Hunny Pot

by Willow Neilson

My friend and I were in the sex shop on Xiang Yang Lu, just out of curiosity of course, when we spotted a Winnie the Pooh doll donning a gimp mask. It was sewn to accommodate the particular proportions of his head, his snout jutting outwards atop his yellow body. The black leather balaclava with zippered opening for the mouth gave the once cute bear a sinister glint; the misspelling of the pot containing “Hunny” atop his rotund belly now symbolizing more of a base and barbaric nature than that of a cuddly simpleton.

“Winnie wants to pooh on you.” I remarked to my friend, “maybe that is the real reason why Piglet has such a nervous personality, maybe Winnie has been tying him up and subjecting him to some brown showers, I bet him and Rabbit have a secret dungeon they do it all in. Tigger is probably their speed dealer, he is way too energetic to be straight.”

“What about the saying happier than a pig in shit? I bet Piglet likes it, he is just shaky because he is so depraved it makes him nervous that his perverted secrets are going to get out and Disney will be pissed.”

“Is nothing sacred, what’s next? Hello Kitty inflatable dolls with special attachments?”

We looked around the store, various costumes and accessories, dominated by an arsenal of vibrators ranging in dimensions and textures that make one’s imagination whirl.

“Who would buy one of these and how would they know that this is the one they really want?” I said, pointing at the monstrous blue rubber dildo with a cactus like texture and extra “stimulator” attachment.

“Maybe we should ask her?” My friend suggested, pointing at the ayi, bored behind the counter, dressed in a white doctors coat which we were not sure was part of the costume play catalogue or an attempt to give the store a clinical air. There was something almost medical about Chinese sex shops in contrast to those found in other more liberal countries where one is often bombarded with pornographic images and ungracious titles employing terms such as “meat hole.”

“I wonder how she got the job here?” my friend asked, “what sort of questions would they ask in the interview? Do you think she had to demonstrate product knowledge?”

“I can imagine the interviewer decrying the importance of intimate knowledge of each device. ‘Once I had a very irate customer waddle angrily into the story, wincing with every step, he screamed at me viciously ‘you told me that this vibrating sex saddle used a 12V adaptor instead of a 9V one, it rode me around the house for 20 minutes before I managed to yank the cord out of the socket.” I rocked back and forth as though I were riding a bucking horse in a rodeo. The ayi looked up from her magazine with a puzzled look. I suddenly became conscious of my immaturity. We had seen enough, it was time to leave the store. We were in a walking mood, we walked 10 blocks and saw at least 4 sex shops, it seemed that this was a new boom industry in China.

“Why do you think there are so many of these stores? Is someone doing something wrong? Why yes to vibrators and no to porn?” I asked.

“With this population I think the government would rather everyone does it to a machine instead of each other, that is probably why there is a law against porn, it makes you want to have sex whilst the various devices are a replacement for the pleasure of contact, less sex with real live people, less babies.”

“So I guess that is why the windows are clear, if there was porn they would be all dark and mysterious like back at home to hide the perverted stuff, but I often wonder, what would parents tell their children when they ask about this stuff walking past the shop? Daddy what’s that big black rubber thing?’

“Massage machine? Plumbing equipment? Besides, we are Asian,” my Hua Qiao friend declared, “we would probably just bury it deep inside instead of asking about it.”