In the late 1990s, two Shanghainese women named Mian Mian and Wei Hui wrote novels that described promiscuous lifestyles.
The publication of these books was followed by various articles in the Western media about the sexual revolution going on in China.
Since then, every few months there has been a new sexual scandal, book, blog or magazine that causes another flurry of Western reporting about the remarkable fact that Chinese people like sex, buy vibrators, enjoy porn and wife-swapping etc. etc. These articles often mention Chairman Mao rolling over in his grave and use punny headlines that combine the word ‘sex’ with a Cultural Revolution slogan or other Communist reference.
Today, several years after Danwei began using the term ‘Skinhua‘ to describe the girlie pics and soft porn that have become standard fare on the websites of state-owned news agency Xinhua, the New York Times has done it again:
Naughty Little Red Book — The People’s Republic of Sex Kittens and Metrosexuals.
The same story is published on IHT as A people’s sexual revolution in China.
The article is about the girlie photos in glossy magazines and on the Internet. It mentions China Sports Illustrated‘s swimsuit issue, Esquire and FHM magazine.
The article says that FHM’s circulation is 480,000 copies. It seems that the New York Times‘ fact checkers have not yet returned from their New Year holiday. Glossy magazines in China routinely exaggerate their circulation numbers: no doubt FHM gave that number to the New York Times.
But no one who works in the Chinese print media would believe that number without first ingesting several tabs of LSD.
Note: Scans of the March issue of FHM and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue coming up on Danwei soon.