Behind the Red Door: Sex in China

by Richard Burger

A sexual revolution is underway in China. Traditional morals and behavior are being turned on their head as the country's climb towards economic prosperity brings sex into the open. But it is a revolution distinctly different from the one experienced in the West and has taken unexpected twists and turns.Written in a highly engaging and readable style, "Behind the Red Sex in China" takes the reader on a journey form ancient days, when China's rulers relied on shockingly vivid Daoist sex manuals, to the present, where China is torn between sexual orthodoxy and Western-style openness.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Asia, Sociology, Gender

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Betty Ho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the author’s “observations” are too obvious for Chinese readers.

For instance, there is no need to have a sexologist to tell you Chinese females in big cities want to date foreigners. Bars and Pubs mainly for Chinese ladies to hook up with foreign guys are all over Shanghai. I’m expecting a more in-depth analysis rather than just “Chinese girls tend to date Caucasian because they are more confident…”

Family tragedies caused by the “ernai” and “xiao san” from Shenzhen and Dongguan were flooding all over China/Hong Kong in the 90s. We learnt it from friends, radio, news and even TVB soap dramas. We all know the “sex-trade hierarchy” as we are looking at them everyday. Prostitutes are prostituting because they need to survive – that goes without saying.

Reading this book as a Chinese is like being taught by a foreigner on what is Chinese food. However, if you’ve never been to China and want to peep-through the Red Door, then by all means, read this book.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I read this because a friend told me I might find it interesting. To be fair it is, but there are some flaws with what I will call theory rooted in generalizations about sexuality, gender, and cultures.

The book itself is a detailed of the history of sex in China. Richard Burger does an in depth analysis of all the information the history of sex that he can find. I do not doubt any of this research. The book is broken down in chapters in a clear and relatively divisible way. It is an easy read, and he strives to make it concise and with a history that long that is not easy. Many of his observations seem obvious to me, and I imagine to people who have lived in China, but the book pulls all of these together in one centralized place. So win.

My concerns come from some of the assertions Burger makes including, though not necessarily intentional, the prioritization of Western sexuality as the model. For example at one point in the book he asserts that China is repressed which is counter to the United States...really? That is an awfully big assumption. I will defer to the expert. Sexuality in China maybe repressed, but to make the claim that the United States isn't repressed is kind of wrong. The US has a long history of sexual repression, and while our sexual revolution did happen in the 60s and 70s we still fill the long lasting effects of repressive religious forces. Well, women's reproductive health and sexuality are brought out every time the right need to fire up their base. Just saying.

Oh, and my personal favor. When will people who do not know about feminism stop righting about feminism? Seriously, just leave us out. Burger asserts that the feminist position on sex work is one of sex-negative feminist. This opinion exists, but again with the generalizations.

I guess, I just haven't read straight up history in a long time. It was an informative read, but most of the conclusions Burger draws I take with a grain of salt.

[Lisa Brackmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a topic like "Sex in China," you might expect a work that is prurient or, the opposite: a dry, academic tome. Instead Richard Burger draws on his years of experience living in and writing about China to craft an informative, enlightening and entertaining survey on this fundamental yet utterly complex topic. Highly recommended for those with an interest in Chinese culture or in how human sexuality shapes and is shaped by a society. Burger's book would be equally at home on the shelves of travelers or expats wanting to learn more about the place they are visiting and professors needing an engaging book for their undergraduate classes.

[Santo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever people discovered that I had been single throughout my 3.5 years stay in Beijing, they’d smile and say things like: “Must’ve been a whole lotta fun, huh…?”

Well, living in China was indeed a whole lotta fun. The Olympics was fun. Seeing pandas was fun. Travelling to Urumqi, on the Silk Road in the western parts of the country, was also fun. So was the icy-landscape of Harbin up north. And many more escapades in this country of 1.3 billion people. But, in all honesty, I never really had a chance to experience that “fun” China the others seem to refer to.

