Swingers given jail terms
- Source: Global Times
- [04:25 May 21 2010]
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Hot topic
Ma's trial and sentencing touched off heated debate in China, a society that has undergone remarkable social changes since the early 1980s and where attitudes toward sex have changed dramatically.
In the early 1980s, couples would feel embarrassed holding hands and kissing in public. However, multiple surveys suggest that Chinese youths seem more open toward premarital sex than their parents were.
Ma has received both support and criticism, with some believing it was Ma's freedom to be engaged in group sex, and others decrying the activity as morally corrupted and a shocking crime.
Sociologists and legal experts also debate whether the conviction is fair and whether "group licentiousness" has grounds to exist in modern Chinese society.
Changing times
The charge of "group licentiousness" can be traced back to 1979, when the then criminal law charged and criminalized anyone with "hooliganism" who had premarital sex or engaged in sexual activities in groups of three or more people, or even for dancing with people of the opposite sex.
Chi Zhiqiang, a film star in the 1980s who later won even greater popularity nationwide for his song "Tears Behind Bars," was charged with hooliganism and sentenced to four year in prison in 1984 for activities ranging from having consensual sex with a divorced woman to dancing face to face with a group of women and men.
An even more severe case involved a woman in Shaanxi Province, who was sentenced to death in the 1980s for dancing in a group of men and having intimate relationships with men, the Legal Weekly reported.
In 1997, "group licentiousness" was written into China's Criminal Law as a separate charge after hooliganism was dropped from the law.
The law stipulates that a "leader," or anyone who participates in group sex with three or more people, can face up to five years in jail.
Li Yinhe, a sociologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), expressed disappointment at the conviction of the "group licentiousness" crime.
