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Shanghaiist decided to have a look at the Annual Adult Care Expo (or "Sexpo" as many call it). Located at the International Exposition center on Xingyi Lu, with a 30 RMB admission fee, the Expo features just about everything related to sex. Much of this was toys -- fancy dildoes and vibrators. As it was last year, there were several exotic toys that take the brain and physical work out of thrusting a piece of plastic into yourself, leaving you to simply lean back and enjoy the ride.

On the more medical side of things, there were massage chairs (the older people gravitated towards those), several sketchy looking varieties of 伟哥 (Viagra), as well as some traditional Chinese medicines that will help him get up, stand up and not give up the fight. There were a boxes of aphrodisiac chocolate which the package indicated was primarily for female consumption. However, the salesman let us onto a secret: Men can eat it too. Sixty kuai for a box of those.

The "007" condoms piqued our interest -- of course, he of legendary sexual appetite and prowess is what every (straight) man aspires to be, and the price wasn't bad, either -- 10 yuan for 36 condoms in 12 packages of 3 each. The three kinds are the corkscrew, ribbed, and super-thin. We thought that this was a great deal, being a variety pack -- but don't you ever wonder why they can't just combine the three into a corkscrew, ribbed, and super-thin condom?

No surprises in the S&M department: masks, whips, chains, etc. We liked the couples that shopped there though -- they're the same couples that shop at Ikea on most weekends, but decided, for just this weekend, to take a walk on the wild side.

After reading a Shanghai Daily article about how people began grabbing DVDs, we were kind of hoping that some free media would come our way. There was one booth in particular that specialized in DVDs. Here is a snippet of a conversation that we overheard while there:

Old Man: (holding up DVD): What is this for?
老头：这是什么？
Vendor: It's for improving your sexual skills.
买主：是来提高性爱技术的。
Old Man: You need skills for that?！
老头：这还需要技术？！

Ah, the good old days, when everyone was fruitful and no one was fruity. We bought a 20 RMB video in the hopes that we could add another stripe to our sexual black belt. The video promised that it would have real people demonstrating the various techniques. Our video was pretty cool -- it first declared to us that sex had a long history and was essential to the perpetuation of the human species! Then it took us into a luxurious mansion, the kind that rich people in Korean soap operas with bad taste in furniture and a penchant for fake flowers live. There were shaggy rugs, gilded banisters and bad paintings of boats in harbors at sunset. A Richard Marx muzak soundtrack started playing and the performers came out -- clothed.

She was wearing a cheap-looking red bra and red underwear (sporty, solid, not at all sexy), and he was wearing Chinese swim trunks (black with a grey stripe down the side). Most of the video consisted of vignettes or episodes where they would demonstrate various positions. A kindly and pleasant female voice narrated these positions: "The woman lies on her back on the floor, the man sits atop her chest and lifts her up legs, which are behind him, so that they are perpendicular to the floor and press against his back." When the couple is ready to commence boning, she would say, "现在开始进行运动," meaning "And now we will begin exercising."

We felt a bit ripped off: They actually devoted one episode to the missionary position and about three episodes to what were merely variations on a theme of 69. In one, the man has his legs up against the side of the bed, which the narrator informed us, can sometimes lead to his muscles feeling sore or pins and needles. The narrator also warns us that if the man has to keep his head up for a long time that his neck can become sore. Uh, big pillow? Duh!

There was also a position which involved the woman upside down, in a handstand. The advantages of this position, said the narrator, is that it is a test of both the woman and the man's physical endurance. The disadvantage of this position is that the man cannot derive pleasure (orgasm) from this and that he cannot see the woman's face. We think that whoever has stronger arms should be the one to go upside down.

The last position that we think worth mentioning is the one where the woman lies down and the man sits on her chest. In this variation, however, the man reaches behind him and keeps her legs straight up, perpendicular to the ground. This might be indeed be a great position, but you wouldn't be able to tell with all the lousy acting. When the narrator says that they should commence exercising, she starts to smile because she doesn't know how to mimic the act of sucking (throughout the video oral sex is simply called 爱抚 or ai fu). Suppressing a giggle, she begins to use her hands to suggest that she is holding a male organ, but as you can see from this picture, the position of her hand suggests that she is holding an invisible monster cock. Furthermore, the size of her hand keeps changing, suggesting that this invisible monster cock wasn't responding well to whatever she was doing.

China Adult-Care Expo (中国国际保健及生殖健康展览会), Shanghai International Exposition Center (上海国际展览中心), 77 Xingyi Lu in Hong Qiao (兴义路77号 虹桥开发区), Open from 9 am to 9 pm, August 11-13, 2006. Ends today!

Also on Shanghaiist:
Interview: Fu Erqiang, adult products manufacturer

Related:
This post is not suitable for all audiences (Shanghai Diaries)

Photos by Peijin Chen. Direct link here.