Сексът в Древен Китай

Sinica Leidensia #57

by Robert van Gulik, Робърт ван Хюлик, Владимир Молев (преводач)

Традиционната представа за Индия като люлка на всички съвременни еротични умения вече е развенчана. Оказва се че в древността е имало и друг вдъхновител на модерните секс практики, при това далеч по-усъвършенстван от индуистките техники и от тантризма. Неоспоримо свидетелство за този факт е премиерното заглавие на "Труд" –"Сексът в Древен Китай" от добре познатия автор на поредицата "Китайски загадки" Робърт ван Хюлик. Хюлик е учен и дипломат, тънък познавач на Изтока и ненадминат разказвач, когато сложна материя трябва да се представи увлекателно и на достъпен език. Книгата му "Сексът в Древен Китай" е задълбочено изследване не само върху развоя на отношението към любовта, но и цялостен поглед върху историята, философията, обществения живот, религиите и бита на китаеца в продължение на 30 века – от 1500 г. пр. н. е. до 1650 г. след Христа. От този мащабен труд става ясно, че за китайците сексът не е елементарно проникване, а философия и медицина. Сексуалният акт е част от космическия ред. Еротиката не е самоцел, а отношение към света. Всичко в брачните покои е строго регламентирано и ако не се следва установеният ред, ще се създадат условия за природни катаклизми. Изданието на "Труд" е богато илюстрирано и допълнително онагледено. Луксозният том представлява уникален и най-пълен практически наръчник на азиатския вкус към любовта. Книгата на Хюлик обаче съвсем не е профанизирано четиво за самозадоволяване и не би удовлетворило аудиторията на телевизионния канал ХХL или читателите на в. "Чук-чук", "Секс-скандал" и "Казанова". Естетика е ключова дума в предлаганото издание, защото е предназначено за ценители, а не за потребители.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Sexuality, Anthropology, Domestic

354 pages

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Robert Hans van Gulik was a Dutch diplomat best known for his Judge Dee stories. His first published book, The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, was a translation of an eighteenth-century Chinese murder mystery by an unknown author; he went on to write new mysteries for Judge Dee, a character based on a historical figure from the seventh century. He also wrote academic books, mostly on Chinese history.

Reviews

[Hermes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cloud and Rain, before the Qing

Although Robert van Gulik/Gao Lo-pei/(高羅佩, was not a discoverer, I could not help thinking of the similarities with Richard Burton when I read this book. Both were highly literate polyglots and colourful products of the colonial age, who wanted to give back some of the history to the cultures they studied. Both also showed a great interest in sexuality. Where Richard Burton concentrated on India and the Arab world, Robert van Gulik’s main interest was China. Besides a set of detective novels that gave a vivid impression of ancient Chinese culture (and that were supposedly mandatory reading for American diplomats to China), Robert van Gulik also produced some academic works related to Chinese history.

This is Van Gulik’s best known academic work, which after 50 years is still often quoted. It covers a single theme across most of Chinese history, from the beginning until the fall of the Ming dynasty. From the earliest available sources, we see an interplay between Taoism and Confucianism, with Buddhism playing a secondary role. Although the Christian concept of sin was absent in Chinese culture, Confucianism tried to constrain sexuality (and women), as it considered it a threat to stability and order. Taoism on the other hand stressed the importance and power of human sexuality. With its mystical and alchemic nature, Taoism saw sexuality as the path to eternal life for men. Taoism’s philosophy is based upon the idea that the feminine (yin) and the masculine (yang) cannot do without the other. Although intercourse was often called a “battle”, various sexual positions could cure different diseases and vaginal fluids could greatly increase the strength of men, particularly if the woman enjoyed the congress also. The “cloud and rain” (云雨/ Yün Yü), as sex was called (cloud symbolising the womb and rain the semen), on auspicious moments and sex with lots of women was also considered greatly beneficial. Intercourse without ejaculation (“coïtus reservatus”) by using the left hand to pressure the area between the scrotum and the anus would nourish the ni-huan spot in the brain through the dorsal column of the spine, creating the Elixer of Life and consequently greatly increase the chance of a long life or even accomplish immortality. Strangely, this theory did not change much over time, although it seems easy enough to falsify. And although China became decidedly more prudish among the late Ming and the Qing, reminiscences of it exist in Chinese culture even today.

In between the Taoist fireworks, the author gives all sorts of details about (family) life among the scholarly classes throughout the various dynasties before the Qing. The book covers the hierarchy of wives and concubines (“a husband is heaven and cannot be shirked”, after all), the emphasis on a woman’s modesty, as well as expenses in upper class brothels and the quality of erotic paintings and novels, and the relationship with Tantrism.

