Regulating pornography in mainland China

Chinese parents and children seldom discuss issues such as sexuality and pornography. For hundreds of years, however, ‘spring books’ consisting of explicit drawings of sexual activities have widely circulated in private as a kind of instrument for informal sex education. Pornography has officially been banned for centuries in China (Zhang 2005:11). In late imperial China, the Great Code of the Qing Dynasty (Criminal Code: Chapter 23), for example, prohibited the publication or dissemination of novels appealing to prurient interests. In modern times, but long before the advent of the Internet, legislative provisions and regulatory regimes were put in place both in mainland China and Hong Kong to control the spread of obscene and indecent materials.

Updated: 11.11.2015 — 04:39