25 Oct Naked chats and gender imbalance in China
There are 3 things that strike you when going an Internet cafe in China (Foo jin yo wung ba ma? Where´s the Internet cafe here?)
(1) they are always full
(2) there are generally male teenager-dominated places and
(3) those guys there all chat with at least 3 anonymous peers simultaneously.
Therefore, it was no surprise to me to hear that the Chinese authorities have reacted and have opened up a clinic for Internet addicts: some four million people (out of some 90,000,000 Internet users) who are addicted to computers – most of them teenagers hooked on chat rooms.
One increasingly popular online activity that is creating serious concerns to the authorities is the ?naked chat?, so undressing in front of a webcam, chatting and virtually interacting sexually, etc.
At the end of July, the «naked chatroom» started to become a real news issue and the Chinese media informed that some 20,000 Chinese citizens already participate in naked webcam chats. People on the street were interviewed on their opinion on this latest online cybersex game but surprisingly, most of the urban dwellers said that was a private issue and nobody seemed to be too shocked anyway. The official statements were different, saying that those were «mentally abnormal» people and they should be treated and punished as such.
I myself found that it was more interesting to see the public opinion so tolerant rather than to hear about naked chat rooms in the first place. Anyway,…
Four weeks ago, I found the naked chat room back on the home page of the online edition of Wired where Regina Lynn found an astonishing connection between the popularity of naked chatting and the growing demographic imbalance of Chinas population [There are only 100 newborn baby girls for 120 baby boys born as a result of one-child policy and selective abortion].
In her article, Regina Lynn basically says that for the Chinese male youth online sexual relationships are a chance to flirt, experiment and build (sexual) relationships with women outside their immediate female-poor environment.
She says that for most people, online relationships are certainly a realistic option when your chances of settling down with the girl next door are limited by the number of rivals for her attention, where else are you going to go?
She resumes: «Considering what the young people are up to offline, it stands to reason that a parallel period of discovery is happening online. And I don’t believe all those naked webcam users are men».
Apart from the frightening gender disproportion, the question is how will the Chinese government be able to control naked chatting? Getting naked in a webcam chat room is not the same thing as surfing porn. Censoring a content site is nowhere nearly as difficult as stopping people from connecting. It’s difficult enough to create filters to pick up keywords in text. How could you automatically censor video streams for nudity?
In his keynote speech at the China Internet Summit in Beijing on Sept. 11, former President Bill Clinton said that the Chinese government will have to become more tolerant of dissenting ideas to become a true world power.Yes, isn’t he possibly the most credible defender for sexual tolerance and dissenting ideas…
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