In this blog Ming Gao explores the long history of the sexualisation and objectification of women through advertising.

Sexualised and stereotyped images of women remain deeply embedded in today’s advertising. Australia’s media landscape, for example, still relies on gender stereotypes. Of course, such entrenched patterns aren’t new. Long before the digital age, businesses recognised the profitability of sexualising women to sell products, even in black-and-white print advertisements.

My research into the opium trade in Manchukuo (1932–1945), a puppet state of the Japanese Empire in Northeast China, reveals patterns that can still be observed in some contemporary advertising practices.

Then, as now, business interests, gender, and power intersected in ways that exploited the objectification and sexualisation of women and girls for economic gain. While contemporary advertising operates within different cultural and legal frameworks, the use of gendered marketing strategies remains a powerful tool in shaping consumer behaviour.

Selling opium through the sexualisation of women

Manchukuo, regarded as ‘the jewel in Japan’s imperial crown’ in the Japanese Empire, also had a dark side that was equally alluring. Beneath this allure lay a deliberate fusion of pleasure and exploitation, opium dens. They were more than places to buy and consume drugs – they were social spaces where female attendants played a central role in attracting male customers.

In early January 1937, a thirty-seven-year-old Japanese coal miner in Manchukuo recalled how he was lured with the claim that opium use could act as an aphrodisiac. The man recounted what he learned and what he went through:

According to the advertisement, having sexual intercourse one hour after consuming opium or heroin would be akin to a heavenly experience, or even better. Out of curiosity, I did what she said. Just as she had claimed, two hours after taking heroin, the experience was prolonged and intensely pleasurable. It felt like I was in heaven – rich in stimulus and sensation, as if playing in Shangri-la.

Apart from such explicit enticement, printed promotional materials for opium dens prominently featured the names and images of female attendants – often referred to as ‘specially hired beauties’ (特聘名花) – highlighting their attractiveness. Some were as young as thirteen or fifteen.

Among them, for example, was Xiao Jinzi (小金子) – literally meaning ‘goldling’ or ‘little gold’ – one of the most sought-after female attendants at the Juxian Lou establishment (聚賢樓). Ironically, the name of this shop translates as ‘a building for persons of virtue.’ Jinzi was said to be exceedingly gorgeous, so much so that she developed her own agency, exercising her autonomy by choosing patrons exclusively on her own terms. Patrons reportedly became so infatuated that they were even willing to ‘abandon everything’ (甘心拋棄了國土 literally ‘willing to abandon their kingdom’) to remain with her.

The marketing was clear: smoking opium was a pleasurable experience intertwined with access to beautiful women. This strategy proved highly effective – men were drawn in not just by the drug but by the promise of companionship, beauty, and sexual encounters. Women were not merely present in the trade; they were actively used to market it.

This intersection of opium and sex was deeply ingrained in the business strategy of these dens. Female attendants were not only tasked with serving opium but also enticing customers to spend more time and money. Some were required to consume opium alongside patrons, reinforcing the association between pleasure, indulgence, and addiction. As a result, historians note, these establishments became sites of both narcotic consumption and sexual commerce, blurring the lines between indulgence and vice.

By the mid-1930s, this dynamic had become a defining characteristic of opium dens in Manchukuo. The commodification of women in these spaces was not only a reflection of male desire but also a calculated economic move. Opium dens thrived by exploiting gendered and sexualised labour, using female attendants to create an atmosphere of escapism and indulgence.

The strategic sexualisation of these women transformed the act of smoking opium into a ritualistic and hedonistic pursuit. By intertwining narcotics with sexuality, opium dens created an environment where addiction and desire became mutually reinforcing, drawing men deeper into both dependency and debauchery.

How imperial policies enabled the opium-sex trade

The gendered consumption of opium in Manchukuo was not merely a peripheral feature of the drug trade – it was an integral part of its economic and cultural landscape. The sexualisation of women in opium establishments not only fuelled demand but also reinforced a broader system of exploitation. How, then, was such a system possible?

The emergence and expansion of this system was made possible by the political and legal structures of Manchukuo. Japanese and Korean as imperial subjects enjoyed extraterritorial rights, exempting them from local Manchukuo laws. Many served as “consultants” to Chinese-owned opium shops, helping them evade government regulations. These consultants provided a form of legal protection that allowed opium dens to operate freely, even as authorities sought to control the trade.

