While China’s domestic and export sex-toy trade are thriving, in terms of variety there are still serious gaps in what is available in the domestic market. Dinah Gartner reports on the difficulty of finding a strap-on in Beijing in the not-safe for work Asian Sex Gazette.:

So it was that one evening last month I found myself trawling US and UK sex toy websites with fellow dyke in despair, an American editor for a local entertainment magazine, and known to some as The Stud of Beijing, in the vein (sic) attempt to fill my virtual shopping basket with a pleasing assortment of silicone and leather. The Stud comes with her credit card; I supply the wine.

But we are butt plugged at every turn. The Babes in Toyland website stubbornly rejects our Chinese address; we try calling the helpline - but the phone card we buy from the local shop is domestic calls only; Skype, which China threatens to block, doesn’t work with my 10 yuan microphone; and a US$20 online IDD phone card requires a confusing array of passcodes and we can’t work it.

The Stud sends the phone card company an angry email. Which, of course, is never answered.

The flaccid state of decent dildo availability in China may just stem from a lack of demand. Perhaps mainland lesbians just aren’t that hot for strap-on sex.

Says Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen, an anthropologist researching lesbians in Beijing: “Few people I met had actually had experience with them - they either did not find them, found them too expensive, or didn’t dare go into a shop to buy them.

“One pure T (stone butch) said she’d never wear one as that would make her realise even more that she is not a man, which she wanted to be.”

She says she felt that while dykes here showed some interest in using sex toys they didn’t make much of an effort into getting their hands on the equipment.

Having never been in the market, AsiaPundit has no idea where to buy strap on appendages. However, for those within China who are interested in large artificial penises, they may find a recent exhibit in Nanjing to be of interest.

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