China’s online “porn” ban to extend to sexual health sites

Image by Danny Choo.

This is getting really out of control — extreme, bizarre and I think now has the potential to become dangerous. There have been a lot of headlines about the Chinese government’s intent and implementation to ban not only whatever they deem pornographic but also “vulgar information”. Another layer on the cake is that American sites like Google and Microsoft’s Bing are actively working to implement the Chinese government’s wishes (Google is taking “all necessary steps” to help with the porn ban). I’ve been wondering what that means. And what exactly the government considers pornographic and vulgar; what they possibly think the positive result of this could be, and then what the real-life effects (and results) of keeping the Chinese population from having access to adult, and thus sexual, content. Whether it be healthy adult entertainment (visual imagery or text-based erotic stimulation), or information.

The general sense is that a lot of people are pissed at Google about this, but now things are taking a turn for the worse — and the weird — so I don’t think this sentiment is going to lighten in the near future. Yesterday I tweeted a link to Information Week’s story explaining that under orders from the Chinese government, Google.cn blocked the name of a person based on a TV appearance where a guy talked about porn; the Chinese blogosphere picked up the story and so online it appeared that this man was somehow linked to porn. They had Google.cn block the characters of the man’s name, creating the inclusion of also blocking *phrases* that contained his name’s characters, such as “it’s no good when you’re tall.” As it turns out, the man on TV was actually an anti-porn pundit. He was shilling in favor of the ban, inventing reasons that porn is supposedly harmful. When the mistake was realized, the Chinese government quickly covered it up and un-banned the man’s name.

That’s just one case of the extremes to which the Chinese government’s porn hysteria is headed.

Now China intends to block access to sexual health websites. Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica just wrote the shocking news item, China/Google drama persists, sexual health sites soon barred, snip:

China has been in the news more than usual lately as it continues to go after popular search engines for supposedly disseminating porn. This week, users of Google’s services experienced unexplained access problems in China. Meanwhile, sexual health sites are on the verge of being blocked, and Microsoft’s Bing has agreed to censor its Chinese search results.

Google has been under fire in China lately for not doing enough to block porn from entering the country over the Internet. Late last week, the government began blocking access to certain Google results in an attempt to remedy this problem, even as Google pledged to step up its efforts to fight porn in China. China is impatient, however, and Google is not perfect, leading to this week’s temporary blocks of Google’s services.

Users began reporting that they were unable to access Google.com, Google.cn, or a number of Google’s services (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) on Wednesday evening. As of Thursday morning, this was apparently still the case—Google acknowledged the outage in a statement sent to the AFP, saying that the company was “investigating the matter.” As of this writing, however, it appears as if access has been restored to Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, at least according to our checks through WebSitePulse’s Great Firewall test.

On a related note, China’s Ministry of Health has announced that even sexual health websites will soon be banned within China as part of the country’s overall war against porn, and that only medical experts will be able to have access. “It is prohibited to spread pornographic content in the name of sex-related scientific research,” the ironically named Ministry said. “The health sections of web portals are not allowed to conduct sex-related research services.” (…read more, arstechnica.com)

So we have to wonder, what happens to populations when they are unable to access erotic stimulation, and what happens to populations when they are unable to access accurate sex information, especially pertaining to sexual health? Take a second to think of populations where these factors exist, and what the results are. For instance, in Federal American prisons, adult entertainment (visual imagery or text-based erotic stimulation) is prohibited. Do we think of this as a sexually healthy environment, or one rife with violence, fear, and harm? Does it produce individuals with safe sexual practices and healthy, respectful, socially acceptable attitudes around sex?

And then, what happens to populations whose access to accurate sex information and sexual health info is restricted, or misaligned for religious reasons? Think about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, and the Pope stating as fact that condoms spread HIV. And look at how well that’s turned out.

No one is being protected by the actions the Chinese government is taking around human sexuality — they are being harmed. My belief is that because sex is such a charged issue, it’s the easiest means by which to control a people or a population. Shame, and the reinforcement of sexual shame keeps people from having control over their own lives; no one wants to defend healthy sexual expression or enjoyment in these environments, lest they be singled out and pathologized, punished — or worse. Let’s not forget the irony that most of the world’s sex toys are manufactured in China.

This is a great example of my favorite personal maxim: the most subversive thing you can do is tell someone the truth.