Sex parties? Not a good idea in China

A court in China sentenced a college professor to 3½ years in jail last week for organizing group sex parties, state media said, in a case that has stoked calls for greater sexual freedom.

Beyond the tough sentence handed to Ma Yaohai, 53, the court in the eastern city of Nanjing convicted 21 others, handing down sentences ranging from probation to 3½ years in jail, the China News Service said.

The case has highlighted the once puritanical country's sexual awakening, a byproduct of the past 30 years of economic reform and opening up to the outside world.

The country's "one child" family-planning policy -- with its free distribution of contraceptives -- and prostitution, which is flourishing nationwide, have changed how the Chinese view sex, experts say.

According to the China News Service, Ma was given the harsh sentence due to his public declaration of innocence and his refusal to admit guilt. Most of the other defendants -- 13 men and eight women, according to previous reports -- admitted their role in the dozens of group sex parties between 2007 and 2009, and thus received lighter penalties, it said.

It was the first time in 20 years that defendants have been convicted of "criminal group licentiousness," the report said.

Ma, an associate professor at an unnamed university in Nanjing, set up the "Wife Swappers" chat room and organized many of the group sex parties at his home, participating himself on occasion, earlier reports said.

"At first the chat room discussions were very clean, with most people discussing their marital problems," the Procuratorial Daily 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.

"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 China's laws on criminal promiscuity.