To browse Academia. This paper examines the developing body of Chinese prostitution law, and the nature of its implementation, with reference to the media controversy surrounding the case of a male academic penalized as a buyer of commercial sexual services in late Elaine Jeffreys. This article examines media publicity surrounding the case of Li Ning - a year-old native of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, who made legal history in the People's Republic of China PRC on 17 October when he was sentenced to eight years jail and fined 60, yuan for organizing male-male prostitution services in a recreational business enterprise.
Reportedly the first conviction of its kind, the case proved to be controversial for three reasons. First, it prompted legal debate over the nature of China's recent shift to a "rule of law" and associated conceptions of due legal process and individual and sexual rights. Second, it intimated that homosocial prostitution - male-male prostitution in which neither participant may self-identify as homosexual - is an integral but frequently neglected component of China's burgeoning, albeit banned, sex industry.
An examination of media coverage of these concerns suggests that accusations of official homophobia in the PRC are overstated: they elide the specificity of debates on homosexuality in present- day China due to their overarching concern with Western understandings of sexuality as constitutive of self-hood and rightful sociopolitical identity. Prostitution Scandals in China presents an examination of media coverage of prostitution-related scandals in contemporary China.
It demonstrates that the subject of prostitution is not only widely debated, but also that these public discussions have ramifications for some of the key social, legal and political issues affecting citizens of the PRC.
Further, this book shows how these public discussions impact on issues as diverse as sexual exploitation, civil rights, government corruption, child and youth protection, policing abuses, and public health.