I’m not going to be a hypocrite. I’ve had my share of karaoke nights; although in all of them, I remember going home alone, in a taxi cab, trying to keep my dinner inside my stomach. And yes, the red light salons were only a corner away from my apartment on the 4th Ring Road, yet I always preferred to cut my hair on my own.

On the subject of sex, it didn’t take long for me to understand that China is a country of paradoxes. A place where lewdness and cleanliness co-existed. Where the pure and filthy lived side-by-side. Where tradition crashes head-on with modernity.

This, among others, is one of the arguments in Richard Burger’s book, Behind the Red Door: Sex in China. Writing as a journalist, nonetheless making numerous references to academic and literary resources, Burger delves into the history and present day nuances of sexuality in China. Not only that, Burger also explores other issues related to sex: marriage, family, gender, homosexuality, etc. For me, this book is an interesting narrative on the old and new China.

Among others, Burger elaborates on the One Child Policy, and its impact on China’s demographics. How this policy has given rise to large numbers of infanticides, predominantly of female babies. And how it has caused a gender imbalance among the population. In a 2010 study, it was predicted that China would experience a bride shortage by 24 million in 2020. When that time does come, I wonder from where would the Chinese men would start to find their brides?

Going through the book, I kept on highlighting sections after another, as I was introduced to new statistics, information and twists in better understanding China. For example, did you know that in the first three months of 2011 there were around 465,000 cases of divorce in China? That means that during that period, there were around 5,000 cases of divorce per day! This therefore begs the question surrounding many Chinese people’s claim of their country’s traditional perspective on marriage and family lives.

As well, did you know that there are at least 7 tiers of prostitution? Starting with the top tier, “ernai” (or the second wife) to “xiaogongpeng”, who are basically lower level prostitutes serving migrant workers in shanties that dot the country’s many urban areas. While prostitution was very much part of day-to-day lives up until the Qing Dynasty, the advent of communism stopped this business. Just like communism’s view on religion, prostitution was seen as opium for the masses, and therefore must be crushed.

I enjoyed the book immensely. There's not too much theories, just simple observations on the daily lives of the Chinese people. The narrative flowed well, in simple English. In particular, the book gave me much information on the different aspects of life that I never got to experience first hand while living in China. This includes dating a local girl (let alone be in familial terms with any of them) or holding a membership at a lavish karaoke bar.

Indeed, to understand the country, it is hard not to study the issue of sex (and everything else on its tangent). Because, for many, at the most basic issue is this, and an understanding of how it is understood and approached in China would provide a better perspective of the country and its people.

China is a country at the crossroads between tradition and modernity. The dilemma that arises form this situation can be found in many aspects of the Chinese life.

While rhetorically remaining strict on pornography and prostitution, both could be found within a mouse-click. While government officials constantly preach traditional family values, we only need to look around to notice that these values have actually been turned on their heads. Most Chinese youth still dream of finding the right person to marry, have kids with, and raise a family. But most of them are taking more time to marry, preferring to just co-habit with their respective partners well into their thirties.

Some say that this is the result of foreign influences on the Chinese culture. At least this is the line that many Chinese officials like to expound. However, as Burger elaborates, when we look into the history of the country, many of the vices associated to the western culture had actually existed in China previously, and in a very grandiose way. Of course, Chinese Communism attempted to cleanse the people of these supposed “bourgeois habits”. But even then, the many communist propagandists (including Mao Zedong himself) were sexual hypocrites. As a result, when the country was shoved into the present-day globalization, these supposed vices seem to resurface with a vengeance.

[Patrick Lum (Jintor) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contemporary Chinese attitudes towards sex are a mass of contradictions, and this book does an admirable job of explaining how and why it has ended up this way. However, it perhaps serves better as a history or a rough guide than a thorough analysis. Neither gossipy and salacious nor overly dry and academic, it's a far-too-short, but still interesting read that should probably be taken with just a pinch of salt.

