MCLC: sexual dysfunction in China

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sexual dysfunction in China
Source: Sinosphere, NYT (11/5/14)
A Closer Look at Sexual Dysfunction in China
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
Visitors wrestle for signed photos of Rei Mizuna, a popular Japanese adult film actress, who was on stage promoting a sex toy at the Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival on Nov. 9, 2013.Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times
Shortly before Men’s Health Day on Oct. 28, reports of a new study of sex in China, presented in jokey and sympathetic language, raced through the Internet.
The topic was guaranteed to attract as much attention in China as anywhere else: A sexual revolution has been underway in the country since at least the early 1990s with the easing of severe Maoist-era repression.
Chinese men, overworked and overstressed, were suffering high levels of impotence, said the study, ‘‘China Ideal Sex Blue Book.’’ Only a little over half of the thousands interviewed were achieving full erections, which it described as being ‘‘like a cucumber.’’ (It described its opposite as ‘‘like tofu.’’)
For Dr. Jiang Hui, a urologist at the Peking University Third Hospital and an author of the study, which was conducted by the China Sexology Association and two Chinese health publications, and supported by Pfizer, the manufacturer of the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, it was more evidence that Chinese men need help — preferably from prescription drugs like Viagra or Cialis.
In a telephone interview, Dr. Jiang declined to say exactly how Pfizer supported the survey or why the report recommended the company’s products as a first line of treatment.
Everett Yuehong Zhang.Credit Courtesy of Mr. Zhang
In scientific terms, the survey was ‘‘of very limited significance’’ for methodological reasons, Everett Yuehong Zhang, a professor of East Asia studies at Princeton University, said in an email. But it was significant in another way.
‘‘It can be referenced to as a sign of the sustaining research interest in this topic,’’ said Mr. Zhang, whose book ‘‘The Impotence Epidemic: Men’s Medicine and Sexual Desire in Contemporary China’’ is to be published next year.
To Mr. Zhang, the ‘‘epidemic’’ is mostly about the increased visibility of the problem, as Chinese men become more willing to seek treatment, reflecting the changing nature of desire in China today for men and women.
In that sense, he said, departing from the crisis tone of the ‘‘China Ideal Sex Blue Book,’’ what is being termed an ‘‘impotence epidemic’’ could actually be a ‘‘positive’’ thing.
‘‘Through anthropological fieldwork I conducted in men’s clinics, I discovered that we are not sure that more Chinese men are suffering from impotence than before,’’ he said.
‘‘Instead, we are sure that more impotent men are encouraged to break silence and reach out to doctors in order to cure impotence,’’ he said. ‘‘This tendency reflects the overall orientation today of the Chinese population — men as well as women — to satisfy sexual desire.’’
Mr. Zhang, who interviewed about 350 couples for his book, found plenty of evidence of psychological factors, as well as physiological ones. Some may have distinctly Chinese characteristics.
‘‘In so many men and women I interviewed, the ups and downs of male potency may be related to the ups and downs of one’s social status,’’ he said.
Trauma was an issue, from famine or political violence. As was losing a safe state job under the economic reforms, or having to drink excessively or visit prostitutes with colleagues or officials to secure business deals.
Ultimately, this was about China’s search for modernity, Mr. Zhang said.
‘‘In Chinese history, ‘yu’” — sexual desire — “tended to have pejorative connotations,’’ Mr. Zhang said.
Sex was often expressed by terms like ‘‘se’’ (lust) and ‘‘yin’’ (lewd or lascivious), words that persist throughout the Chinese-speaking world, including in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
‘‘Sexual pleasure had been a function of sexual practices before, but satisfaction of sexual desire had never been so publicly justified and encouraged until the post-Mao era, particularly since the 1990s,’’ he said. ‘‘Also, satisfying sexual desire in particular and satisfying individualized desire in general had never been so central’’ to Chinese people’s own sense of being ‘‘a modern person.’’
For Dr. Jiang, Chinese men are still too reluctant to seek help. He hoped his survey would help educate people about sexual problems. ‘‘People just don’t have the knowledge,’’ he said.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on November 6, 2014
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