Sexologist Liu Dalin strolls past the wall devoted to his career at the China Sex Museum in Tongli, Jiangsu Province. Photos: Christian Lindberg

The books that Professor Liu Dalin has published over his career.

By Christian Lindberg

The museum features everything from fertility idols and depictions of sex organs in jade and ivory to humorous sex toys and statues of mating horses, buffalo and smiling pigs. The museum is divided into sections for everything from the evolution of sex to different sexual behaviors. Signs in Chinese and English describe the exhibits and their place in history in scholarly language. There are sections devoted to sex in religion, including Hindu and Buddhist erotic sculptures. Even sex-related furniture is on display.

Located in Tongli, a town outside of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, the China Sex Museum presents its collection in a tasteful setting with spotlights and red velvet décor. In the very back of the building, a former girls' school that dates back to 1906, there is a corridor hung with photographs of Liu Dalin, the museum's founder, including a feature about him in Time magazine.

 Liu, 78, a retired sociology professor at Shanghai University, was a pioneer in the field of sexology in China. The museum is the culmination of his career, and illustrates Chinese society's unease with sex.

The museum was relocated from Shanghai in 2003 after authorities deemed it inappropriate for such a big city. When the museum was located on Nanjing Road, its managers were not allowed to hang a sign outside because authorities said promoting sex-related items violated the country's advertising law. "China's sex education system is obsolete," Liu told the Global Times.

According to Liu, sex education in China remains insufficient. School administrators are reluctant to promote the use of condoms among students, fearing that they will encourage them to have sex. Meanwhile, the government remains reluctant to tackle the issue head on.

"Chinese society today tends to be very conservative. Some officials underestimate the people and parents underestimate their children, which is completely wrong," he said.

Virgin soil

As a young man, Liu worked in a factory and later he joined the army but couldn't shake the desire to do something beneficial for society. He decided to enroll at university and study sociology, a new field of study at the time in China. In his studies, Liu read many articles by sociology professors but he could not find any in-depth studies of Chinese marriage and family matters.

So in 1983 he began a large study on divorce and relationships with other students in Shanghai. By that time the research showed that divorce was at an all-time high in the country. His study demonstrated the importance of sex in sustaining a healthy marriage.

He also began to look into the sexual behavior of teenagers and premarital sex. "It was hard to do that study because sex was a sensitive subject in China at that time. It still is," he said.

A few years later he changed his focus from sociology to sexology. Liu went on to become the first professor to work on the first major study of Chinese sexuality.

In 1989 he and his colleagues put together a questionnaire about personal relationships, surveying 20,000 people. Liu said it was one of the largest sex surveys in the world at the time.

A sexual aid from the early 1900s.

Sex objects

That same year, Liu started collecting sex artifacts, three years before he retired. This collection became the basis for the museum's collection, which, thanks to donations from private collectors and Liu's own purchases, is composed of thousands of artifacts dating back to 3,000 BC. "There are so many interesting artifacts from ancient China around the world. I think it's important for us to try to bring a lot of them back to the country," Liu said.

Some pieces in the outlandish section in the museum are from Europe, Africa and other Asian countries, some of which Liu has bought over the years at auction or from private collectors. "When studying the history of sex, one must first look at historic artifacts from all over the world," he said.

Uninhibited opinions

Liu's museum featured a small display about homosexuality in China. It was only recently that homosexuality stopped being treated as a mental disorder, and it still remains a taboo topic in some circles, but the professor remains determined to teach people differently. "Their conclusions are based on ignorance. Everyone should be treated equally," Liu said.

There was also an exhibition on the mistreatment of women that described traditions like foot binding and activities such as prostitution.

Prostitution and pornography are big problems in China nowadays, according to Liu. "For prostitution, I think that so called red-light districts should be established, but it would take China a long time to adjust to the idea. We still have to face the reality of the situation today. Prostitution can be controlled through strict regulation and fewer people would get hurt. Let's face it, prostitution is always going to be a part of society. For the many rich people, having the option to buy sex and attention is paving the way for bad people to profit off the trafficking of young girls," Liu said.