[Dmitry · Rating 3 out of 5]

(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

В целом книга неплохая, но она очень сильно напоминает типичный мужской журнал. Так что нельзя сказать, что книга «Behind the Red Door: Sex in China» является глубоким и всесторонним исследованием, однако для читателя, который вообще ничего не знает о сексуальной жизни Китая, в качестве первого знакомства с этой темой, эта книга вполне подойдёт. «Behind the Red Door: Sex in China» довольно легко читается, но главное, книга затрагивает временной промежуток, начиная с древнего Китая, т.е. императорского Китая и заканчивая сегодняшним днём.

Итак, книга рассматривает все темы, что так или иначе связаны с сексом начиная с порнографии, позицией женщины в китайском обществе, проституцией и заканчивая сегодняшней ситуацией связанной с цензурой порнографических материалов в Интернете и репрессиями в отношении ЛГБТ сообщества. Чего нет в этой книге, так это непосредственно сексуальных практик, т.е. китайского варианта Камасутры. В целом, ситуацию с сексом, сексуальностью и порнографией в Китае легко описывает формула «ультра либеральное отношение со стороны правительства которое вскоре сменялось ультра цензурой со стороны правительства». Как-то забавно получается, что сначала в обществе создаются великие порнографические литературные произведения, а потом, все эти произведения подвергаются преследованию, уничтожению и на многие века на тему, связанной с сексом и сексуальностью налагается табу со стороны государства. Я не совсем понял, почему китайское государство так яро стремилось подавлять сексуальную сферу в китайском обществе, но именно так обстояло дело в древности и именно так обстоят дела уже сегодня, в нынешнем «коммунистическом» Китае.

It was not until the Qing Dynasty that the government went into an anti-erotica frenzy and banned about 150 books. Censorship became routine, although it went back and forth; plenty of sexually graphic works of literature were written under the Qing.
Throughout most of the twentieth century the Chinese government’s attitude toward pornography and “obscene” material saw little change. The Chinese Communist Party banned all pornography and erotic fiction as soon as it came to power in 1949. Anyone caught producing, distributing or buying books, photographs, magazines or any other material deemed obscene by the government faced serious penalties, including imprisonment. Any work of art that contained sexually graphic images was considered pornography. Just as he did with prostitution, Mao effectively wiped out all visible signs of erotica.

Не лучше дела обстоят и в сфере проституции. Хотя проституция в древнем Китае принималась за «неизбежное зло», как пишет автор, с приходом христианства, а так же с практикой китайских влас��ей всё запрещать, что связанно с эротикой и порнографией (с сексуальной темой в целом), то и проституция подверглась гонениям. Однако во все времена богатые и особенно люди облачённые властью, находили способ делать для таких как они исключение. Другими слова, проституция даже когда находилась под запретом, под репрессиями, никогда полностью не исчезала. Можно сказать, что это был всегда вопрос денег и власти. Как мне кажется, лицемерная ситуация. В книге приводятся примеры публичных акций со стороны нынешнего государства по преследованию проституции, однако как я понял из книги, это скорее PR акции, нежели реальная попытка борьбы с проституцией. Как я понял, борьба с проституцией дело довольно бесполезное, ибо само общество по-иному смотрит на это «социальное зло».

And while the Chinese outlook on sex has changed dramatically over the past 3,000 years, from extreme open-mindedness under the Tang and Han dynasties to outright prudishness under the Qing, the Chinese people’s attitude toward prostitution has remained remarkably unchanged; ever practical, the Chinese people tend to tolerate prostitution even if they disapprove, as they understand it is not going to go away.
Public opinion in China is never monolithic. Some feminist groups today advocate the stamping out of all forms of prostitution, while other groups are demanding its complete legalization.
<…>
China’s transformation from a controlled economy to a market economy ensured a resurgence of prostitution. Suddenly everything was for sale, commoditized, and women, like everyone else, followed the money. Once again, prostitution in China became a tiered, hierarchical industry, with women playing the role of hired wives, escorts, streetwalkers and brothel workers, each serving clients of different social rank. Traditionally women became sex workers because they were jobless and uneducated, but in post-Mao China many turned to prostitution because they simply had no alternative and needed livelihood.

