Pornography in China

Chinese officials have confiscated more than six million publications deemed illegal during the first two months of this year. In all about 1,442 cases were involved, China's national pornographic and illegal publication office said.

The office has intensified investigation and punishment to some government authorities who serve as a protective shield for the illegal act of producing and selling porn and illegal publications, a statement said. It will launch stricter crackdowns in sectors such as printing, Internet communication and publication market to eliminate illegal publications, it said.

The repression of pornography and illegal publications has expanded in scope from printed publications to online releases in recent years.

Over 2,000 people in China have been paid for reporting internet and mobile phone pornography to the authorities in 2011.

More than nine million yuan (around £ 1 million) were awarded to a total of 2,129 people, Xinhua reported. People who offered important tip-offs were paid 1,000 to 10,000 yuan.

Four organisations handled 1.26 million tip-off cases from December 2009 when they began soliciting public information till the end of 2011. The organisations were:

• China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre,
• 12321 Internet Obscene and Trash Information Reporting Centre,
• Internet Illegal Conduct and Crime Reporting Centre,
• Reporting Centre of the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications

The organizations had asked people for greater efforts in snitching up porn on the internet and mobile phones.

Mobile porn in China is on the rise thanks to low-cost entry into the adult business.

According to a Penn-Olson report, even though porn is illegal in China, would-be adult mobile companies can get server hosting packages set up for as little as $78 per year. The deals are reportedly being advertised heavily by hosting companies hiding behind disposable Chinese social networking QQ websites.

Mobile websites are less strictly regulated than conventional sites, and the growing number of dubious companies offering cheap hosting and ready-made WAP site templates makes it easier for fly-by-night 'yellow' sites to flourish, the report said.

The boom is keeping Chinese authorities hopping as they try to stem the spread of the illegal WAP adult sites, supposedly over concerns 'for the children'. Because the sites come and go quickly, authorities are finding it difficult to patrol and shut them down.

The Chinese government has started a two-month long tirade against pornography.

Despite previous crackdowns, pornography, especially that on compact discs, are showing a tendency to rebound as many sellers hawk porn videos right outside computer shopping malls, an official statement said.

According to the National Office against Pornographic and Illegal Publication, the repressive campaign will run from September 5 to November 5 and will focus on enterprises, stores, websites and merchants that are involved in the sale of porn disks in large cities.

During the campaign, local anti-porn offices have been asked to cooperate with press and publication bureaus, police and local government departments to close down major operators.

Much of the discussion surrounding Chinese Internet culture has centered on the rise of online human rights activism, but the emergence of an online erotic culture that openly describes individuals' personal sexual activities has also been evident in recent years.

Associate Professor Katrien Jacobs' research at The Chinese University of Hong Kong on People's Pornography has investigated the culture of Do It Yourself amateur porn on the Chinese Internet, as well as the interplay between pornography producers and consumers within the state's censorship mechanism.

Below is a transcript of an interview conducted by Ronald Yick and Oiwan Lam about the upcoming publication of Professor Jacobs' new book, People's Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet.

Global Voices (GV): Can you explain what you mean by People's Pornography in your book?

Katrien Jacobs (KJ): First of all, the term People's Pornography covers the meaning of DIY pornography, which reclaims pornography by amateurs. But it also refers to pornography made in China. It sounds satirical because officially there is no Chinese pornography, it is officially banned, even though everybody knows that there are many porn sites, including amateur porn, in China.

GV: Since you are an expert in the research of DIY pornography in western societies, can you compare the culture in China and in the West?

KJ: In the developed western society, alternative culture is strong and you can see artists or members of weird communities making websites to promote their own kinds of pornography in different ways. Sites like Beautiful agony, which only depicts orgasm as seen from people's faces, is a kind of critique of commercial pornography, which is too much focused on genitals. That's the background I came out of. I've met people who are interested in or actually making those sites. Of course this culture has very soon been commercialized. So you also have a DIY porn movement that is not really for people, by people, it's just promoting girl next-door look, a kind of amateur look. So in the West, there are two competing movements, i.e. the real amateurs and the commercial forces.

