Drowning woman turns out to be blow-up sex doll
Imagine, that it took 18 Chinese police officers to rescue one blow-up doll? Beyond this overkill effort, hundreds of people were watching this from the shore. Obviously, they didn't know that this floating floozy was just someone's entertainment.
It's hard for anyone to imagine that this obvious mistake would have turned out the way it did. The good news is that such an effort was made in a country that regularly shows it's disregard for human life. The bad news is that it shows how important the adult industry has become for this nation of over a billion people and if a blow-up sex toy can escape a factory and end up floating in a river, imagine what other effluent is doing the same thing? Environmentally friendly these nations aren't.
Thousands of jobs and billions of dollars on display
The industry provides thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to the manufacturers of these products and these manufacturers are regularly promoting their products to whomever will listen as they are the worlds largest suppliers and they need to sell these things to everyone. After-all, it's simply business and there is no offense to having such a doll, unless you use it to travel in an HOV lane. Yes, this has happened in this country and fortunately, only a ticket was written. It didn't take 18 policemen and hundreds of onlookers to figure that out.
No surprise since Shandong province is where most of these products are made. The floating blow-up doll is actually a great metaphor for where that country is going. Oops, an opportunity to show our concern is instead turned into a media frenzy about resources being applied in the wrong way. Embarrassing? Yes.
Too soon? Too soon?
Not really. In June, a double headed sex toy was mistaken for a very rare mushroom in a farming community in China as well. The hoopla was astounding. Like finding a rare artifact that was missing for centuries, but when after just a few minutes of inspection the obvious shone through. The owner didn't come forward to reclaim the unique item. It was probably a sample anyways from a Western Chinese factory. Oh and half the town did show-up for the press release of the amazing find!
Ever the opportunist and with that Chinese entrepreneurial spirit, a street vendor was spotted trying to pass off sex toys as real longevity mushrooms that Emperor Qin Shin Huang wanted for his elixirs of life. At the vender's stall, the bungled news program even played on a laptop—to clue unsuspecting customers in. I don't know if he sold any, but the price of one of those mushrooms would have been around $2,800 and he was selling them for around $120. Hmmm...? That should have been enough of a clue.
Despite the obvious lack of freedoms for women (especially in the countryside) and other repressive communist practices, the adult industry recently had it's first officially sanctioned adult products show, despite years of independent trade and consumer conferences going on for years. Women were completely integrated as well as the female blow-up dolls! Perhaps this is trying to close the barn door after the horses have left the barn, but the Chinese are obviously trying to come to terms with the success of this industry, the roll of women in it, despite their media which is still under strict censorship rules, save for embarrassing sex toy stories.