Однако для китайского общества не борьба государства с эротикой, порнографией и проституцией представляет главную проблему, а политика «одна семья, один ребёнок», где этим ребёнком желательно был мальчик. Проблема сегодня состоит в том, что мужчин больше чем женщин, ибо в середине XX века в обществе преобладало мнение, что лучше, чтобы в семье родился мальчик, а не девочка. Частично это было связано с довольно патриархальным обществом, а так же с те, что по отношению к женщинам действовали чуть ли не дискриминационные законы. Вот что пишет автор по поводу того как изнасилования виделись через призму тогдашнего (а может и сегодняшнего) общества:

And yet China still displays a double standard for women in cases of rape. Traditional Chinese culture holds that the woman bears responsibility for an act of rape, and even today many Chinese tend to believe if a woman is raped she must have brought it on herself, either by walking alone late at night, visiting a man’s home, drinking alcohol, sexually teasing the man or dressing in an enticing manner. A woman who is raped is considered “damaged goods” and is stigmatized even within her own family.

Не очень справедливая позиция в отношении женщин, не так ли? Однако ситуация может быть даже хуже именно из-за сегодняшнего дисбаланса в сегодняшнем Китае между количеством женщин и количеством мужчин из-за чего в практику вошла, фактически, торговля жёнами. Возможно это и не в прямом смысле торговля жёнами, но очень похоже на это.

Men who cannot find brides due to the short supply of women turn to traffickers to provide a woman for marriage. To meet their sexual needs, China has also become a major destination for the import of kidnapped women. According to a 2010 report from the U.S. State Department, “Women and children from neighboring countries including Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Russia and North Korea, and from locations as far as Romania and Zimbabwe are trafficked to China for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.

Как можно догадаться, ситуация с сексуальным образованием, с практикой противодействия СПИДу и другим заболеваниям передающиеся половым путём, а так же открытости к ЛГБТ сообществу в нынешнем Китае обстоит очень и очень плохо. Если коротко и ёмко сформулировать политику властей к этим и всем остальным темам связанных с сексом, то мы получим классическую советскую формулу «В СССР секса нет». Вот именно такую политику и проводит сегодняшний Китай. Примечательно, что и Россия проводит похожую политику в отношении всего, что связано с сексуальной темой. Я не понимаю, почему диктатура так стремиться запретит всё, что связано с эротикой, сексом и порнографией. И ведь это очевидно двуличная политика, когда богатым людям дозволено всё, а простым – запреты и преследования. Однако как пишет автор, рано или поздно Китай всё равно проведёт либерализацию этой области, но сегодняшнее упорство властей не только идёт во вред обществу, но и показывает самодурство его руководителей.


Overall, the book is not bad, but it feels very much like a typical men's magazine. So it cannot be said that "Behind the Red Door: Sex in China" is an in-depth and comprehensive study, but for the reader who knows nothing at all about the sexual life of China, as a first introduction to this topic, this book is quite suitable. "Behind the Red Door: Sex in China" is a fairly easy read, but more importantly, the book covers the time period from ancient China, i.e., Imperial China to the present day.

So, the book deals with all topics that are somehow related to sex from pornography, the position of women in Chinese society, and prostitution to the current situation of censorship of pornographic materials on the Internet and repression of the LGBT community. What is not in this book are the sexual practices directly, i.e., the Chinese version of the Kama Sutra. In general, the situation with sex, sexuality, and pornography in China is easily described by the formula “ultra-liberal attitude on the part of the government, which was soon replaced by ultra censorship on the part of the government”. It's kind of funny how, first, a society creates great pornographic literary works, and then, all these works were persecuted and destroyed, and for many centuries the topic related to sex and sexuality was tabooed by the state. I didn't quite understand why the Chinese state was so eager to suppress the sexual sphere in Chinese society, but that's the way it was in ancient times, and that's the way it is today, in today's “communist” China.