In China and in Hong Kong, you do have people who upload their own videos and photographs. Sometimes on designated sites like the Pornotube, which is the Youtube for pornography. These sites are open to all people in the world. Of course, people from mainland China cannot get access to these sites and it is still much more uncommon for people to participate in DIY porn movement. But we've noticed that younger people have started makig their sex videos in secret places or hidden places, like empty classrooms, medical rooms, elevators, or just corridors. This kind of porn is definitely being made in China right now and being uploaded, because I found lots of videos compiled or archived on various websites. For sure the movement is very scattered and people say it's quite juvenile. But I think it is a sign of change.

GV: You've used the term erotic liberation in your book - what do you mean by that?

KJ: First of all, I see liberation in the fact that people can have access to pornography and the second point is that, people can express their cultural and sexual identities through pornography. So in these young people's videos, it's powerful for them to have sex somewhere and film it and upload it and share it, despite the fact that this is totally forbidden and officially banned in China. But nevertheless it's happening. We shouldn't think it so seriously, in terms of political liberation because after all these people are just having fun. But they are breaking law by being naughty in two different ways, by doing sexually what they want, and by uploading it. Their excitement comes from that double kind of breaking the rule.

GV: Are they aware of being subversive in spreading their pornography?

KJ: The interviews I did in mainland were netizens, but not necessarily those netizens that are uploading. I did also interview netizens in universities. It's really interesting, they are completely aware of the Chinese war of pornography, that the Chinese government bans pornography, controls pornography, or uses pornography towards controlling the Internet. However they can find what they're looking for by jumping over the Great Firewall and share their secret websites with each other.

But sexual minorities are more vulnerable as they are still having a hard time being recognized in China. And for them to launch a porn movement would be probably out of the question.

GV: In recent years, more and more amateur porn has been uploaded online. Chinese netizens like to uncover the identity of those performing in sex videos, in particular when they involve corrupt government officials. What's your view on that? Do you think it is related to gender and power relations in China?

KJ: Yes, of course. If they can catch the corrupt government official, they may have indeed challenged the power relations and exhibited their own power. But it is problematic, because in terms of sexuality, so often they will also try to just go for people's hidden sex lives. I really don't think that we can do that because even if this person is a party official, with too much power, I still think we cannot judge his or her sex life. I would prefer people complain more about the lack of sexuality.

I think Han Han's comment about propaganda of impotence is very interesting. What has been promoted in the mainstream society it that we should not have pornography, maybe we can have sex, but we cannot have pornography. We should not document our joy, our orgasm. His idea challenges China's history of asexuality. To attack the officials for having illicit sex affairs can hardly change the corrupted system.

GV: What is the relationship between the anti-censorship battle and sex activism in China?

KJ: In China, netizens seem to be aware of the pornography war, the fights of pornography, the fights of filtering software. In fact, the Grass Mud Horse, a symbol for fighting against the filtering software in 2009, is a sex related expression. The rapid spread of Grass Mud Horse was a powerful moment in the netizens' fight for civil liberty, or freedom of expression. In China, more than in other countries, the fight of sexually explicit media is at the heart of netizens' struggle.

Of course, for people who are very into political dialogue, they do not want to deal with pornography questions, or even with sexuality questions. So to some extent, I think the discourses are marginalized, but if you look at it closely, you can find it's actually in the middle of whole debate and the female bloggers are at the heart of it. For example, bloggers like Muzi Mei and Liumangyan (sex workers activist) are two very good examples of what females and feminist bloggers who are doing around sexuality and they wouldn't try to separate political activism from sex activism.

I think there is male tradition of political activism that separates the sexual questions from the political questions and there is the tradition of female bloggers, more exhibitionistic and more down-to-earth, and so I think they are from different angles. When I was writing my chapter on bloggers, I just noticed this kind of gap between the male tradition and female tradition, and I couldn't really deny that it was there.

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