At a Fudan University Medical School class about AIDs and Infectious Diseases, a volunteer Doctor shows up with a former female sex worker (hereafter fFSW) to do a presentation on NGO type work going on in Dalian to support the sex worker community, helping them with instruction for HIV prevention and access medical care / some legal recourse if they are, say, beaten by their employer. There are double standards with regards to gender everywhere but they seem more pronounced, for whatever reasons, here in China. [I once swore never to write about titillating topics but there are serious issues here.] At the end of the class, the two presenters split up, the Doctor offers to show the med students what sort of workshops they run for FSWs, which includes instruction for how to use a condom. The fFSW moves off to the side to field questions from the med students.
What happens next is a microcosm of the curious sort of schizophrenia that seems to dictate attitudes towards sex on the mainland. The seven or so people that engage the fFSW proceed to calmly explainproselytize how she can ‘change her life by going to school, and she doesn’t need to feel guilty or ashamed.’ The 40 some other students rush up to the demonstration table, and giggle away with condoms and eggplants (remind, these are 25-30 year old med students. See here for more on this topic).