It was not until the Qing Dynasty that the government went into an anti-erotica frenzy and banned about 150 books. Censorship became routine, although it went back and forth; plenty of sexually graphic works of literature were written under the Qing.
Throughout most of the twentieth century the Chinese government’s attitude toward pornography and “obscene” material saw little change. The Chinese Communist Party banned all pornography and erotic fiction as soon as it came to power in 1949. Anyone caught producing, distributing or buying books, photographs, magazines or any other material deemed obscene by the government faced serious penalties, including imprisonment. Any work of art that contained sexually graphic images was considered pornography. Just as he did with prostitution, Mao effectively wiped out all visible signs of erotica.

Things are no better in the area of prostitution. Although prostitution in ancient China was considered an “unavoidable evil”, as the author writes, with the advent of Christianity and the practice of the Chinese authorities to ban everything related to eroticism and pornography (sexual themes in general), prostitution was persecuted. However, at all times, the rich, and especially those with power, have found a way to make exceptions for people like them. In other words, prostitution, even when it was under prohibition and repression, never completely disappeared. You could say that it was always a question of money and power. This seems to me to be a hypocritical situation. The book gives examples of public actions on the part of the current state to prosecute prostitution, but as I understood from the book, these are PR actions rather than a real attempt to fight prostitution. As I understood it, fighting prostitution is a rather useless endeavor because society itself has a different view of this “social evil”.

And while the Chinese outlook on sex has changed dramatically over the past 3,000 years, from extreme open-mindedness under the Tang and Han dynasties to outright prudishness under the Qing, the Chinese people’s attitude toward prostitution has remained remarkably unchanged; ever practical, the Chinese people tend to tolerate prostitution even if they disapprove, as they understand it is not going to go away.
Public opinion in China is never monolithic. Some feminist groups today advocate the stamping out of all forms of prostitution, while other groups are demanding its complete legalization.
<…>
China’s transformation from a controlled economy to a market economy ensured a resurgence of prostitution. Suddenly everything was for sale, commoditized, and women, like everyone else, followed the money. Once again, prostitution in China became a tiered, hierarchical industry, with women playing the role of hired wives, escorts, streetwalkers and brothel workers, each serving clients of different social rank. Traditionally women became sex workers because they were jobless and uneducated, but in post-Mao China many turned to prostitution because they simply had no alternative and needed livelihood.

However, for Chinese society, it is not the state's fight against erotica, pornography, and prostitution that is the main problem, but the policy of “one family, one child,” where that child is preferably a boy. The problem today is that there are more men than women, for in the mid-twentieth century, the prevailing societal view was that it was better for a family to have a boy than a girl. This was partly due to a rather patriarchal society but also to the fact that there were almost discriminatory laws against women. Here is what the author writes about how rape was seen through the prism of the society of that time (and maybe even today):

And yet China still displays a double standard for women in cases of rape. Traditional Chinese culture holds that the woman bears responsibility for an act of rape, and even today many Chinese tend to believe if a woman is raped she must have brought it on herself, either by walking alone late at night, visiting a man’s home, drinking alcohol, sexually teasing the man or dressing in an enticing manner. A woman who is raped is considered “damaged goods” and is stigmatized even within her own family.

Not a very fair position for women, is it? But the situation may be even worse precisely because of the current imbalance in today's China between the number of women and the number of men, which has led to the practice of, in effect, wife trafficking. It may not be literally wife trafficking, but it's very similar.

Men who cannot find brides due to the short supply of women turn to traffickers to provide a woman for marriage. To meet their sexual needs, China has also become a major destination for the import of kidnapped women. According to a 2010 report from the U.S. State Department, “Women and children from neighboring countries including Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Russia and North Korea, and from locations as far as Romania and Zimbabwe are trafficked to China for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.

