NANJING, China—19 Chinese swingers have been the first to be convicted under the “group licentiousness” law, created to replace the more general offense of “hooliganism.” Sentences ranged from two and a half to three and a half years in jail, with the organizer of the events the only one to receive the longer sentence. Originally, 22 people were tried.
The organizer, Ma Yaohai, was the only defendant not to plead guilty. A twice-divorced computer science professor, Ma was arrested last year after being informed upon by a group of swingers caught by police in a hotel room. Ma had arranged the gathering, as he had on at least 17 other occasions, reported the New York Times.
“The law against group sex, generally interpreted by judges as involving three or more people, is left over from an earlier law against ‘hooliganism’ that was used to prosecute people who had sex outside of marriage,” reported the Times. “The hooliganism law was scrapped in 1997. One notable swingers case took place in the early 1980s, when the leader of a swingers club involving four middle-aged couples was executed.”
Nowadays, the Communist regime is far less intrusive in private lives than it used to be, and tens of thousands of Chinese engage regularly in swinging, according to Li Yinhe, a prominent Chinese sexologist.
Still, the use of the “group licentiousness” law indicates the government is not ready to allow unfettered sexual activity without consequences, despite the fact that “sex toy shops and brothels—often thinly disguised as hair salons or massage parlors—proliferate across cities and even in many villages, while premarital sex is common among young couples,” according to the Times.
It remains to be seen whether the recent swingers case, which received a lot of attention in China, sends the message the authorities are hoping for or whether it results in a backlash against the government by a populace increasingly used to its independence.
Ma, who resigned his teaching job and now lives off savings and his mother’s pension, says he will appeal the verdict.
