Sex in china: studies in sexology in chinese culture

217 Pages·2013·21.881 MB·English

by  Ruan, Fang Fu

Sex in China
Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture
PERSPECTIVES IN SEXUALITY
Behavior, Research, and Therapy
Series Editor: RICHARD GREEN
University of California at Los Angeles
THE CHANGING DEFINillON OF MASCULINITY
Clyde W. Franklin, II
GENDER DYSPHORIA: Development, Research, Management
Edited by Betty W. Steiner
HANDBOOK OF SEX THERAPY
Edited by Joseph LoPiccolo and Leslie LoPiccolo
IMPOTENCE: Physiological, Psychological, Surgical Diagnosis
and Treatment
Corm Wagner and Richard Green
NEW DIRECTIONS IN SEX RESEARCH
Edited by Eli A. Rubinstein, Richard Green, and Edward Brecher
THE PREVENTION OF SEXUAL DISORDERS: Issues and Approaches
Edited by C. Brandon Qualls, John P. Wincze, and David H. Barlow
PROGRESS IN SEXOLOGY
Edited by Robert Gemme and Connie Christine Wheeler
SEX EDUCATION IN THE EIGHTIES: The Challenge of Healthy
Sexual Evolution
Edited by Lorna Brown
SEX IN CHINA: Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture
Fang Fu Ruan
THEORIES OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
Edited by James H. Geer and William T. O'Donohue
TRANSVESTITES AND TRANSSEXUALS: Toward a Theory of
Cross-Gender Behavior
Richard F. Docter
Sex in China
Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture
Fang Fu Ruan
The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality
San Francisco, California
With the editorial collaboration of
Molleen Matsumura
A/in Foundation Institute
Berkeley, California
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-1n-Publ1cat1on Data
Ruan, Fang-fu.
Sex in China : studies in sexology in Chinese culture 1 Fang Fu
Ruan with the collaboration of Molleen Matsumura.
p. cm. -- <Perspectives in sexuality>
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4899-0611-3 ISBN 978-1-4899-0609-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-0609-0
1. Sexology--China. I. Matsumura, Molleen. II. Title.
III. Seri es.
H060.J83 1991
306" .0951--dc20 91-23139
CIP
ISBN 978-1-4899-0611-3
© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1991
AII rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
Series Editor's Comment
Less than a year before the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, I
lectured on human sexuality at Peking Union Medical College. I
described my research on the nonsexual behaviors of young boys that
predicted later homosexuality. I asked the physicians in the audience
whether comparable childhood behaviors were found among Chinese
boys. I was told that there are no homosexuals in China. How ex
ceptional, if true. Clearly, there was a need for a candid account of sex
in China.
I invited Professor Ruan to write this book when we first met. The
scope of his scholarship and personal experience is exceptional.
China is a nation with a meticulously recorded sexual past, a culture
where ancient values confront contemporary politics.
China is a nation of erotic paradox:
Centuries ago, sexuality was glorified-it was life enhancing, even
granting immortality. Today' s political climate is one of sexual repression.
Vivid portrayals of the sexual paraphilias were recorded hundreds
of years ago. Today, China shuts down 42 publishers of erotic materials
and seizes over 100,000 "pornographic" books in a single city. In a nation
that celebrated erotic art, the death penalty awaits modem "traffickers
in pornography."
This is a country where social dancing is restricted, but 80 percent
of the people approve of premarital sex. A wedding night instructional
manual has a first printing of four million copies.
For sexologists, China teaches the history of human sexuality
over two millennia. Here is the full range of sexual expression, em-
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bedded in the contexts of changing politics and ancient and modem
religion.
A quarter of the world lives here.
With Professor Ruan' s work, Westerners need no longer have a blind
spot in their view of Eastern sexuality.
RICHARD GREEN
Foreword
China today is sexually (and in many other ways) a very repressive so
ciety, yet ancient China was very different. Some of the earliest surviving
literature of China is devoted to discussions of sexual topics, and the
sexual implications of the Ym and Yang theories common in ancient China
continue to influence Tantric and esoteric sexual practices today far dis
tant from their Chinese origins.
In recent years, a number of books have been written exploring the
history of sexual practices and ideas in China, but most have ended the
discussion with ancient China and have not continued up to the present
time. Fang Fu Ruan first surveys the ancient assumptions and beliefs,
then carries the story to present-day China with brief descriptions of
homosexuality, lesbianism, transvestism, transsexualism, and prostitution,
and ends with a chapter on changing attitudes toward sex in China today.
Dr. Ruan is well qualified to give such an overview. Until he left
China in the 1980s, he was a leader in attempting to change the repressive
attitudes of the government toward human sexuality. He wrote a best
selling book on sex in China, and had written to and corresponded with
a number of people in China who considered him as confidant and ad
visor about their sex problems. A physician and medical historian, Dr.
Ruan's doctoral dissertation was a study of the history of sex in China.
What appears most evident is just how complicated a topic sex can
be. Though sex is a biological function, the expression of sexuality is
influenced by psychological, sociological, cultural, and historical factors.
Chinese attitudes toward sex have never been quite the same as Western
ones. It is also evident that repression of and hostility to sex-as has
existed at various times in China, most recently under the Maoist gov-
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ernment-can drive discussion of sex undaground, but even undaground
there remains a great hunger for information about sex. Though such
repression and its sequelae in lack of public discussion makes infor
mation about sex practices more difficult for the historian to ferret out,
it seems dear that repression never eliminated homosexuality, prostitu
tion, transvestism, or any other of the expressions of sexuality known to
Western sexologists. Perhaps when China again becomes somewhat more
open in the discussion of sexuality, the Chinese will be able to turn to
Dr. Ruan's book for information about sexuality, not only in their ancient
past, but also in the period of the 1970s and 1980s, where his knowledge
is based on his own personal investigations.
In sum, Sex in China is a welcome contribution to the sexological
literature.
VERN L. BULLOUGH
Amherst, New York
Preface
Though more than ten years have passed since China officially opened
its doors to the Western world, this giant nation, with its population
numbering in the billions, remains a land of mystery. Perhaps the deepest
mysteries are those concerning sexual emotions and practices--forbidden
territory to the Chinese themselves.
For the first 4,000 years of Chinese history, the prevailing Ym-Yang
philosophy was the basis of open and positive attitudes toward human
sexuality and a correspondingly rich sexological and erotic literature.
However, the most recent 1,000 years of China's history have been char
acterized by repression and censorship which make the researcher's task
extremely difficult. "Respectable" scholars dared not address the topic
of sex; all materials relating to sex, including ancient medical classics,
vibrant fiction, and wonderful paintings, were censored and destroyed.
Even the religiously motivated sexual treatises of the Taoists were almost
completely lost. The situation in contemporary China is even worse. With
the exception of a few government publications, materials concerning
sexuality are strictly forbidden; in the worst case, an individual convicted
of production of "pornography" may be sentenced to death.
Sex in China is an attempt to overcome these obstacles in order to
provide the reader with a survey of sexual life in China from 3,000 years
ago to the present. A strictly chronological presentation is unnecessarily
restrictive. Instead, I have traced the history of a number of areas of
sexological interest, including sexual philosophy, classical sexological lit
erature, Taoist sexual myths and techniques, erotic fiction, prostitution,
male and female homosexuality, transvestism, transsexualism, and polit
ical regulation of sexuality and sexual rights. In treating each of these
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