Strange

'Love Land' China's New 'Sexually Explicit' Theme Park Shut Down

by JeffHuang | May 15, 2009 at 09:03 am

11270 views | 16 Recommendations | 5 comments

Love Land is the new theme park built in Chongqing, China to help the people of China "enjoy a harmonious sex life." The Sex Theme Park was set to open in October with feature exhibitions on sexual history, how to use a condom, and also a sex technique workshop but over the May 16 weekend it was shut down.

The main entrance has the signboard of the park's name being straddled by a giant pair of women's legs topped by a red thong. The park was inspired by South Korea's Loveland on Jeju island.

Sex has always been a taboo subject in China and Lu Xiaoqing, the park's manager, hopes by building the park, it at least gets the conversation going and also allow for easy information access.

"We are building the park for the good of the public," Lu said. "Sex is a taboo subject in China but people really need to have more access to information about it."

Sex is not a topic for open discussion in China, where government figures show only 7 percent of women and slightly over 8 percent of men get immediate medical help for sexual problems.

Earlier this year, the government launched a national sex education campaign aimed at getting more people to seek treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and infertility, to try and break some of the taboos.

Officials in the sprawling city of Chongqing, where Love Land was being built, recently became incensed over the risqué nature of the park and ordered its destruction, according to a report published Sunday in the Chongqing Evening News, a state-run newspaper. Angry Internet postings about the park had been proliferating, and China Daily, the official English-language newspaper, published an article about the park last Friday.

Photographs on the Internet showed workers on Saturday pulling down a pair of white plastic legs and hips that appear to be the bottom half of a giant female mannequin towering over the park entrance. The mannequin is wearing a red G-string.

The park manager, Lu Xiaoqing, had planned to display naked human sculptures, giant models of genitals, sex technique “workshops” and a photography exhibition about the history of sex, according to China Daily. The displays would have included lessons on safe sex and the proper use of condoms.

Mr. Lu told China Daily that the park was being built “for the good of the public.” Love Land would be useful for sex education, he said, and help adults “enjoy a harmonious sex life.”

He added: “Sex is a taboo subject in China, but people really need to have more access to information about it.”