Behavior: Straight Talk on Sex in China

Surveys reveal the breadth and depth of the new permissiveness

The Chinese may still be repressed politically, but their sexual behavior has undergone a sweeping liberation. The past decade of economic and social reform spawned a new permissiveness that was not suppressed by the soldiers sent to occupy Tiananmen Square. For the first time, Chinese sociologists have conducted extensive surveys to document the spread of the sexual revolution in the world's most populous nation. Their main conclusions: like most other populations, the Chinese are having more sex outside marriage and are becoming increasingly adventurous in the ways they make love.

By far the largest study is the Shanghai Sex Sociological Research...

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