Any city with global pretensions will inevitably end up comparing itself with the Rome of its day - in our time, New York. Points of comparison tend to orbit around issues such as wealth, influence, image, the language skills and friendliness of taxi drivers and the hamburger index (a way of measuring individuals' purchasing power). But one glaring difference that strikes me between the two, having spent some of my life in both, is sexiness. The New York buzz borders on a soft porn movie compared to the Mills and Boon atmosphere of Hong Kong. This is a contrast as weighty as the usual measures, in my view. Sexual attitude is cultural litmus and, as Freud observed, a metaphor for attitude to life. It is not a question of one city being more repressed than the other. Both are up to their necks in repression, as all civil societies must be to exist. What makes the difference is exactly how the sexual impulse is twisted into social functionality. What are New York's perversions and what distortions are preferred in Hong Kong? And, why? Women (society's chief sexiness indicators) live mostly for themselves in New York. They are at a point in their history when they feel like, and can get away with, taking pride in displaying their sexual liberation, its uses and abuses, risks, satisfactions and dissatisfactions. New York's individualism gives them the psychological setting in which to openly display their sexual identity and desires; financial independence gives them the clout and self-confidence to support their choices. Commitment is harder because living alone is not taboo; in partners, compromise is resisted because the power balance is more equal. So, everybody is potentially available, adding to the overall atmosphere of sexual tension and promise. The sexual climate in Hong Kong, on the other hand, is 'clouds and rain' (the Chinese poetic term for sex acts) because of the enduring influence of collectivism which overrides the effects of westernisation. For a collectivist, hierarchies, stability and continuity are sacred - all features on which the close-knitted family depends. So there is pressure to carefully control and direct sexual behaviour and rampant sexual desires. Love binges, such as those crucial to the storylines of shows like Sex and the City, may represent life's principle entertainment among New York's singles. But giddy experiences of that sort threaten hierarchical authority, shake loyalties and loosen family bonds in Hong Kong. They are problematically disruptive in a patriarchal setting in which one is expected to practise moderation and follow one's family's choice of marriage partner. Hong Kong women hardly evoke the rosy-cheeked innocence of a Mao-era propaganda poster, I admit. And, behind the scenes, there is plenty of infidelity, concubinage, prostitution and porn. But the public face of sexuality is incontestably docile. Aggressively sexual clothing, public displays of affection and premarital sex are all less prevalent than in New York. Most women dress like girl guides, and overt sexual game-playing is sublimated to the point of invisibility. According to the few Chinese psychologists who choose to broach the subject of sex (in contrast to western psychology's relative obsession), more attention is devoted to sexuality than any other area of child-rearing. Nudity is prohibited at home, masturbation is taboo and sex education is frequently avoided altogether, even in school. The message is clear: sex is not play, nor should it be used as or allowed to become an instrument of power - or at least, not openly. However, Hong Kong's Sex and the City is not Family and the City, but Money and the City. That is another story, however. Jean Nicol is a psychologist specialising in issues of cultural identity and change in an era of globalisation everydaypsychologist@yahoo.com