ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the youth sexual culture that has developed in mainland China, exploring the claim that there has been a ‘sexual revolution’ in youth sexuality. Globally, the emergence of distinct youth cultures is associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, institutionalised education, mass media, and delayed marriage. In the 1960s, however, youth became the focus of the Maoist social experiment aimed at creating a new socialist subject. A youth sexual revolution in the 1990s would challenge this patriarchal culture of premarital chastity, bringing unprecedented sexual freedom to young women as well as young men. Social spaces are important in the formation of any culture, including sexual cultures. Although economic inequalities and heteronormative marriage pressures still restrict their options, young Chinese women, probably for the first time ever, are now able to legitimately pursue love, sex and pleasure outside of marriage.
