Shanghai Adult Toy Fair Hits the Spot
By Ben Blanchard
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -
Wu Xiao never thought he'd see the day
-- China's first officially sanctioned exhibition of adult
toys, complete with leather body suits, vibrating rubber
tongues and even a U.S. adult movie star.
"It's revolutionary!" enthused Wu, the Shanghai sales
manager for Wenzhou Lover Health Product Co Ltd, China's
largest producer of what are known euphemistically in China as
"adult health products."
"China's changed so much since we started," he said at the
show where dildos, vibrators, flavored lubricants and condoms
of every conceivable shape, size and color were on display.
While Shanghai was known as the "Whore of the Orient" in
the swinging 1920s and 30s, its brothels and wild cabarets were
long ago closed by the prudish Communists who swept to power in
1949.
But since China began opening up again in the late 1970s,
attitudes to sex have begun cautiously to change -- to the
extent that the Shanghai government approved the show that
opened on Friday.
Opinions are changing fast, say industry insiders.
"It's true, there was some opposition when we went into
business 11 years ago," Wu Wei, president of Wenzhou Lover,
told Reuters, adding that he often test drove new products
personally.
"Nobody else was making them and we saw the opportunity. I
mean, there's 1.3 billion people in China. What a market!" said
35-year-old Wu Wei, a native of the southern coastal town of
Wenzhou, regarded as the cradle of private business in
communist China.
The company is doing so well now that Wu predicted a 50
percent rise in revenue this year from about $10 million in
2003, and is even contemplating a stock market listing. It
sells mainly to markets in Japan, the United States and Europe.
"When we are number one or two in the world, then we'll
list. I'm sure that won't be long," Wu Wei said, as curious
visitors peered at the multi-colored gadgets on sale.
LOOKING FOR LOCAL GROWTH
Firms like Wenzhou Lover still face a struggle to persuade
Chinese to use toys that carry names such as "The Salsa
Shaker," "Pleasure Periscope" and the unnerving-sounding "The
Emperor."
"We still sell 90 percent of our goods abroad," sighed Fang
Hong, general manager of U.S.-invested firm Shaki Shenzhen. "It
will take at least 10 years to reverse that so we are selling
mainly in China. Chinese just don't get the concept of fun
yet."
In many respects, China -- where the use of sex toys has a
recorded history of thousands of years -- has long-ago shaken
off its Maoist strait-jacket.
You can no longer be arrested for being found with adult
products at home, said Wenzhou Lover's Shanghai sales manager
Wu Xiao. That could happen as recently as 15 years ago.
Pirated and illegal hard-core pornography is readily
available on street corners.
"If that's the only way they can get them I'd rather have
them see me than not," U.S. adult movie star Cindy Crawford
told Reuters.
Resplendent in pink mini-skirt and revealing plaid top,
Crawford -- no relation to the world-famous U.S. supermodel of
the same name -- was mobbed by Chinese men wanting her
autograph because they believed she was her more famous
namesake.
"I don't have one of those," said Xie Huazhen, who had come
from the southern province of Guangdong just to go to the show,
as she giggled into her handbag and looked at Crawford's own
range of adult toys.
"Actually, yes I do. I have several," she admitted
sheepishly a second later, before scurrying off to another
booth.
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