As one can guess, the situation with sex education, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and openness to the LGBT community in China today is very, very bad. If we briefly and succinctly formulate the policy of the authorities towards these and all other topics related to sex, we will get the classic Soviet formula “There is no sex in the USSR”. This is the policy that China is pursuing today. It is noteworthy that Russia also pursues a similar policy with regard to everything related to sexual themes. I don't understand why a dictatorship would be so eager to ban everything related to erotica, sex, and pornography. After all, it's obviously a duplicitous policy to allow the rich people everything while the common people get the bans and the persecution. However, as the author writes, sooner or later, China will liberalize this area, but the current stubbornness of the authorities not only harms society but also shows the foolishness of its leaders.

[Kimfu]

Good book! I learned a lot. It's a little dated, but that's not the book's problem. I should have read it earlier. It would be interesting for Burger to write an update, now that the One-Child Policy has turned into the Two-Child Policy. Still, the problems that the One-Child Policy has created are still there, and will continue to be there for generations to come! When sexism meets overpopulation, the only result can be tragedy.

二零一八年： 第二十二本书

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book to providing several interesting insights into modern Chinese culture and its attitudes towards sex. I was mildly disappointed to note the books length, which comes in at a rather meager 190 pages (or so; I was reading on my NOOK, page numbers may vary on other devices). To speak honestly, while the book presented insights on Chinese sex culture (or I suppose the much until recently lack thereof), I felt that I had essentially paid to read what could just as easily been published as a multi-part article on the internet.

Additionally, while this is a very new book, the material it covers will soon become dated in the years to come. It's a snapshot of the current developments in Chinese culture in the modern day, but 3 to 5 years from now, the references it makes to certain blogs and bloggers will hold little relevance. Such is mostly irrelevant, I suppose, for one to enjoy the book at the current moment.

Do I recommend it? Sure. But rent it if you can find the opportunity to do so. Planking down the cash to read material of a rather time-sensitive matter is of a more questionable concept.

[Stacy Holmstedt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read on what happens to human sexuality when there's a surplus of men and an emphasis on harmony above everything else, Burger's exploration reveals a spectrum of beliefs and practices ranging from the perceived mystical powers of bodily fluids, to neo-Con (that's neo-Confucianism) repression, to colorful characters such as Muzimei, whose sexy blog posts (and podcasts) crashed servers with their popularity and raised sweat on the brows of stability-obsessed officials (Did you know there are 30,000 police employed to censor China's Internet?) Burger's China is clearly at crossroads between a desire for the perception of purity vs. a society that not only manufactures the world's sensual toys, but consumes a large amount of them. Being American, I kept thinking that our cultures are more similar than we might think.

[Lindsay D · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some interesting tidbits but it's mostly poorly organized and full of platitudes. I thought a book on this rich topic would be much more progressive and thought-provoking. I also take issue with the fact that in the chapter on prostitution the author went on and on for 50 pages (or so, i don't know, I read it in ebook form) basically glorifying the practice, and only paid lip service to trafficking and prostitution's dark side for 3 pages at the end.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting exploration of evolving sexual mores in China. I was intrigued after being regularly propositioned by sex workers in China. The author accurately describes the inconsistency of law enforcement. It is very interesting when there is context. The section on homosexuality in China was fairly loaded with editorializing, however not too distracting. It is a reality. If you are a victim of "Sino-philia " then you will find this book very informative.

[Thomas Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

The key issues: "The gender imbalance poses the most immediate threat to the sex lives of millions of Chinese" , ". . . many Chinese remain sexually inhibited, especially those outside of the international cities", and No matter how much more freedom there is in China today, the government still draws the lines in the sand. . . China's leaders have loosened the reins, but they still hold the reins." Change will be slow to come! Well researched. Interesting, considering the topic.

[Alcibiades · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are Chinese, especially mainland chinese, this is a book you have to read.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat interesting.

[Marcus Solberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting if you want to understand Chinese culture, especially when it comes to the current, as well as historical, view on sex.

[Francine Mireles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read! Highly recommend to anyone interested in China.

[Josine van Heek]

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