Beijing sex shop aims to break through barriers
CHINA'S first sex shop, Adam and Eve, has just opened - and it is already out of penis enlargers.
''We wanted to raise the level of sex culture in China,'' said Mr Wen Jingfeng, a 36-year-old economist who manages the government-run shop.
''People's ideas about sex have not caught up with the beat of the times. We want Chinese to get over their shyness about sex.'' Set up by the People's Hospital and a service agency which manages old people's homes, Adam and Eve is not like sex shops in the West. There are, for example, no curtains in the window, because nothing on sale is pornographic.
''We are strictly medical,'' said Mr Wen.
Nevertheless, Adam and Eve is another breakthrough in China's quiet sexual revolution.
The spotless, brightly-lit shop on a quiet neighbourhood street displays its wares in glass cases lined with red velour, the shelves covered with white lace.
Management gave a lot of thought to the display, and decided against putting the products behind a counter. Deputy manager Mr Wang Yan said: ''Because Chinese people are embarrassed about sex, we want them to be able to pick up the goods themselves and look at them.'' So far the biggest selling item has been the ''male comfort device'', a plastic tube with a valve at one end which creates a vacuum for penis enlarging. Long-term results are said to be guaranteed, but customers will have to wait for new stock to arrive as the item has sold out.
Among the range of impotence, premature ejaculation and general health maintenance medicines are a sweet-and-sour liquid sex potion, American ginseng, royal jelly, and a tablet called 555, which is sold in a box that looks much like the packaging of the cigarette brand by that name.
Two other hot items are a spray which supposedly keeps the penis erect and prevents spread of the AIDS virus at the same time (use three minutes before sexual intercourse, the instruction said), and a ''physio-therapeutic ring for male use'', produced inthe economically backward province of Henan, in a package with a picture of a muscular black man and a blonde woman. Both are in black underwear.
So far the shop has been only modestly successful. Mr Wen said 200 or 300 customers came in each day and 85 per cent of them were men. Sales since the shop opened on February 1, this year, total only 1,000 yuan (HK$1,339).
''They won't make money,'' said one customer. ''Chinese people are too embarrassed about this sort of thing.''
