ABSTRACT
There is a popular saying about the relationship between money, gender and
sexual morality in the People’s Republic of China (PRC): ‘Men who get rich
become immoral; women only get rich after they become immoral’ (‘nanren
zheng qian jiu bian hui; nu¨ren bian hui cai you qian’). Like most aphorisms,
this observation appeals to commonsense or public perceptions of how
things are. As one foreign correspondent explains:
In China these days, people are talking about sex-extramarital affairs, prostitution and rich men taking mistresses. Many are worried that sex
is becoming a commodity, leading to the exploitation of women. This
comes after years of government efforts to eradicate traces of pre-communist
decadence.
