Elaine Jeffreys explores the issues of sex and sexuality in a non-Western context by examining debates surrounding the emergence of new sexual behaviours, and the appropriate nature of their regulation, in the People's Republic of China. Commissioned from Western and mainland Chinese scholars of sex and sexuality in China, the chapters in this volume are marked by a diversity of subject material and theoretical perspectives, but turn on three related concerns. First, the book situates China's changing sexual culture and the nature of its governance in the socio-political history of the PRC. Second, it shows how China's shift to a rule of law has generated conflicting conceptions of citizenship and the associated rights of individuals as sexual citizens. Finally, the book demonstrates that the Chinese state does not operate strictly to repress 'sex'; it also is implicated in the creation of new spaces for sexual entrepreneurship, expertise and consumption.

Introduction: Talking Sex and Sexuality in China 1. Transformations in the Primary Life Cycle: The Origins and Nature of China's Sexual Revolution 2. Sex, Politics and the Policing of Virtue in the People's Republic of China 3. Contesting Citizenship: Marriage and Divorce in the People's Republic of China 4. Regulating Male Same-Sex Relationships in the People's Republic of China 5. Sexual Citizenship and the Politics of Sexual Storytelling among Chinese Youth 6. Selling Sexual Health: China's Emerging Sex Shop Industry 7. Female Sex Sellers and Public Policy in the People's Republic of China 8. Debating the Legal Regulation of Sex-Related Bribery and Corruption in the People's Republic of China