Interestingly, this created a dual economy: a state-sanctioned opium trade alongside an extensive underground network of illicit opium dens. Many dens relied on female attendants to attract and retain customers. The legal immunity extended to these women as well, shielding them from police crackdowns that targeted sex workers in more visible brothel settings.

Meanwhile, Manchukuo authorities regulated opium distribution as part of a revenue-generating strategy. The state attempted to present its control of the drug as a form of “public health management,” but in reality, they allowed illicit opium markets to flourish under its watch. The presence of female attendants in these dens was not incidental – it was an integral part of the system that kept the industry profitable.

This practice also sheds light on the broader socio-political context of Manchukuo. The opium industry was embedded within imperial power structures, with Japanese and Korean consultants shielding the trade under the guise of extraterritoriality. Opium dens operated with impunity, bolstered by the involvement of imperial subjects who leveraged their status to protect these businesses. Within this ecosystem, female attendants occupied a precarious position, simultaneously serving as marketing tools and disposable labour.

The social cost of gendered opium consumption

The entanglement of opium use and the objectification of women had devastating social consequences. Due to chronic opium consumption, addicts became emaciated, often reduced to begging in the streets. Those who fell ill and died in public were a common sight across Manchukuo’s cities.

Reports from 1941 describe streets littered with the bodies of addicts who had overdosed. Stuart J. Fuller, the United States’ representative to the Opium Advisory Committee, vividly described one such scene in October 1936, adjacent to a rag-pickers’ market near an open sewer, where hovels inhabited by sex workers openly dispensed narcotics. Fuller recounted a harrowing image, noting:

The setting was loathsome to a degree… there lay on an ash heap just behind the narcotic brothels seven naked corpses which had evidently been stripped of their rags by fellow addicts.

An investigator’s report published in the North-China Daily News corroborated this grim reality, stating that such sights occurred daily. The average annual death toll in Manchukuo’s major cities was estimated at around 6,000 – a conservative figure considering that habitual opium smokers constituted one-third of Manchukuo’s total population.

Moreover, the intersection of narcotics and sex work meant that many women became trapped in a cycle of addiction and exploitation. Women and girls were drawn into selling both opium and their bodies, mirroring the vulnerabilities faced by marginalised women in modern contexts of drug-related exploitation. Some women used opium to cope with the physical toll of their work. Women in Daikan’en (the Garden of Grand Vision) slum in Harbin, for example, rubbed opium into their intimate areas to relieve the pain and exhaustion caused by sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis or gonorrhoea.

Similarly, impoverished women relied on opium to numb themselves from the suffering and hardship resulting from societal collapse. Others, trapped in cycles of addiction and economic desperation, had few options but to remain in the trade. In spaces like Daikan’en, the lines between drug use and survival blurred, highlighting how gendered exploitation was embedded in the opium economy.

What Manchukuo can teach us about today’s advertising

While the explicit sexualisation of opium consumption may seem like a relic of the past, its implications resonate far beyond the history of Manchukuo. It reveals how gendered and sexualised labour has long been used to sustain illicit economies and how vice industries have thrived by commodifying the bodies of women. In Manchukuo’s opium dens, the fusion of narcotics and sexuality was not just a selling tactic – it was a fundamental pillar of the industry itself.

As such, the case of Manchukuo offers a historical perspective on how gender and commerce intersect in ways that reinforce societal inequalities. Just as opium dens used female attendants to market their product, today’s advertising industry continues to use explicitly sexualised and gendered images to advertise their products.

Indeed, today’s advertising operates under different cultural and legal frameworks, but the fundamental strategy remains familiar. The sexualised portrayal of women is still used to shape consumer aspirations and to reinforce ideas about desirability. While some industries have made efforts to promote more diverse and equitable representations, the underlying dynamic persists.

Recognising these patterns is crucial for challenging the normalisation of such representations. While today’s media operates under more regulations than in the past, questions remain about the broader impact of these portrayals on societal attitudes toward gender. Are we truly moving beyond the exploitation of women’s bodies in marketing, or are we simply repackaging old strategies in new forms?

Addressing these issues requires not only regulation and policy change but also a broader cultural shift towards more equitable and respectful representations of women in media and commerce. Understanding the historical roots of these practices can help us critically assess their modern forms – and work towards a society where women are valued for more than just their appearance.

Ming Gao is a research scholar of East Asian Studies at the Australian Catholic University. He researches the gendered dynamics of violence, emotions, women’s history, and the Japanese empire.

He has written extensively on contemporary and historical issues related to Japan, South Korea, and China.

Contact him at drgao20@gmail.com. 

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