More on the sauna trip and some contemplating. So apparently at saunas male guests can order a variety of intimate services. I’ll leave you to determine what this means…in fact, I don’t know the extent of options available and frankly, not something I really care to be well-versed in. (Oh, I asked Stephen about the guy at the massage a couple of weeks ago and he said actually it wasn't a male prostitute so much as it's just extremely common for people to hook up at saunas. No additional money exchanged, just sex, or whatever else one might want to drum up. I basically could have done whatever if I’d wanted to. What I took as a sign of relief from the guy that nothing had happened was more likely something along the lines of disappointment. Go figure. *shakes head*)

About the intimate services…Mom asked if that type of thing was ok with Chinese woman—knowing their men are doing that in saunas—and the answer is well no, but for many women, their opinion doesn’t really count in this sort of situation. Some women claim not to know, but realize there’s not a whole lot they can do about it. This is definitely the darker side of chinese life (and for fear of sounding too ethnocentric, let’s not forget that this sort of stuff does in fact go on in America too). The big difference is that here things are a little more visible. There’s a term in Chinese 重男轻女 (zhongnan qingnv) which literally translates to ‘heavy man, light women’. Essentially what it refers to is male dominant society wherein men’s desires and opinions bear heavy influence. Men tend to enjoy a greater degree of sexual freedom than women and concepts like women’s lib aren’t exactly all the rage, if you get my drift. Marriage is kind of a funny thing here too. China is still developing so for money, for status, for connections, people often get married. Rarer is marriage here for love. I know of two women off the top of my head who are in the fast track to marriage against their will, both for money and familial connection. It's unfortunate, but there are more important issues that practical marriage seems to have a very convenient way of solving. This is not to say that love doesn’t exist. Love DEFINITELY exists. China is a very loving country. It’s just that marriage and love aren’t exactly synonymous with one another.

But then again, you’ve heard me talk about the huge contrasts of this place…on the one hand there’s this night club/sauna culture where sex is a public commodity and while not regarded openly in discussion with people outside of this lifestyle, it’s not like these things are exactly secret either. Saunas are ubiquitous and although some actually are innocent and legit (go and have a bath—they serve a very practical purpose since many low-end Chinese housing options are not equipped with shower facilities) really sex is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You needn’t look hard to find it, but you won’t generally hear people talking about it either, that’s for certain.
On the other hand, you still have a large portion of the population adhering to very conservative, traditional views on sexuality, which helps explain the unspoken silence (or perhaps ignorance) regarding these types of issues. Formal sexual education is for the most part non-existent (from what I’ve read, only a handful of middle schools have any sort of programming on the subject). Where condom use is becoming more widespread, abortions are a comparatively more abundant form of birth control and unfortunately, the necessity of instilling responsibility doesn’t always seem to come across. For instance, I know a 25-year old who has had three abortions. So from what I can roughly tell, what you’ve got are a lot of young people who have very little sexual understanding and a culture that discourages open candid discussion about sex. When these people start exploring their sexuality, it’s taboo to discuss openly so I guess it sort of lends itself to the creation of varying degrees of a sexual subculture.
To further complicate matters, the Chinese perception of sex in the West is a sad construct of scenes from Hollywood television, most notably Friends and Sex in the City. Many Chinese young people that I meet automatically assume that Americans are very “open-minded” about sex and I do my best to help fill in the blanks left by Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Anniston, namely that while yes, many Americans believe in a healthy and diverse sex life, there are still many traditionally minded folks as well. Many Chinese are curious about Western culture but unfortunately, the sample they normally get (from media and from foreigners living here) isn’t necessarily representative of the whole.

An interesting side comparison is of the root of conservative values: in America, it generally stems from religious influence, whereas in China (where religion/spirituality are far less important) I guess it comes from an extremely developed sense of traditional culture (Confucian, Tao, etc.). I’m not exactly sure yet, I need to do some more investigating on this one.

It’s interesting to think about and really, I’m not doing justice here to all the little branches of thought that this discussion is creating so please realize that this is just rough thoughts and where it seems shallow or prejudiced, it’s really just me thinking faster than I can type. I try not to make broad subjective statements without at least attempting to justify or explain them clearly but it’s late and I’m tired. Your thoughts/comments/ideas on this subject are encouraged, I’m eager to discuss this with folks. You can email me too jessicalynnjohn at gmail dot com.