Don’t think I ever posted this before. Was afraid of being booted from research grant. S3x toy shops and lingerie stores are ubiquitous in China, much more so than one might imagine given the outwardly conservative culture. Here’s a picture of one, in the middle of a perfectly normal street. There are a lot of them.

One major difference seems to be the prevalence of male masturbatory aids (see above – I’m standing on the sidewalk, there’s no door). These account for something like 40% of the inventory at most of these places. At first I wondered why – in the U.S. such things seem taboo (compared with your standard rabbit habbit hitachi pleazure stick, which in general seem to be viewed as liberating. Fleshlights are just sketch). First reaction was that the gender imbalance was motivating this, but I’d wager there’s something more. General cultural attitudes that push all eroticism underground, and so what few portions surface don’t have the exposure to become taboo, as in the West? Put another way: if you’re going to take part in this, it’s all in, whereas in the U.S you can pick and choose your kinks, plus a history of general s3xual conservatism with regards to women that’s only begun to reform in the past several decades? Idle pondering. Someone needs to research this more thoroughly.