Somewhat out of the blue, Van Gulik finishes his monograph with a paragraph on the resilience of Chinese people and their culture. Overseas policy makers may take note that its fundamental principles are static. The Chinese are utterly capable of renewal (or even temporary outside dominance), but it is always self renewal, "because of their supreme confidence in the strength of their blood and their number, and their conviction that in the end they will always conquer the conquerors, both in the material and spiritual field."

In general, the book is stronger on description than an interpretation, but in this case I did not find that a disadvantage (it also pays only limited attention to other sexual orientations than plain vanilla hetero sexuality, claiming that there was not much else). If your Latin is not as it probably should be, make sure you get a translated version, or the 2002 edition, where “all Latin has for the first time been translated into unambiguous English, thus making the full text widely available to an academic audience”. The era of polyglots like Van Gulik, who knew Dutch, Malay, Javanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin, Greek, French, German, English, Russian, Sanskrit, Blackfoot Indian, Tibetan, and Japanese, is clearly over.

[Juan Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book like for 5 dollars at a flea market. I had no expectations but as soon as I had read the first 30 pages I was completely engaged in the information there contained. This book is a very interning research on sexuality done by a Dutch diplomat who lived in China during the xx century. He made a huge effort to find information about the way Chinese people felt and view sexuality throughout their almost 3000 years of written history.
For someone interested not only in sexuality but also, and mostly, in philosophy, history and in China,this book is a must. If someone reads this review and can recommend similar books I would be grateful !

[Helmut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eine Frau kann ein Kaiserreich zum Einsturz bringen
Im heutigen China ist Sexualität ein Tabuthema. Man redet nicht darüber, und Pornografie ist verboten und wird auch im Internet hart zensiert. Dass das chinesische Verhältnis zur Sexualität nicht immer so zurückhaltend war, erkennt der Leser klassischer chinesischer Literatur sehr schnell, wenn er Werke wie das Jin Ping Mei, Der Goldherr besteigt den weissen Tiger oder, als berüchtigtstes erotisches Werk überhaupt, The Carnal Prayer Mat aufschlägt. Doch letztlich verwirren die Eindrücke, die man durch solche Werke einerseits und die späteren eher hochgeschlossenen Texte erhält - in diese Bresche springt Robert van Gulik mit seiner Studie.

Sehr interessant ist dabei vor allem die Gegenüberstellung der Sichtweisen auf Sexualität des Daoismus und des Konfuzianismus während der Han-Zeit. Van Gulik äußert die Vermutung, dass Daoismus ein ursprünglich maternalistisches Weltbild hatte, und dies sich unterschwellig über die Jahrhunderte fortgesetzt hat: Die Frau ist gleichwertiger Partner in der Sexualität, der Austausch des weiblichen Yin und des männlichen Yang ist für ein harmonisches Miteinander im Einklang mit der Natur erforderlich.

"(...) The ancient Chinese considered sexual intercourse, including the defloration of the bride, as acts ordained by nature and the sacred social order, and which did not expose those engaging in them to any particular dangers from the side of evil forces. On the contrary, abstention from the sexual act was viewed as involving grave risks of getting into the powers of the forces of darkness, including the possession by incubi." (S. 105)

Überraschend für mich, weil unerwartet: Die Gelben Turbane, die man vielleicht aus dem Roman Three Kingdoms kennt, scheinen diesbezüglich Extremdaoisten gewesen zu sein, die Massenorgien betrieben.
Doch es gab dabei auch egoistische Nutznießer, die "sexuellen Vampirismus" betrieben (ein sehr gelungener Ausdruck), und sich nur für das eigene Wohlergehen sorgten: Der immer wieder angesprochene coitus reservatus sollte schließlich dazu dienen, sich des weiblichen Yins zu bedienen und gleichzeitig das eigene Yang auch für sich zurückzuhalten.

Ganz anders im ethisch-moralischen Weltgefüge der Konfuzianer: Die Frau ist klar dem Manne untergeordnet. Ihre einzige Aufgabe besteht darin, ihm im Bett gefügig zu sein und Nachkommen zu produzieren, der einzige Grund, für den Verkehr mit Frauen, auch im weiten, sozialen Sinne, für Konfuzianer erlaubt ist; ansonsten sind die Geschlechter getrennt voneinander. "Lady Pans Vorschriften", eine in diesem Buch übersetzte Sammlung von erzkonfuzianistischen idealen Verhaltensweisen für eine Frau, macht dies deutlich:

"To be humble, yielding, respectful and reverential, to put herself after others; not to talk about her merits and not to argue about her faults; bear with reproach and to endure slights; always to act with circumspection - these qualities are those exemplifying woman's low and humble estate. (...) If one has a son one hopes he will become like a wolf, and fears he will become like a worm. If one has a daughter one hopes she will become like a mouse and fears she will become like a tigress." (S.98ff).

