Review | Inside China’s sex trade: seduction, sympathy, survival, and pride in ‘emotional labour’ – prostitutes and their clients tell all to a Hong Kong academic
- For a business that’s officially outlawed, prostitution in China is flourishing, as Eileen Tsang found out working at a bar in sex industry hotspot Dongguan
- Sex workers tell her their tricks and their hopes, why they prefer sex work to factory work, and how much of the job is about flattering and listening to men
China’s Commercial Sexscapes, by Eileen Yuk-ha Tsang, University of Toronto Press, 3.5 stars
Prostitution may officially be outlawed in mainland China, but that hasn’t exactly wiped out the country’s sex industry.
Foreign businessmen visiting major cities have long told of racy cards being thrust under their hotel room doors and of receiving unsolicited phone calls from sex workers. Many streets in urban areas are lined with pink-lit “hair salons”, which are open at suspiciously late hours and close during the country’s regular political meetings.
Popular apps such as WeChat and QQ may have made prostitution less visible, but sex is for sale everywhere in China and deeply embedded in the culture, allowing migrant women to earn a living in large cities and provide companionship to men left alone by unfavourable demographics.
