Orgasm, indeed, means “little death”, because during an orgasm the barriers of the individual are broken down for a moment. To flee death… would that not mean, in this male-centred sexuality, fleeing union with woman? Does the fear of death really mean a fear of women’s power? Chastity can only be dangerous, but seeing the loss of sperm as the loss of the very substance of life is no less so.
If a young man neglects his sexual life, he will be haunted by phantoms which will rear up in his dreams in the form of seductive young women. If he gives in to them, they will suck out his vital energy. It is exactly on this point that Chinese and European traditions meet. In this dream, it is the unconscious which is reclaiming its rights. Thus, regular sexual relations are recommended.
In this sense, Chinese sexuality seems to be held hostage between two distinct fears: on the one side, there is the fear of losing one’s vital energy because of sexual abstention, and on the other is the fear of losing one’s vital energy by ejaculating.
Sharing, as we all, do the human condition, that is, having all been born of a mother and a father who, in one way or another, have been able to come to terms with the Oedipus complex, sexuality can only consist, even in China, of a mixture of pleasure and pain. It is exactly these elements that one must seek behind these endless affirmations of eternal harmony.
What, for example, is the significance of that fact that, in hundreds and hundreds of depictions of the sexual act claiming to offer a complete guide to all conceivable sexual positions, I have only found two or three images of cunnilingus? Was this position forbidden? In 1,000 erotic images, only three represent this theme. Isn’t that strange?
18. Wedding book illustrating love positions, 19th century. Japan.
Likewise, another theme can give us an insight into repressed fears: In all the images that we have seen, women wear their shoes, even if they are naked. Unshod feet are never shown. For the Chinese, these feet, enclosed in their embroidered shoes, represented the most sublime erotic quality, and small feet exerted a very specific charm over men which we find difficult to understand today. During the Ming period, the custom of foot-binding developed rapidly. Concubines, courtesans, and also simple, mainly peasant women, had their feet broken in childhood and then had them bound for the rest of their lives. Any refusal of this custom was considered shameful. When in 1644 an attempt was made to abolish the custom, the women of Manchuria practically revolted. Indeed, this sign of nobility was held particularly dear among the poorest elements of the population. The bound foot represented at the same time the most powerful taboo: if a woman allowed her foot to be touched without resisting too strongly, one could hope for anything from her.
This custom was finally abolished by Mao Tse-Tung in 1949. Some authors have posited the theory that this ‘walk of the golden lotuses’ tightened the vaginal muscles, but there is no medical proof to sustain the idea.
Etiemble suggests that the bound feet of Chinese women “has nothing to do with what was, and still is, the essence of Chinese eroticism: the theory of Yin and Yang, the coitus reservatus, the respect for the partner’s orgasm and the naturalness of feelings.” But perhaps we are seeking to separate things that are in fact connected. If one thinks about it – a clubfoot acquired through appalling pain, flattened ankles which sink into stockings filled with painful ulcers: this has nothing to do with Chinese eroticism. Is it not a symbolic castration of woman? A castration which found redress only in the woman’s toe, the phallic significance of which was swiftly identified?
And what about the treatment of the female body during the nineteenth century? Does trussing women up in wired corsets not have some connection with European eroticism? The female body, sadistically laced up and suffocated by handcuffs and belts: is that not a fundamental indication of man’s primal fear of woman?
It is clear that there persists a kind of ideology which glamourises Chinese sexuality but which is, however, nothing more than a misplaced sense of conscience. As Bougainville wrote in 1771, in his Voyage Around the World, as well as in other exotic accounts of the eighteenth century, people often remark that Chinese sexuality criticises our “fallen and decadent state” while hiding their own sexual conservatism and their outmoded morality.
Perhaps I, too, am nothing more than a desperately decadent European who will never be able to find the path to the noble art that is love.
19. Wedding book illustrating love positions, 19th century. Japan.
20. Images of Spring, coloured shunga, 18th century. Silk on card.
21. Images of Spring, coloured shunga, 18th century. Silk on card.
Between the Sublime and the Grotesque
Japanese Erotic Engravings
In contrast with classical Japanese art, books of Ukiyo-e woodcarvings show “images of a changing, ephemeral and perishable world.” We know them under the name shunga, which means “spring picture.”
The term “shunga” originally came from Buddhism and is associated with the idea of the painful vanity of all earthly things. Soon, however, its meaning changed as it gradually came to signify the joyful, carefree delights of everyday life, and a playful and unconcerned manner of abandoning oneself to the pleasures of the moment, of letting oneself go with the flow “like a pumpkin in the currents of a river.” Thus, for the most part the Ukiyo-e illustrate scenes between courtesans and actors and are set in a world full of pleasure. The shungas allow us a glimpse into a universe where the greedy enjoyment of life is paramount and the pleasures of carnal love play an important role.
Japanese woodcarving developed over a period of the two centuries from around 1670 to 1870. Utamaro, the undisputed master of colour wood-carving, was active for only three decades of this period, between 1770 and 1800. This also happened to be the golden age of the Ukiyo-e. In his book on Utamaro, Edmond de Goncourt explains the fascination of erotic woodcarving: ‘It is really worth studying the erotic paintings of the Japanese, if only because of the amazing pleasure to be had from their drawing, the impetuosity, the natural power of these sexual unions, or because of that uncontrollable desire to make love and push through the paper walls of the next room to do so. What a confusion of bodies, some entangled, some united, what greedy vigour in the arms which both attract and repulse the partner. Feet with curled toes fly through the air, long, deep embraces are exchanged. Eyes closed, eyelids downcast, their faces turned towards the ground, the women look almost as if they have fainted. And finally, look at the force and power with which the man’s penis is drawn!’
Often, these books and scrolls would form part of a marriage dowry and were supposed to serve as an introduction to the art of lovemaking. In the form of printed or painted scrolls, the shungas thus became family heirlooms. In noble families, they formed part of the sexual education of the young daughter who was destined to become an insatiable lover. They were, therefore, intended not only to awaken her sexual imagination but also to bring a particular visual pleasure to the person who contemplated them.
Many of these books were destined for Yoshiwara, the pleasure district in the flourishing city of Edo in the seventeenth century. During the Tokugawa period (1600–1853), the rich bourgeois of the big cities who had during a long period of peace managed to enrich themselves still further, were enjoying a period of extraordinarily hedonistic pleasure. Districts full of dubious hotels grew at an astonishing rate until they became the centre of community life. Guides to these “houses of ill repute” were written which described in minute detail the charms and defects of the most famous courtesans, not omitting to mention the girls’ prices, of course.
These “love guides” also contained information concerning the women’s characters: which of the concubines was particularly clever and innovative, who was loyal and who was sincere. Other books gave lists of intimate details, with advice about how to behave with the women and explained the sexual practices that were specific to each one. For connoisseurs, there was even information about where one could find rare and unusual pleasures.