In this case "sex" would typically be considered to still be a noun; it's just taking a more adjective-like role in the phrase. In English, and especially in headlinese, it's common to place two nouns together like this, with the first modifying the second. The noun "sex" is called an attributive noun in this context, and "orgy" is its head noun.

This particular phrase actually contains 5 of these attributive-head relationships. I can't be sure, since it's nigh-impossible to parse the headline, but I think that "Ferrari" is an attributive whose head is "sex". If we were to say that "sex" is an adjective just because it's modifying the noun "orgy", we'd also be forced to conclude that "Ferrari" is an adverb because it's modifying an adjective.

[–] octoperson@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

I prefer to parse it as a series of exclamations. China! Ferrari! Sex! Orgy! Death! Crash!

[–] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think China Ferrari is a person? That's the only way I could get it to make any sense

[–] yttrium@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

If you read the article it's about someone in China who died by crashing a Ferrari.

Looking at it again, I actually think "Ferrari" is supposed to be modifying "crash". Here's how I'd diagram the phrase (using a dependency grammar, because I'm not about to try to format a bunch of NP nodes in plaintext):

                             crash
  v------v---------v-----v-----/
China Ferrari     orgy death
               v---/
              sex

China Ferrari sex orgy death crash

the crash caused death
the crash was due to an orgy
the orgy was specifically a sex orgy
the crash involved a Ferrari
the crash happened in China