China Discovers the Permissive Society
China’s youth are defying tradition with sexual promiscuity. But is education addressing this newfound freedom? And is age-old morality under seige? The New York Times reports on this new phenomenon and its consequences:
Every weekend, lusty college couples make a beeline past greasy spoon restaurants and bootleg video game shops for the dim hotel lobbies to book three-hour blocks of privacy. Students fill half the simple but tidy rooms at the Cheng Lin Ming Guang Hotel, a 10-minute walk from Beijing Normal University.
China is in the midst of a sexual revolution, a byproduct of rising prosperity and looser government restrictions on private life. The relaxed attitudes about sex mark a historic turnaround from the days when love and sex were denounced as bourgeois decadence, and unisex Mao suits and drab austerity were the norm.
Origin: Anita Chang, Associated Press
