The blog Surviving Beijing Since 1980 recently commented to an Australian diplomat that China “was becoming more and more liberated with regards to sexuality.” The diplomat didn’t agree. “Not that surprising as most of the ‘liberation’ escapes to the eyes of us foreigners. Our Chinese friends tend to keep their liberation much to themselves. But to think this society is still as it was twenty years ago is a bit naive.”
Keeping liberation to oneself is an interesting (if somewhat contradictory) concept, and certainly seems to capture the phenomenon of some young people sowing their wild oats while keeping even a visit to a disco secret from their parents. But there is another explanation: China is returning to the status quo ante, its traditional attitudes toward sexuality before the Manchu prudery of the Qing dynasty. That is, sex was a private matter, but in private things could get pretty wild.
The field of Chinese sexology is developing rapidly, with scholars like Li Yinhe (widow of one of TT’s favorite writers, Wang Xiaobo) in the lead. But the father of the genre remains Robert Van Gulik’s “Sexual Life in Ancient China” (Brill, 1961). Van Gulik, best known for his Judge Dee detective novels, was a Dutch diplomat trained in classical Chinese scholarship but with eclectic interests. His first foray into sexology was a monograph, “Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period” (privately published in Tokyo, 1951), which contained contained some derogatory remarks about Taoist “sexual vampirism” — i.e. the belief that men should avoid squandering their yang essence through ejaculation, and instead use certain techniques during intercourse to allow the semen to “return from the Jade Stalk and enter the brain.” Van Gulik later repented of his negative attitude toward Taoist thought, and the desire to correct this and include earlier history formed the impetus for the book. The survey impresses that the Chinese had a healthy attitude toward sex, acknowledging its importance and being quite open about the desire, but discouraging overindulgence.
The most amusing aspect of this classic is its quaint insistence on switching to Latin for all the naughty bits. See if you can get the gist of this passage from the Tung-hsuan-tzu, a Sui Dynasty (590-618 AD) sex manual:
“Tum vir ictus celeres et alte penetrantes frequentat, muliere motus subsequente et rhythmum eius imitante. Vegeto vertice Antrum graniforme aggressus in infimam eius partem irrumpat. Ibi membro suo paulisper cirumacto ad breves paulatim ictus transeat.”
source) http://feer.wsj.com/tales/?p=758
