Date Night China: Hook-up Culture In Beijing & HPV Encounters

Anonymous | Apr 10, 2021 2:30 pm | Add a comment | 5747 reads

This article comes from Date Night China (WeChat ID: datenightchina), your guide to dating in China, from love to lust, first dates to worst dates, hilarious stories, and top tips to avoid (or steer into) disaster. Single in the city? Season 2 of their podcast is out now. To connect with others in the DNC community, add co-host Rachel to join their WeChat group: rachelweiss22

Spring is here – but what else is blooming in Beijing?

As a fit, attractive (or so I’m told?), sex-positive, bi-sexual woman in her mid-20s, Beijing has offered me nothing but a wealth of hedonistic opportunity and revelry.

These truly have been some of the most exceptionally wild, fun, and fulfilling experiences I believe I’m likely to have – especially if I ever decide to leave China and return home. For many across the world, Covid had put a stop to the degree of engagements people had – not here. Things got back to normal real quick and with it the fun and all the concerns that come with it – more on that shortly.

University here was a non-stop party and, contrary to my initial belief, it didn’t slow down too much as I decided to stay here after graduating. It allowed me an opportunity to meet (read: hook up with) such an awesome variety of humans that I would never have had the opportunity to engage with were I back home. Some of these awesome people are still in my life, some, thankfully, I’ll never see again.

But, for anyone that enjoys exploring their sexuality, Beijing really can offer nearly anything. You wouldn’t think of the capital of China being “Sin City,” but it really does deliver. That being said, if it's long-term, loving, faithful relationships you’re looking for, that’s a different story I’d prefer not to get into.

However, my experiences here over the last five years or so have turned up some worrying new occurrences – ones that I feel are really, really important to share with a broader community beyond my personal friends and lovers.

It's undeniable that Beijing has something of an epic hook-up culture. It’s par for the course. Nature of the beast. Any city that draws people into it for opportunity predicates itself on some form of transience – people are coming and going all the time.

Because of this, there is a fair deal of sexual health awareness. People at least seem to be aware of the vast majority of risks out there, and the prevalence of casual sex actually seems to facilitate a better awareness of sexual health concerns.

Now, note that I said "better," not "good." Not good by a long shot.

There are still some disgusting pushes and pressures by guys to go at it without protection, still, some female friends I’ve heard say they don’t like it with a dom, and still some disconcerting unawareness of sexual health issues by people around me.

This does need to change, especially with what I’m about to share. (And especially because of the rising HIV/AIDS rate here).

One thing I've literally seen with my own eyes is what seems to be a rising prevalence of something hardly ever spoken about. I follow podcasts like Date Night China and I’m in some groups that chat quite openly about a host of dating and sex-related things, but I have hardly ever seen it pop up. And considering how often I’ve seen it “pop up” in real life, and how I’m seeing it more and more and more with every new hookup, we need to know.

The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

Most girls are familiar with HPV – or at least the broad concept of it. The Human Papilloma Virus. It’s what’s responsible for the vast, vast majority of cervical cancers. What you need to know is that there are literally hundreds of different strains of this virus. They’re broadly divided into low-risk and high-risk strains.

High-Risk Strains

The high-risk strains are the ones that get the vast majority of the press on account of the risk in question referring to the virus's ability to create cancerous cells in women: strains 16 and 18 are responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer.

The scariest thing about the high-risk strains of the virus is that they’re next to completely “invisible.” They do not present with any noticeable symptoms, especially in men. The other scary thing is that the virus is transmissible by skin-to-skin contact – and even through saliva. They don’t necessarily need seminal or vaginal fluids to transmit.

However, it's not the high-risk strains I want to talk about.

Low-Risk Strains – Genital Warts

I want to talk about the HPV “low-risk” strains – aka, genital warts. Strains 6 and 11 account for about 90 percent of genital warts.

(I’m also curious as to how many of you knew that genital warts are HPV?)

