Campaigners have urged health officials to roll out more safe sex awareness programstargeting the elderly. Most programs and events currently only target young adults oncollege campuses or at nightclubs, they said.
Although illegal prostitution has become increasingly abundant in China since thelate 1980s, with the sex industry enjoying boom times from 2000, said Wan Shaoping, aprofessor at the Sichuan Institute of Dermatology and STD Prevention in Chengdu.
“There is demand. People are getting richer and the price of a prostitute is gettingcheaper,” he said.
There are between 4 to 10 million female sex workers on the Chinese mainlandcatering regularly to more than 6 percent of the male population aged 20 to 64, accordingto a paper published in 2009 by Wan and Professor Joseph T.F. Lau, director of theChinese University of Hong Kong’s center for epidemiology and biostatistics.
Some women charge as little as 20 to 50 yuan (3 to 7) and usually attract elderlymen and migrant workers, the paper said.
AIDS specialist Cai said his older patients often told him they paid for sex at cheapvenues - usually disguised as saunas, hair salons and massage parlors - because theirwives had died or lost their sex drive after the menopause.
“Traditionally, sex is a taboo subject in China. People do not talk openly about it,meaning men often feel ashamed at having to request sex with their wife if she has lostinterest,” he said.
Elderly widowers and divorcees also turn to prostitutes for sex because their childrenprevent them from remarrying, usually due to concerns about their inheritance, said ZhangHongmei, a volunteer at China Red Ribbon, a non-government organization (NGO)advocating AIDS prevention in Guangzhou.
“The sexual needs of the elderly should be fully recognized and respected by society,”
added Pan Suiming, a professor at Renmin University’s institute of sexuality and gender inBeijing and well-known sexologist.
A Beijing man surnamed Huang, 74, who was diagnosed HIV positive in 2004, toldChina Daily he began paying for sex 10 years ago after the death of his wife. He never onceused a condom, he said. “It felt better without it and I never thought HIV would happen tome. I wouldn’t say I regret it, or that I am not afraid of dying, but my only concern is if othersknow about my condition it might lead to my children being discriminated against,” he said.
A two-year survey by Wan Shaoping of more than 1,000 clients of female sex workersin three cities in Sichuan province found condom use was at about 40 percent for thoseoffering the industry’s “low-end services”.
More than 95 percent of the men polled in 2005 and 2006, whose ages ranged from17 to 80, admitted using a prostitute within six months of the survey. The average numberof visits was 11, with the most 90. The average price paid for sex was 36 yuan.
The sex workers with the lowest fees are 30 to 60 years old, and are usually from poorrural areas or unemployed city women; they charge as little as 10 yuan, and more than 90percent do not insist clients wear condoms, Wan’s study discovered.
“They need the money and are the most likely to compromise their health to make it,”
said the professor, who estimates about 5 percent of low-cost prostitutes are infected withHIV. “The clients of female sex workers may get the virus and then transmit it to generalfemale population.”
Peng Xiamin - not his real name - was diagnosed as being in the serious stages ofAIDS in early December and was immediately admitted to the Guangzhou No 8 People’sHospital for treatment.
The 59-year-old told China Daily he is still too ashamed to tell his wife about hiscondition.
“I have been losing weight since 2009 and now have a cold that cannot be cured. Ihad a thorough check-up and that’s when I found out,” he said as he slouched on his bedin the room he shares with two fellow patients. “I still need to tell my wife, tell her how Iwas infected. Then I must tell her she needs to have a HIV test, too.”
Peng said that, in the early 2000s, he used to pick up prostitutes at entertainmentvenues and take them to hotels.
“I went there out of curiosity and found myself interested in the young womenthere. They were more sexually active. Sometimes I used a condom, sometimes I didn’t.
I remember sleeping with seven or eight girls, but I don’t know who I caught the virusfrom,” he said.
In heterosexual relationships, it is far more likely for a man to pass HIV to a womanthan vice versa, said Cai, meaning the virus is often spread to wives and girlfriends, as wellas other prostitutes.
Discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS is still a major issue inChina and experts warn this could be preventing high-risk groups - gay men, prostitutesand their clients - from accessing prevention and intervention services.
“People will not go to get help if they think they are going to be made ashamed, oreven shunned by society,” said Guangzhou AIDS control chief, Xu Huifang.
Of the 1,000-plus men surveyed in Sichuan by Wan Shaoping, only about 15 percenthad received free condoms, 3 percent had received treatment for a STD and 20 percenthad received AIDS awareness material. Just 3 percent had been tested for HIV.
When asked what they would do if they feared they had an STD, 52 percent of themen said they would visit a small private clinic, 28 percent would buy medicine from apharmacy and 14 percent would go to a public hospital.
“It’s no use telling people to stick to one sexual partner these days. More must be doneto promote safe sex,” said Doctor Cai.
More programs should also be directed at the “low-price” prostitutes, many of whomare also elderly, said Wan, who explained that the attention was currently on high- andmiddle-end sex workers.
Hao Yang with the Ministry of Health agreed and said: “More activities to spread anti-HIV knowledge will be held in neighborhood communities to show people, particularlythe elderly how to protect.”