Ähnlich in der Yuan-Dynastie, in der die Misogynie der Neokonfuzianer auch aufgrund äußerer Einflüsse vollends ausbrach, in der Listen veröffentlicht wurden, mit denen man sein Karma buchhalten konnte - Frauen zu berühren, zu höflich zu ihnen zu sein oder gar sie zu loben wurde in diesen Listen mit Negativpunkten belegt (diese Vergehen standen in etwa auf gleicher Stufe wie die auch aufgeführten "burning another's house" und "exciting lustful thoughts in oneself"). Van Gulik kommentiert diese Einstellung Frauen gegenüber distanziert, aber mit einem Bände sprechenden Lakonismus: "(...) the man should not hinder his women in attaining to the virtue of humility." (S.249).

Die Sex-Handbücher der Han- und Tang-Dynastien enthielten auch Rezepte zur Unterstützung für die Adepten der "Kunst des Schlafzimmers", die dann sowohl Daoisten, als auch Konfuizianer, Buddhisten und Lamaisten nutzten, um sich langes Leben zu sichern:

Jou-tsung-jung (Boschniaka glabra): 3 grams
Hai-tsao (sea grass): 2 grams
Powderize and sieve. Mix with liver extract from a white dog killed during the first moon and thrice apply to the penis as ointment. Then wash off with fresh water taken from the well in the early morning. Guaranteed to lengthen the penis three inches. (S.134)

Nicht nur fürs Leben gilt also, dass Länge letztlich doch zählt. Ähnlich entsprechend auch ein Rezept fürs "shrinking a woman's vagina and curing frigidity during the act". Die Zeiten haben sich geändert, die Probleme nicht: Ich erhalte im Schnitt 3-4 mal die Woche Spam-Mail mit Werbung für moderne Präparate, die genau diese Effekte haben sollen.

Natürlich braucht es diese Unterstützung aber auch dringend, wenn man sich an die restlichen Vorschläge dieser "sex manuals" hält:

Harmonizing the blood circulation
The woman is made to lie on her side. She bends her right knee and extends her left leg. The man inserts his penis while supporting himself on the bed with his hands. He will stop after fifty-four thrusts. This method will promote the man's blood circulation and cure the woman's vaginal pains. To be applied six times daily during twenty days. (S.143f)

Wer sich perfekt gesund halten will, so ein anderer Vorschlag, schläft idealerweise pro Nacht mit 10 unterschiedlichen Frauen, aber mit coitus reservatus. Na, da hat man sich dann aber die Unsterblichkeit redlich verdient. Bei manchen dieser Vorschläge fragt man sich unwillkürlich, wie das logistisch und sozial abgewickelt werden sollte. Die Antwort ist einfach - im polygamen System des alten China war es für ein Mitglied der gehobenen Mittelklasse, also der Zielgruppe der Handbücher, nicht ungewöhnlich, sich 4 bis 10 Ehefrauen und/oder Konkubinen zu halten.

Dass ein solches System neben den Vorteilen auch gewichtige Nachteile hat, zeigt sich in einem anderen Aspekt der chinesischen Kultur, den zumindest in chinesischer Literatur allgegenwärtigen Singmädchen und Prostituierten. Ein Eindruck, den ich immer bei der Lektüre gewann, war, dass solche Damen, die meist nur in gehobener Gesellschaft zu finden waren, eher den japanischen Geishas ähnelten. Dazu findet sich auch ein sehr gelungener Abschnitt in diesem Buch, den ich zitieren möchte.

Next to social factors, as a matter of course also the satisfaction of carnal desire contributed to the continued flourishing of the institution of the courtezans, but there are strong reasons for assuming that this was a factor of secondary importance. In the first place, those who could afford cultivating relations with courtezans had to belong at least to the upper middle class, and hence had several women of their own at home. Since, as we have seen above, it was their duty to give those wives and concubines complete sexual satisfaction, it is hardly to be expected of a normal man that sexual need would urge him to intercourse with outside women. There was of course the desire for variety and for new experience, but this desire explains only occasional escapades, it does not supply sufficient motivation for nearly daily association with professional women. Glancing through the literature on this subject one receives the impression that next to the necessity of complying with an established social custom, men frequented the company of courtezans often as an escape from carnal love, a welcome relief from the often oppressive atmosphere of their own women's quarters and the compulsory sexual relations. In other words, the reason was the craving for unconstrained, friendly relations with women without any resulting sexual obligations. (S. 181)

