As far as i know, consumption, distribution, and production of it is prohibited. Is the prohibition based on a new proletarian morality/ethic or is there a materialist basis for the complete ban?
I love those threads about porn in China.
Western left: "Pornography is exploitative and wrong for numerous reasons"
China: "Ogay" bans it
Western left: "Nooo, not like that"
China: "Another day, another banger"
A not insignificant part of the cultural revolution was uplifting women from various subservient roles in society and supporting gender equality as they understood it. Part of that was banning pornography, prostitution, and various other exploitative practices that primarily subjugated and harmed women. It feels kind of old fashioned here in 2026.
A large reason for it I'd imagine is how deeply intertwined the porn industry tends to be with triads/gangs and other reactionary groups in the underbelly of society. The PRC spent decades dealing with the massive mess of corruption left behind by the RoC and have only really gotten things to stabilize in recent years, the PRC views anything remotely linked with corruption and internal instability as a huge no-no.
From what I seen China is really not that heavy handed against erotic stuff in practice as they are on paper, if anything lightly erotic stuff is all over the place in China. It's more of a strategy of making things inconvenient enough to keep the masses away from it rather then any real intent to arrest everyday people for looking at porn.
any real intent to arrest everyday people for looking at porn.
Consumption isn't even illegal just production and distribution
I'd argue it's primarily because of how exploitative the adult industry is under capitalism, and since China still operates within a capitalist world despite being socialist, allowing it as it is right now may cause issues. To add onto this, China in a lot of places is still rather socially conservative, and currently, sexual norms are not a primary contradiction within China.
Above all, prostitution harms the national economy and hinders the further development of the productive forces. We know that we can only overcome chaos and improve industry if we harness the efforts and energies of the workers and if we organise the available labour power of both men and women in the most rational way. Down with the unproductive labour of housework and child-minding! Make way for work that is organised and productive and serves the work collective! These are the slogans we must take up.
And what, after all, is the professional prostitute? She is a person whose energy is not used for the collective; a person who lives off others, by taking from the rations of others. Can this sort of thing be allowed in a workers’ republic? No, it cannot. It cannot be allowed, because it reduces the reserves of energy and the number of working hands that are creating the national wealth and the general welfare, from the point of view of the national economy the professional prostitute is a labour deserter. For this reason we must ruthlessly oppose prostitution. In the interests of the economy we must start an immediate fight to reduce the number of prostitutes and eliminate prostitution in all its forms. - Alexandra Kollontai
I don't like this line of logic since it could be used to ban any frivolous activity including non reproductive sex lol
Very interesting.
Prostitution is not compatible with the Soviet workers’ republic for a third reason: it does not contribute to the development and strengthening of the basic class character and of the proletariat and its new morality. What is the fundamental quality of the working class? What is its strongest moral weapon in the struggle? Solidarity and comradeship is the basis of communism. Unless this sense is strongly developed amongst working people, the building of a truly communist society is inconceivable.
The word moral/morality is used 19 times in her essay: https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1921/prostitution.htm
However, from the specific sample you have picked, one wouldn't have known Kollontai's emphasis on a need for "a new morality."
People do what they "feel' is "right" all the time and will continue to do so even under Communism. Can't expect every one to do a material analysis every time they're presented with a choice, shaping these feelings of "right" with a materialist education is to instill a type of morality no?
Well i find the materialist point of view of focusing on productive work far more important than her thoughts on a new morality.
yeah especially when you consider that this ban is since 1949 and they needed factory workers and everybody to be locked in
afaik the industry is quite exploitative so maybe that’s part of it?
Yeah I don't really understand why pornography exists in the first place. Based upon a recent survey of people and cats in my house, nobody even views it.
the cia had mao flashbanged with extremely graphic gay porn and he never fully recovered from it
It is also illegal in Turkey. Our govt's reasoning is masturbation and premarital sex are sinful and it lowers the birthrates.
PRC's reasons must be more coherent though, like the industry is inherently exploitative and lots of illegal stuff going on there.
Bcz sex commodification is, shocker, bad.
Pornography is just another aspect of the commodification of sex under capitalism,.like prositution, it contributes to the capitalist construct of transitory sex, either in the form of marrying people based on there wealth (most commonly) or well just good old fashioned prositution.
Within any developing socialist society the destruction of sex commodification should be considered a important task, at it reinforces capitalist mindsets within a local culture, as well as reinforcing sexist attitudes in the local culture to whichever gender is considered the "lesser" gender.
This prohibition on pornography is one sign out of a thousand for China's socialist nature, as obviously in a capitalist state capital wouldn't want for a avenue of wealth generation to be closed off.
Of course pornography also has bad mental effects and can cause addictions to develop, which is another reason for it's banning.
While I agree that the commodification of sex is inherently bad, pornography itself doesn't have to be a form of sex commodification. Unarguably It does exist under capitalism as a form of sex commodification and exploited as much as possible, having destructive effects on everyone that is involved in making and consuming it. However, one could argue that under socialism, with direct control of the party over media, as i assume is the situation in the PRC, pornography could theoretically transform into an artistic and educational form. It could be leveraged to spread healthy sexual practices and body positivity among people. Its potential positive effects shouldn't be ignored.
As we all know, the curiosity of young people will have them cross paths with pornography sooner than a relationship. Now, would it make more sense to give the youth access to some sort of controlled or healthy pornography to safely explore sexuality or just have them access capitalist porn through an easily obtainable VPN?
The problem rather than being pornography as a medium, is actually of its content. It is the content which due to most of the pornography being produced in the global north, promotes the capitalist mindsets you mentioned. This can of course be heavily regulated/controlled in a socialist project.
I would also argue that addiction to pornography isn't rooted in existence of pornography either; it is the result of unhealthy social relations or lack thereof within the addicted person, which is more the fault of a toxic norms in society or bad education/upbringing. (this is actually a way bigger subject which i can't do justice at the moment)
Given consumption isn't illegal I think it's much more likely not wanting the hassle of enforcement on what is an exploitative and difficult to properly regulate industry of production/distribution
Define "porn". I've seen plenty of people on Rednote boasting about consuming drawn or artificial porn that doesn't involve human exploitation. They were boasting about it in response to puritanical Americans.
If you look up the criminal law of China (中华人民共和国刑法)(specifically section 9 articles 363 to 367) creating and distributing porn is illegal (consumption of porn is legal however) in article 367 they "define" porn as such:
Article 367: For the purposes of this Law, “obscene materials” means books, periodicals, films, video tapes, audio tapes, pictures, and other obscene materials that explicitly depict sexual acts or blatantly promote lustfulness.
Scientific works on human physiology or medical knowledge are not obscene materials.
Literary or artistic works of artistic value that contain erotic content shall not be deemed obscene materials.
(第三百六十七条 本法所称淫秽物品，是指具体描绘性行为或者露骨宣扬色情的诲淫性的书刊、影片、录像带、录音带、图片及其他淫秽物品。
有关人体生理、医学知识的科学著作不是淫秽物品。
包含有色情内容的有艺术价值的文学、艺术作品不视为淫秽物品。)
People find their way, watching chinese media there is a lot of references that there were/are networks of porn trafficking, especially japanese porn.
Well, yeah, people will find their way. All you need is a pen and paper at minimum. You can draw or write it, or even just imagine it. That's why I requested a definition.
