet, so you will not find a sex toy store next to Lady Foot Locker or the Gap at the local mall. Zoning Anywhere, USA would never allow that. Ironically, today most sex commerce has moved online, which really means it has moved out the bad part of town and into everyone’s homes.

Our visit to the sex toy store was abrupt. We were unable to blend into a throng of frisky locals as there were none. We were the only customers and vastly outnumbered by the lab coats. Upon closer inspection the lab-coated ladies lacked Dr. Ruth’s mirth and friendly demeanor. Instead, these ladies had the stone-cold faces of prison guards. Not the kind of sex I had in mind. As for the merchandise, my congenital paranoia kicked in and the government’s plan became all too clear. I now feared that if I took home what I previously thought was a cute little rabbit bestowing good vibrations, I would instead by assaulted by a rousing rendition of “The East is Red” while slogans like “You depraved, imperialist running dog” admonished me for my decadent behavior. The sexual equivalent of a buzz kill. Maybe this was the government’s intention all along; over-population problem solved.

Perhaps there is no escaping the American article of faith that sex and illicit are meant to go together. Clean it up and make it official and all the fun gets sucked right out of it. Introducing state-sponsorship of an activity that goes by euphemisms like horizontal mambo, tube snake boogie, and bump and grind not only diminishes the gravitas of the state-sponsored seal of approval, but also any shred of entertainment value the activity in question may have contained.


Elvis emerged on the public stage and was loved by youth and reviled by parents for the same reason--his raw sexuality. Nothing antiseptic about him. Ironically, he was a church-going boy who revered his mama. If my visit to a Chinese state-sponsored sex store taught me anything it is that the surest way to crush public interest in anything is not to ban it, but instigate a government take over of it. Bureaucrats do memos, they don’t do sex.