p2pnet - rss feed: China online sexual revolution?
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “Premarital sex in China has become far more common in the past five to 10 years” and, say people written up in an IAC / JWT report, the Net has, “broadened their sex life”.
And that’s probably due at least in part to the Net, it says.
This won’t be good news for the Chinese ruling classes who are trying desperately to repress anything and everything to do with sex online.
“In the first 10 days of China’s anti-porn campaign, nearly 700 pornographic websites have been taken down in Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities and Liaoning and Guangdong provinces,” p2pnet reported back in 2004.
“The sites ‘involved production, trade and dissemination of lewd movies, still and video pictures, and arrangements of pornographic performances via chat room services’.”
‘Embracing the Internet’
It’ll be no surprise to learn that, according to the report, Young Digital Mavens, nearly five times more young Chinese are taking to virtual online life than their American counterparts.
It’s the only way they can freely express themselves without being arrested.
“Millions of young Chinese are embracing the Internet as a discreet space for their thoughts and emotions, according to a survey of Chinese and American youth released today by IAC” which, states the IAC / JWT press release, “operates businesses in sectors being transformed by the Internet, and JWT, the fourth largest advertising agency network in the world”.
‘Ahhhhh,’ as Homer would say, drooling, ‘Aaaaadvertising’.
The study explored how attitudes toward digital technology are changing among Chinese and American youth at a time when people are spending less time with traditional media and more with interactive technology, say the two companies.
“The Chinese people seem to be way ahead of Americans in living a digital life,” IAC chairman and CEO Barry Diller told Chinese students at Peking University, says the press release.
And, “For young Americans, the Internet provides an incremental increase in the huge range of options they enjoy in life,but for young Chinese it represents a steep increase in choice-and this is reflected in the strength of Chinese response to questions about opinions and interactions online,” says Tom Doctoroff, JWT’s CEO of Greater China and Northeast Asia area director.
Notes the statement, not at all in passing, “JWT is regarded as one of China’s top three agencies in both size and reputation, and was named most creative agency in Shanghai by Media magazine.”
‘Interactivity helps create intimacy, even at a distance’
“Our findings show that Chinese youth experience this new emotional space - the ‘emobytes’ - more intensely than young Americans,” says Doctoroff, who’s written a book called ‘Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer’.
While many Westerners, “debate whether online experiences and relationships are ‘real,’ far fewer Chinese have doubts,” says Young Digital Mavens.
“As many as 82 percent of young Chinese agreed that ‘Interactivity helps create intimacy, even at a distance,’ compared with just 36 percent of young Americans. And almost two- thirds (63 percent) of Chinese respondents agreed that “‘It’s perfectly possible to have real relationships purely online with no face-to-face contact,’ vs. only 21 percent of Americans.
These relationships are fundamentally changing the way Chinese youth interact with each other. Fewer than a third of Americans (30 percent) said the Internet helps their social life, but more than three-quarters of Chinese respondents (77 percent) agreed that “The Internet helps me make friends.”
The statement goes on:
Chinese culture may have a reputation for being far more sexually conservative than American culture, but strikingly, three times as many Chinese as Americans (32 percent vs. 11 percent) were willing to admit that the Internet has broadened their sex life. (It’s not just the Internet that sizzles for the Chinese: As many as 54 percent said they had made or heated up dates using text messages, compared with only 20 percent of Americans.)
Free speech ‘Very Free Online’
In the US, fewer than half of Americans (43 percent) agreed that “I often use the Internet to find the opinions of others or to share my opinions,” says Young Digital Mavens.
But China’s, “culture and political environment place less emphasis on personal views-and almost three- quarters (73 percent) of Chinese respondents said they go online to share opinions.”
Chinese respondents were also more likely than Americans to say they’ve expressed personal opinions or written about themselves online (72 percent vs. 56 percent).
“And they have expressed themselves more strongly online than they generally do in person (52 percent vs. 43 percent of Americans),” says the statement, adding:
That’s largely because of the anonymity that the Internet offers, a key attraction for the Chinese. Chinese respondents were almost twice as likely as Americans to agree that it’s good to be able to express honest opinions anonymously online (79 percent vs. 42 percent) and to agree that online they are free to do and say things they would not do or say offline (73 percent vs. 32 percent).
“While a western ideal of individualism may not be in the near future for Chinese society, these findings show that the Internet is transforming China in a unique way - towards liberalism with Chinese characteristics,” adds the press release.
Also See:
p2pnet - China wages online porn war, August 2, 2004
IAC / JWT - China Leads the US in Digital Self-Expression, November 23, 2007
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