China court rejects suit over right to sex

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A Chinese court has rejected a woman’s
claims for compensation for her sex life, which was ruined when
her husband was injured in an accident, the Shanghai Daily
reported on Thursday.

Wei Suying, 31, whose husband has suffered from erectile
dysfunction since a 2003 workplace accident, filed suit in a
Shanghai court asking for 220,000 yuan ($27,650) in
compensation from the shopping center where the accident
occurred, it said.

The compensation included claims for mental anguish and for
her purchases of products such as vibrators.

“I was not even 30 years old when my husband had the
accident, which deprived me of my right to enjoy sexual life,”
the newspaper quoted Wei as saying.

But the court ruled that Chinese law does not define an
individual’s sex life as a protected right. Relatives can only
ask for mental anguish compensation when a victim dies, the
report said.

Wei’s husband, Zhang Chengxiang, stumbled and hit his
genitals on the corner of some audio equipment when an iron bar
fell from a vent and knocked his head while he was working in a
shopping center, it said.

The shopping center had paid Zhang 130,000 yuan ($16,340)
in compensation in a previous lawsuit.

In pre-communist China, sex was less a taboo than it became
under former leader Mao Zedong, when it became a matter of
doing one’s reproductive duty for the state.

Since then, the government has embarked upon a stern family
planning policy to control a booming population — the world’s
largest — but official attitudes toward sex remain puritan,
though they are changing slowly.

($1=7.956 Yuan)