'The event will be family-friendly because Hong Kong people are too shy and conservative to have booths with pornographic movies or a stand filled with Playboy magazines,' said Ng Man-lun.

'If we did, I would probably be run out of town, and we'd be back where we started,' said the University of Hong Kong psychiatry professor, better known around town as 'Dr Sex'.

The graphic will be replaced with the cerebral, with sex experts from across China discussing everything from fetishes to self-satisfaction and the more mundane but perhaps more important issue of sexual health.

Represented in about 40 stalls from lunchtime will be homosexuals, prostitutes, family planners and even a group of nuns who will lecture on sex education.

'Hong Kong lags at the bottom of the region when it comes to sexual satisfaction and we really need to do something about it because there have been numerous scientific studies which show that if your sex life is not good, then the rest of your health suffers,' Professor Ng said.

The festival continues for the rest of the week in the Sheung Wan Civic Centre Exhibition Hall, which Professor Ng promises will be a little more explicit - even featuring demonstrations of how to use the sex bed and chair.

He doesn't expect everyone to come around to his way of thinking - putting sex first in his life - but says there are many in Hong Kong who are missing out.

'Many people are suffering in silence, not knowing where to turn for a better sex life,' he said.

'People are just too moralistic about sex and our young people are not educated enough - they need to come and see it's natural and normal to want satisfaction.'