China: Acceptability and effect of three kinds of sexual publication

A nationwide political movement named “sweeping away the yellow subjects” (“yellow” means erotic and pornographic as does “blue” in U.S.) was launched by the Communist Party and then enlarged by the government in China since the end of July 1989. Almost all of the written, audio, and visual publications were banned as long as they described any kind of sexual behavior. Publishers were punished by arrest. At least 20 persons were put to death for selling “the yellow subjects.” The argument of the Party and the government for launching such a movement was that the yellow subjects result in readers and viewers becoming sexual offenders. Although we are unable to test directly with enough survey data, we studied two basic facts: (i) How many and what kind of persons accepted three kinds of publications on sexuality: scientific books, erotic literature, and visual materials? (ii) What kind of and how much influence was there on the readers' and viewers' attitudes towards other subjects which were not directly sexual? As the first research on this subject in China, we conducted a social survey with a questionnaire. What we found provided a basis for confirming one aspect of the hypothesis that a sex revolution appeared in China in 1988.