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Last year, Jonas Hahne was in electronics. Now he’s selling rubbers. “I got bored,” he says as he hurriedly passes out packets of the ‘World’s best condoms’ to a tumult of eager hands. The prophylactics are flying off the hooks at $50 for a pack of ten. I ask Hahne, who with a mop of brown hair and a thin goatie looks like he’s in his early thirties, what makes them the world’s best. “Because they’re made in Denmark and we’ve been manufacturing them for 30 years,” he says, as if that’s proof enough. Rack up another one for Denmark, then: Carlsberg, Lego, and knob coverings.

“What size do you want?” he asks me as I fork out some cash. “Massive,” I say instinctively, but really only because I’m all too aware of the many eyes witnessing my purchase. “I think this one’s normal for white people,” he says, ignoring my quip and handing me the medium size. Grateful for the diplomacy, I take the pack. “XXL is normally for blacks,” he adds, to my mild astonishment. So what are the Chinese customers buying? “Mainly medium and small.”

Hahne’s condom stall is just one of many doing a brisk trade at Asia’s first Adult Expo, held at the Venetian Macao from December 4 to 7. There are also stalls for sex toys, blow-up dolls, lingerie, lubricants, and an enticing contraption know as the JpasexDeluxe, which sports numerous chains, a rack, some hooks, swivels and ropes. Presumably for exercise. Says the brochure: “Designed to be enjoyed in residential settings, it will help you make your most secret fantasies come true and will fill your relations with pleasure.”

Definitely not for me then – I intend to fill my relations with no such thing.

So much for Asia’s reputation for sexual conservatism. According to Durex, only 62 percent of Hongkongers have sex weekly (poor compared to Greece’s 87 percent, but still beating the pants of the UK at 55 and the US at 53), but there’s a merry band who are more than willing to drool over the Sexercise balls and perv at the multitude of fake boobs at the expo. Alice Tsang, one of the event’s organisers, says nearly 5,000 people passed through its doors on Saturday, December 6. “When they come here, they will find it very interesting and they will talk about it,” says Tsang of Hongkongers’ attitudes. “But after that, they will stop.”

Also, stick them in front of a blow-up doll and they’ll do some curious things. A friend observes that there’s one doll – which apparently has an especially probe-able mouth – that passers-by can’t keep their mitts off. Many are compelled to stick their fingers into the orifice, and, disturbingly, some take to throttling it for the cameras. The poor thing is probably just hungry.

Tsang says one of the most popular expo attractions of is Japanese porn star Mr Kato Taka, aka Golden Finger, who can instantly bring a woman to orgasm with one of his digits. As Tsang speaks, Taka is demonstrating with his famous fingers how to best fondle a woman’s breasts. “Don’t press too hard,” he tells a rapt audience. “Men always make that mistake.”

There’s also a big crowd watching the penile artist Pricasso, who saves a lot on painting equipment by using the tool most readily at his disposable. Decked in a top-hat and gold boots, the artist wields his fleshy implement with careful strokes as he paints a caricature of a wide-smiling couple. “I see he uses a soft brush,” my art-savvy friend notes.

But it’s not all penis pics and hands-free squirm inducers (seriously, there’s a toy called that). Next door, the affiliated Hong Kong-Macau Sex Cultural Festival is exploring sex from an educational angle. There, the Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women, the Family Planning Organisation of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Sex Education Association, among others, have gathered to discuss some of the more sobering aspects of humanity’s favourite pastime.

All the action, however, remains in the sexpo. As we leave the venue in the event’s dying stages, the lingerie stores are scant on supplies, the world’s best condoms are stretched for sales, and Japanese toy-maker Galaku’s seven-speed Rabbits have all escaped the hutch – no doubt to find comfortable new subterranean homes in Hong Kong and Macau bedrooms. By the broad smiles on the faces of customers and exhibitors alike, it’s clear that the event has come to a most satisfying conclusion. I look forward to seconds – sloppy or not.

Hamish McKenzie