Chinese citizens who love porn are experiencing a summer holiday of late as foreign X-rated websites have made an appearance.

On computers and 3G phones, images similar to the seven, naked and lightly oiled ladies seen on the Penthouse website are now “freely” available.

In addition to the sex sites, Voice of America, the video sharing service Vimeo and a number of Twitter clients are also unblocked.

The first people to notice at the end of last month, not surprisingly, were the ChinaGeeks.org nerds (see post below). Since producing, distributing or purchasing pornography is banned and previously the country has been coy about sex this became a newsworthy subject for a number of foreign media organizations.

Myriad hypotheses were offered up for this breach of the Great Web Wall. First, the Net nannies were concentrating on “6-4” (the anniversary of the “Tiananmen affair” in 1989) and resources were switched to prevent any political discourse about the event. Second, the powers-that-be wanted to offer some kind of online palliative after cracking down on real-life prostitution in some major cities. Third, China is opening up in its attitude toward sex.

Since another social networking site, Foursquare, was blocked supposedly because of its political content, and the idea of encouraging visits to porn websites rather than massage parlors seems a bit far-fetched, I will dwell on number three.

It appears there has been no relaxation on the part of the authorities toward domestic website operators opening up porn portals. A case in point is the five men from Hubei province who were diverting 730 million eyeballs a day by getting female students to wear less for registered members.

They were jailed for up to six years on a charge of organizing live sex shows online, so clearly there is zero tolerance for domestic sex sites.

So, perhaps there is a green light from the Green Dam on foreign ladies willing to disport themselves?

Maybe the thinking is since Western pornography is not a reflection of Chinese morality, it will show once again how decadent the West is in comparison.

On the other hand, it’s more likely to be a tech blip and normal service will be resumed soon.

Sources: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hRad0sWggvZ3tCV6a4Ys6NTxSN7QD9G4EQ780

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201006/20100601/article_438846.htm

http://chinageeks.org/2010/06/porn-and-more-unblocked-but-why/