Shanghai - 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 (about R193 700) in compensation from the shopping centre 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 centre, it said.

The shopping centre had paid Zhang 130 000 yuan 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 N the world's largest N but official attitudes towards sex remain puritan, though they are changing slowly. - ($17.956 Yuan)

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1157011560432B252