Most of the defendants in a “train sex party” case were found not guilty in a ruling by the Taiwan High Court on Friday, all except for the party organizer, Tsai Yu-lin (蔡育林), who received a six-month sentence, which can be commuted to a fine of NT$180,000 (US$6,057).
The party took place on a rented train carriage of the Taiwan Railways Administration in February of last year. It aroused much interest among the general public and heated debate among sexual equality and civil rights groups.
Tsai was charged and convicted of sexual procurement offenses for organizing the event, which involved 18 men, who each paid NT$800 to participate; a female lead known as “Hsiao Yu” (小雨), who was 17 years old at the time, but claimed she was 19; two female assistants and three male security guards.
He wanted to copy the Japanese pornographic video theme known as chikan (癡漢), which features male molesters groping and having sex with female passengers — usually portraying office workers on crowded subways or trains, Tsai said.
For the event, Tsai requested the hired call girl Hsiao Yu to dress in office attire with a tight pencil skirt on a short hemline and the two female assistants to dress as waitresses, while the male participants wore business suits for what he called a “role-playing sex fantasy” party to imitate the story lines and scenes from chikan-style pornographic films.
Only Tsai was convicted and the case can still be appealed. The court decision stated Tsai had elicited Hsiao Yu to engage in sexual acts with some of the male participants and collected NT$20,000 in total from all those involved.
The court found Tsai guilty, judging him to have profited from the event and has a likelihood of organizing similar parties in future.
In his defense, Tsai said there was no profit motive, and that nearly all the collected money was used to rent the train carriage and outfits, purchase condoms and clean up after the event.
During the trial in April this year, Tsai held up a rainbow-colored banner with the slogan: “Defend people’s freedom of assembly for sexual activities” (捍衛人民情色集結自由). He was accompanied by noted sexual freedom activists and professors Josephine Ho (何春蕤) and Hsu Ya-fei (許雅斐), along with representatives from Gender/Sexuality Rights Association in Taiwan and Collective of Sex Workers and Supporter.
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