Prostitution is illegal but practiced openly. Prostitutes work out of five-star hotels, karaokes, entertainment centers, dance halls, boxing clubs, beauty parlors, hairdressers, barbershops, saunas, bathhouses, massage parlors, nightclubs and on the streets. Prostitutes operate openly in almost every major hotel in China. In one survey, 10 percent of sexually-active men admitted having paid for sex with a prostitute.
Single foreign men often receive phone calls from prostitutes in their hotel rooms. Describing an encounter with a prostitute in a Qingdao hotel, a writer in Lonely Plant wrote: No sooner had I check into my room at the Beihai Hotel than there was a knock on my door. I turned down her offer, then headed out to see the sights of the city. Less than an hour later, I was approached by another prostitute. Brothels are often disguised as hair salons or operate out of working hair salons.
They are common sights in cities and towns of all sizes and operate for the most part without any interference. Brothels and kinky toy shops are mixed into residential neighborhoods everywhere. Prostitutes work at all levels of society from the grandest hotels to the poorest neighborhoods and lowliest villages.
Prostitutes with beepers and mobile phones openly solicit sex at truck stops on the main highways. Southern cities like Shenzhen and Dongguan have a reputation for being particularly seedy. Nick Frisch of Danwei. Nothing but factories, gangsters, fat officials, and whores. The sex industry is growing rapidly. Even small cities have their own entertainment districts. Estimates of the numbers of prostitutes in China range from 3 million according to officials estimates by the government to 10 million by the U.
State Department to 20 million by one Chinese economist. By one count there around 1 million full-time prostitutes in China and perhaps 8 to 10 million more that sometimes accept money and gifts for sex. One marker of the booming sex industry in Shenzhen—both in terms of prostitutes and misstresses—is the high number of children born out-of-wedlock. China has roughly 4 million to 6 million sex workers, according to a World Health Organization paper, and they can be found in every city, working out of hair salons, karaoke bars, hotels, massage parlors, bars, barber shops and on the street.
