Part 1: From prehistory to the Zhou of the West
SERIES: Books to better understand China
Even if mentalities have changed a little among young Chinese, there is still a certain discretion, reservations about talking about the subject. And so much the better. In the West, the subject goes beyond the private sphere and sprawls back and forth in all the media … But where would come from what we wrongly call taboos, and which are cultural codes that are simply different from ours? A long time ago, but the book remains a benchmark, a great lover of China, great novelist and essayist, Robert van Gulik, tackled the complex question of the history of sexuality in China. We will only give a brief introduction to this essential book.
From the outset, the Dutch scholar starts from a paradox: Ancient China experienced open and free sexuality, especially with professionals, and, at the same time, the Middle Kingdom found inhibitions in talking about it.
Of course, China has always been huge and its history is very long! Different movements of thought have raised the delicate question of sexuality: for better or for worse.
The author isolates three periods in which my customs seem more open: a prehistory where matriarchy predominates; an antiquity where textbooks abound technically address sexuality (long before the Kamasutra of the Indians!) and, finally, the age of “erotic” novels.
Other highlights go in the other direction: the followers of Confucianism resist this idea of free sexuality and advocate the separation of the sexes; the invasions especially of the Mongols (Yuan dynasty) and those of the Manchus (Qing dynasty) which create a withdrawal into oneself of the Chinese and… of their sexuality; and finally, the Cultural Revolution, which defended the idea, admittedly interesting, that sexuality was too individualistic and diverted from essential issues of society such as production. This has created, explains van Gulik, some social pressure and taboos in the expression of sentimental emotions.
The modesty, often touching and beautiful of the Chinese, is it still linked to these taboos today?
But van Gulik comes out of these contradictions a little by making us discover the Taoist background of the “free” sexuality of ancient China. There was no question of vulgar pleasures but the “Bedroom Art” type sexuality manuals dealt with a sexuality linked to the Cosmos! Its stake was the balance of Yin (“female)” and Yang (“male”) forces. The chamber was the microcosm that reflected the macrocosm of the Universe.
A great American writer, Henry Millier, will remember this in the 20th century.
“Sex until 1644, the date of the Manchu invasion, was a question of the balance of the forces of Nature”, explains van Gulik, who evokes scabrous works such as the Jin Ping Mei, “but the light was shining there most. dark behavior ”, since the Chinese understood the decline of such practices.
A “COSMIC” SEXUALITY?
But how did this idea of spiritualizing sexuality come about?
Of course, we need some non-divination writing on the shoulder blades of cattle or the shells of turtles.
But, yet, very early on the ancestors of classical Chinese characters reveal amazing things about the sexuality of China 3,000 years ago.
Everything suggests that the first Chinese societies gave a preponderant role to women within a matriarchal system. But a Chinese character at the time shows a “man tugging at a woman’s ear”, thus showing his willingness to marry her. A contrast with older paintings where the man is symbolized by white and the woman by red, fire! Woman is powerful, original, “more ardent, therefore sexually superior to man”.
These two contradictory views of women can be found in Confucianism and Taoism, themselves competing schools of thought in the history of Chinese culture.
If we simplify …
Confucianism advocates a structure of society based on a family that needs a leader, a male guide, Yang. The woman must be passive and, above all, give her husband male children out of respect for the ancestors and the continuity of their descendants.
We are in the days of feudal societies not yet unified by the Han. The idea of legendary and male lineage is based on mythical characters, divine kings.
Taoism, on the other hand, emphasizes the Yin force, the negative, passivity, “non-action” (here Gulik is a bit caricature!). Woman represents the inexhaustible, matrix force of the Universe.
She is the Mother of the universe who in the sexual act invigorates man.
Hence the expressions of “Deep Vale”, “Mysterious Door”, etc., for the female sex.
All this mystique of the woman-Matrix will nourish the manuals of sexuality criticized by the more prudish followers of Confucianism.
But the idea is indeed that of universal Harmony between Yin and Yang, through the Middle Way, and, beyond, of an Immortality to be achieved through a certain type of sexuality.
More simply, the question of sexuality is considered more in the context of health than that of intense pleasure. It is the QI energy, whether it is Yang or Yin, which connects us to the Universe and it is this energy that we must work “in the chamber”, in particular (of course there are also meditation and Qigong! )
“The goal of health and, later, sexuality, is to fuel this IQ in us to achieve DE 德 or Virtue, this power present in rocks, plants, animals.”
The woman is “powerful”, full of DE. But the pressure on her to give birth to male children will gradually explain the need for polygamy (to increase the chances of a male child) and, unfortunately, its limitation to a reproductive role.
But the poetry illustrates the continuity of Taoist thoughts. Don’t we say “cloud and rain” to make love? Yes, the cloud is the egg and the rain is the sperm which “fertilizes” this egg.
But these Taoist beliefs were also present at the highest level of royal power.
“The couple par excellence was the king and the queen whose sexual relations were punctuated by rites and complex ceremonies where the man had to first mate with dozens of women to garner DE 德 and then impregnate the queen. . The king of the Zhou era therefore had several wives of different ranks and dozens of concubines “!
The DE, its power, “draws” itself from the vaginal secretions of women!
To be continued in a next chapter.