Leider beginnt van Guliks Studie um so mehr an Begeisterungsfähigkeit zu verlieren, je mehr man sich der paradoxerweise an erotischer Literatur und Kunst viel reicheren Ming-Dynastie nähert - in diesem Kapitel besteht ein Großteil seiner Arbeit aus Inhaltszusammenfassungen und Bildbeschreibungen, die sich eher mäßig spannend lesen. Da im gleichen Maße wie die Literatur floriert aber auch die Neokonfuzianer Oberwasser gewinnen, und die Trennung der Geschlechter schließlich soweit geht, dass ein Arzt Frauen nicht mehr anschauen darf, sondern ihm nur noch anhand einer Elfenbeinminiatur demonstriert wird, wo die Frau ihre Schmerzen hat, sind wir vielleicht aber auch wirklich an einem Punkt angekommen, an dem nichts neues mehr hinzuzufügen ist, sondern im Gegenteil eine Stagnation oder sogar ein Rückschritt in der chinesischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Sexualität stattfindet.

Ein Buch, lesenswert für alle, die sich für China interessieren - denn es geht hier eben nicht nur um die körperlichen Aspekte des Sexuallebens, sondern auch um die sozialen. Gerade aus der Anschauung eines heutigen extremprüden China ist der Blick in die freiere Vergangenheit doppelt interessant.

Wichtig ist die Auswahl der Ausgabe - nur in der vorliegenden Ausgabe wurde van Guliks originale, teilexpurgierte Fassung, die die expliziten Stellen noch latinisierte, vollständig ins Englische übersetzt. Zusätzlich erhält man ein sehr lesenswertes Vorwort, und eine gelungene Präsentation mit dem Verkaufspreis angemessenem Qualitätspapier und -bindung.

[Rafa Santos · Rating 1 out of 5]

This score is on account of the treatment that this book dispenses to male homosexuality, which is poor and condescending, and at certain points even fraudulent. The author simply didn't want to describe the relationships that happened between men, so he just invented the fact that male homosexuality was rare among the Chinese and goes so far as to arrogantly "refute" on a footnote testimonies to the contrary provided by visitors to the country in previous times. This attitude contradicts much of the current scholarly production, for example, of professor Wu Cuncun, who, in a much more diligent analysis published in a 2004 as a book, Homoerotic Sensibilities in Late Imperial China, concludes just the opposite, that love and sex between males were as central to imperial Chinese society and culture as they had been in ancient Greece.

Wu herself comments on the homophobic bias of Van Gulik's exegesis. She says in page 17: "Robert van Gulik, who in his research on Chinese eroticism came across a wide variety of materials relating to homosexual practices, even went as far as to deny the prevalence of homosexuality in China. His motive for this seems to have been to protect China from what may have been perceived as a moral slur, for it is clear that he deliberately reinterpreted obvious examples of homoeroticism in heterosexual terms."

In note 65 of the Introduction, 186-187 of her book, she gives an example of borderline fraudulent conduct on Van Gulik's part: "In part 3 of this book (comprising the album Huaying jinzhen) there is a poem with an illustration (fourth in the series) of a man engaging in sexual intercourse with a young man (nianshao). All the allusions in the poem relate to male beauty and male homoeroticism. The title of the poem, ‘Hanlin feng’ (The academicians’ mode), was also a contemporary expression for anal intercourse. Although van Gulik indicated that these allusions related to male homosexuality, he insisted that the scene described a man enjoying anal intercourse with a girl."

As Donald Holzman notes in a 1964 review of the book (T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 51, Livr. 1, pp. 103-114), Van Gulik's arguments are based more on fancy than on fact - the author strives to draw a "utopic" picture of the sexual life of imperial China, and male homosexuality simply didn't fit into his fantasies. Oh, but at least 'hot lesbians' did.

