Though Chinese authorities are deeply conservative on matters of sex and sexuality, several lawyers and danmei writers suspect that money-raising may be the real goal. Chinese police forces depend upon a mix of national and local funding. But the country鈥檚 property crash has left local governments in the lurch as they can no longer rake in so much revenue from selling land-use rights to developers. Meanwhile, some local authorities have grown increasingly adept at finding other funding: last year China鈥檚 tax haul declined by about three per cent, while money raised by fines and confiscations rose by 15 per cent.
In recent months, at least four other danmei writers say they were approached by cops from distant parts of China. In December, police from a poor, rural part of Anhui province announced the results of an investigation into 36 people for online obscenity and raised 11 million yuan ($2.3 million) in fines. They sentenced one well-known danmei author to more than four years in prison. She had to hand over all her earnings from writing 鈥 about 1.8 million yuan ($384,000) 鈥 and pay another 1.8 million yuan as a fine.
鈥淲hy are some people who commit sexual assaults in real life not punished so severely?鈥 asks one erotic writer, pointedly. 鈥淧eople should have full freedom of thought, including freedom of sexual fantasies,鈥 writes Chen Bi of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law, who is offering legal aid to arrested authors.