I’ve never been so grateful for having a mother as a doctor before, as she sent me off to get my set of HPV vaccines about ten years ago. The vaccine offers protection from the strains mentioned above and most (though not all!) prevalent strains.

This has contributed to me being a little more carefree about this particular virus, I will admit, but it’s also given me a position to talk to my girl and guy lovers without a lot of emotion, fear, or anger about their particular situations.

To reiterate, I have noticed a really worrying rise in the number of sexual partners or potential sexual partners displaying symptoms of genital warts – later confirmed to be the case!

Our genitals are (broadly speaking) gross things – fleshy, bumpy, misshapen weird parts of our body – and on that canvas, it's sometimes difficult to notice all the changes beyond what’s “normal.”

It’s made worse for girls or guys that shave or wax, where HPV warts may look like ingrown hairs or pimples. This is made even more difficult for us ladies, where we are more likely to have HPV warts inside our vaginal tracts than outside us – and that's annoying.

More and more, I'm getting questions from lovers, ex-lovers, or even friends of lovers asking me about this – even sending pictures.

HPV Encounters in Beijing

Anecdotally, I remember a great experience I had with a girl I had met at Temple (RIP Temple). I will spare you the sordid details, but what stood out for me was the shape and feel of her. Now, many straight girls may not know this (many straight guys may?), but the insides of our vaginas are really different – all shapes and sizes and textures. Some of us just have rougher cavities (sorry if that sounds gross to some!), while others are super smooth. What stood out for me was how smooth she was inside. However, that had changed between the second and the first time we had hooked up – about six months apart – and changed noticeably so.

I could feel bumps and raised dots of flesh in various places inside, that I distinctly remember not having felt before. Subtly and sensitively I guided her towards having a checkup, for general peace of mind's sake. She phoned me later in the week to confirm that she did indeed have one of the low-risk (and high-risk) HPV strains.

Another story is of three friends, only one of which was an ex-lover, who had very similar experiences a few years back. All three of them (they didn’t know each other) had asked me about their symptoms – black pimple-like dots on their vaginas. One of them had had it for months because she shaved regularly and thought it was related. All three went to doctors about it after I had raised concerns, and all three were told by different local institutions that it was nothing.

I’m not a doctor, I’m not a professional, I don’t profess to be and I don’t profess to know more than them – but I wasn’t convinced. I literally wound up paying for two of them to go to have a specific test done. Again, it came back positive. The other girl wound up blocking me and my friend on account of me trying to push her to get tested again, so I wasn’t able to convey that information.

There are more stories. Too many more. Some involving guys – your role here is big, too! But always the same symptoms – either little black/brown dots or tiny weird little fleshy growths. They don’t look like what you would think a “wart” would look like. You know, we think about warts on our hands, feet, or knees and expect that it’s not that. It looks more a part of you than you think.

The point of the matter is, I have begun to see it more and more and I think more people should be aware of it.

Here are some key takeaways:

The low-risk strains are not at all harmful – just unsightly.
Warts can be lasered or cryo-ed off – neither method is super fun from what I’ve seen, but both work well.
Active warts are SUPER contagious.
Your body can (apparently?) process/beat/work through (I don’t know the term?) the virus after six to 24 months – lifestyle depending.
The vaccine Gardasil is really effective in preventing these but is recommended prior to sexual activity. If you’re under 22 and not too sexually active – do it now. If you’re over 25 and sexually active, results may vary. Either way, ask an actual doctor.
And on that last point, speak to a professional specialist. The number of girls and guys I’ve heard come back from doctors (especially – and apologies for saying this – local non-specialist doctors) with incorrect diagnoses is terrifying. I had a friend go to three different doctors at the insistence of her boyfriend only to finally be diagnosed correctly. Request blood tests for HPV strains. Don’t rely on sight diagnosis.
Practice good hygiene – showers after sex may be useful (this is assuming condom use too).
Lights on. This is a weird one and it’s a personal point from me, do it with the lights on. You may not like what you look like, or how your bits look, but if someone else is having a close look they may see what you don’t. It’s only fair to lovers down the line.