Prosecutors in eastern China have charged a group of 22 alleged swingers with criminal licentiousness, state media said yesterday, stoking calls for greater sexual freedom in the country.
The 14 men and eight women, who met via an online chat room, have been charged in Nanjing with engaging in dozens of group sex encounters from 2007 until last year, the Procuratorial Daily said.
If convicted, they face up to five years in prison, the report said.
The case throws the spotlight on the once-puritanical country’s sexual awakening, a byproduct of 30 years of economic reform.
Ma Xiaohai, a 53-year-old associate university professo, has been charged with setting up the “Wife Swappers” chat room and organizing group sex parties at his home.
“At first the chat room discussions were very clean, with most people discussing their marital problems,” the paper quoted the twice-divorced and now-single Ma as saying. But partner swapping later became the focus of the online forum, which grew to include more than 190 members, the paper said.
“Every family more or less has this or that kind of insufficiency — a marriage can be like a bowl of cold water that has to be drunk, swapping partners is like a bowl of sweet wine,” Ma said.
The case has drawn a chorus of opposition over the laws on criminal promiscuity, with academics and advocates of sexual rights calling for reform, the paper said.
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