There is nothing I can say about it that hasn't already been said by Donald Holzman, so I'll just copy here what he says on the subject:

This utopic attitude forces the author into many such contradictory situations. On p. 48 he says: "It may be added that while female homosexuality was widely spread, male homosexuality was rare in early times up to the Han dynasty. . ." He has already given us at least one example of pre-Han male homosexuality (p. 28), and none of female homosexuality. How can he possibly know that the latter was "widely spread" while the former was "rare" ? He ends his brief résumé of male homosexuality by saying that, although there were periods of homosexual fashionability (Han, early Six Dynasties and Northern Sung), "From then [Northern Sung] onward till the end of the Ming dynasty (I644 A.D.) male homosexuality was of not more frequent occurrence than in most other normal western civilizations". What can that strange "other" possibly mean? And do "normal western civilizations" include the Near East and North Africa? And, if they do, does this sentence mean anything at all ? The footnote attempts to deny foreign reports that male homosexuality and "pediastry" were rampant in nineteenth and early twentieth century China. It is obvious that for the author male homosexuality is somewhat less than utopic and does not fit in with his theories on the wholesomeness of Chinese sexuality, but it is equally as obvious that male homosexuality has always been widespread in China. Pederasty in particular is spoken of as something quite common in the accounts of emperors and in some later novels (Hung-lou meng and even as late as Pa Chin's Chia). The unknown ninth-century Arab traveller who wrote the work translated into French under the title Relation de la Chine et de l'Inde notes: "Les Chinois se livrent à la sodomie avec de jeunes esclaves établis à cet effet, qui jouent le rôle des prostituées des idoles" (J. Sauvaget, Paris, I948, p. 24). If an Arab thought it worthwhile to mention this detail, it must have been very striking indeed. The French translator, incidentally, adds in a note (p. 64): "Cet usage a subsisté jusqu'à nos jours: je me dispense d'indiquer les sources de documentation".

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sexual Life in Ancient China is quite an interesting read given that it was written in the 1950's when most existing literature on China was in the "orientalist" school, which was dominated by Western academics who argued about the meanings of words and were often quite conservative, chastising "the East" for being backward, non-Western, etc. Robert van Gulik certainly played into the then prevalent discourse of "orientalism" and gets quite racist at times. I found his ideology to be quite racist and reprehensible in many ways. Quite simply, these "Sinologists" who try to say that foot-binding wasn't oppression are misogynists in my mind. It was an interesting read of course. It was really the first book to ever discuss Chinese sexuality history in a not-entirely-vilifying way. Most of the time, he is analyzing imperial Chinese artworks and some sexuality texts, matters of obsession for him. It's an interesting narrative history of Chinese sexuality written in a captivating authoritative tone.

[Gouty · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent book, written by one of the great (if not the most esoteric) China scholars in the 20th century. I normally would give anything by R.H. Van Gulik a 5 star review, but the problem is that the edition of this book which I bought years and years ago in Tokyo is true to the first edition, in that all the "naughty bits" are in Latin.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there explicit sex scenes in this book, they are written in Latin, to keep the low minded types from reading them. I suspect you can read racier stuff in modern YA. There's also a large amount of information on woman's daily lives, noblewomen of the Tang were allowed out and about, to divorce their husbands and other freedoms that were lost during and after the Mongol invasion. There's also some on prostitution, both of the upper and lower classes. The author also postulates that pre-Shang China may have been a matriarchy, an interesting claim.

Sex was heavily tied up with medicine and alchemy, a healthy sex life was considered important. Also there were a fair number of sex guides published to help men keep their women happy. When you have multiples, things could get bad, since having an unruly family was a disgrace and may mean job loss. Clothes are discussed a bit, I'd like to see a good book on this subject. Footbinding started in the Yuan dynasty, sadly it brought and end to dancing, fencing, and other active interests pursued by women.

One last oddity, during the later periods, there were scorecards for sins with a number of points assigned to each sin. I wonder how many people kept track? This is a complex topic, written at a time when access to source materials was problematic. Many documents were recreated from Korean and Japanese sources. An interesting read that feels a bit out of date.

[Lubov Yakovleva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Великолепная книга.

В центре внимания – отношения мужчины и женщины в древнем и средневековом Китае.
Всё повествование строится на фоне "большой истории" – тектонических сдвигов в жизни китайского общества, связанных, в основном, с переменами династий и сменой идеологических систем.
Рассмотрено множество источников.
Рассуждения автора спокойные и взвешенные.

Было очень интересно читать эту книгу.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Интересно там, где про бытовую жизнь. Остальное скучно, хоть и про секс)

[Christine DeLozier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book was so fascinating! I am a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and I used some of the historical information in writing the chapter on TCM in my book, Diet for Great Sex.

[VIlle · Rating 4 out of 5]

治学细致

[Ruo Jia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valuable rare attempted-rigorous scholarship on the subject matter, nevertheless much leaning towards survey with word of mouth and mysticism.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent pioneering study of the courtship, romance, sexual relationships and women's destinies in Imperial China. Perhaps this volume would have benefitted from additional references regarding early (BCE) Chinese historical figures, set in the same format as for the litterary ones.