Hand-made by shy Chinese women: adult toys for the world market

Shenzhen Shaki makes dolphin dildos for the Japanese and blow-up sheep for the American market - but only after permits from 36 different Chinese ministries and departments

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By Josetta Mykkänen in Shenzhen, China
     
      The bionic penises are baked for around one and a half minutes in a kiln at 220°C. 
      Men shovel the dough-like jelly rubber into charred moulds that resemble sausages, and then thrust them into the kilns. The baked bionic penis shells or sheaths are set out on a long table to cool down.
      Batches of two different vibrators are being manufactured at the adult-toy factory of Shaki Industrial in Shenzhen, in Guangdong Province, close to Hong Kong: there are battery-powered dildos in the shape of animals or cartoon characters for the Japanese market and ones that look just like "the real thing" for consumers in the land of Coca-Cola.
      "Europeans and Americans want them to be authentic-looking. The Asians are more conservative. There the toys should be more discreet and disguised", says the factory's owner and general manager Fang Hong.
     
The dildos headed for Japan resemble dolphins, caterpillars, and girls from Anime adult comics. The clitoral stimulator at the root of the device is often shaped into a kind of long-nosed fantasy animal, apparently climbing up the trunk of the dildo.
      More than half - according to Chinese officials the figure is around 70% - of the world's sex-toys are manufactured in China these days. For the most part they are hand-crafted, and getting this kind of work done in China is cheap.
      The number of factories making adult toys and "pleasure kits" has exploded into the thousands after these devices were freed from the watchful gaze of China's health authorities (the National Medical Supervisory Bureau) in 2003.
     
The Shaki factory employs 350 people  and is one of the country's largest plants.
      It manufactures around 1,500 different products from butt plugs through love beads, dildos and vibrators for women and men alike, all the way to the blow-up "Sexy Sharon" doll and a comprehensive range of masks and restraint gear for bondage and S/M fans.
     
In the factory hall, the air is thick with the smell of silicone and baking rubber. For all that, they are going at it hammer and tongs, baking vibrators like they were breakfast muffins.
      There are no dust masks or respirators to be seen on any of the staff.
     
The cooled dildo sheaths are hung up on lines from special clothes pegs, and 30-year-old Fang Hongkun pours silicone inside the shells. She leaves around one-third of the shell empty for the insertion of an electric motor.
      On another floor of the plant, the tables and workbenches are awash with pale green and pink bionic penises into which young women are installing AC or battery-powered motors. Gu Zhiying, 24, tests that each completed toy operates the way it is supposed to.
      "I haven't actually told my parents precisely what it is I do for a living here", she says, with a rotating, vibrating rubber member clutched in her hand.
     
Although China has a long and illustrious history - dating back to ancient times - of making sexual aids and adult toys, for generations sexual matters have been a taboo subject in schools and in the home.
      In recent years the attitudes have loosened up somewhat, but young people still find it excruciatingly difficult to discuss the subject with their parents, who regard sex as "dirty".
     
Fang Hong says that Shaki was China's first sex-toy manufacturer.
      Around a decade ago, when Fang got the idea of making adult toys after travelling abroad, erotica and pornography were banned by law in China (see the linked ThingsAsian article).
      In order to get the factory up and running, Fang Hong had to get permits signed and returned from 36 separate authorities within the Chinese bureaucracy.
     
There are already believed to be around 8,000 sex-toy retailers in China, and the country has even started to arrange "adult health product" fairs.
      The manufacturers' appetite for the branch is whetted by the large margins that can be made on these products and by the relative reluctance of customers to come forward to complain about poor quality.
      Fang estimates that the market is enjoying annual growth of around 10%.
     
"The most promising prospects are in items for women, because in this male-oriented society the women do not find it easy to get satisfaction", says Fang.
      According to a 2004 study quoted in the People's Daily, just 21% of Chinese men had any idea where the clitoris might be located.
      For now, however, only around a tenth of Shaki's production goes into the domestic market. A third goes to the United States, a veritable promised land for sex-toys. Australia and Japan are also important export markets.
     
The factory makes products under licence for a variety of brands, for instance the U.S.-based Penthouse Collection. Shaki has its own design team, but in most cases the product suggestions come from the customers.
      Some of the most innovative ideas emanate from the United States. It is to that market that they export such items as blow-up sheep and pigs, for instance.
      "The sort of quite small inflatable animals with a hole at the rear end", is the modest description offered by Fang Hong.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.6.2005
     
Translator's Note: Readers with a zest for such products are on their own, link-wise. The translator of the article above has already learned a great deal more about this burgeoning industry than he ever really wanted to know, and is now anxiously putting up the shutters against an anticipated torrent of spam from some of the curious websites visited along the way. It might be noted, however, that Wenzhou Lover Health Products also claims the title of the first company in China to obtain permits for the manufacture and sales of "adult-oriented medical devices".


Links:
  Shenzhen (Guangdong Province)
  ThingsAsian: China´s Sex Toy Revolution
  China Daily: Shanghai adult sex toy fair hits the spot

JOSETTA NOUSJOKI / Helsingin Sanomat
josetta.nousjoki@hs.fi