are also full of images referring to various sexual positions:
– unfurling silk
– the curled-up dragon
– the union of kingfishers
– fluttering butterflies
– bamboo stalks at the altar
– the pair of dancing phoenixes
– the galloping tournament horse
– the leap of the white tiger
– cat and mouse in the same hole
Box Featuring Erotic Images
Painted on glass
In Chinese aesthetics, nothing is ever named directly and without beating about the bush. Instead, things are referred to obliquely, and any transgression of this tradition is considered vulgar. Even the European notion of ‘eroticism’ would be too direct. They would prefer to substitute the term ‘the idea of spring’.
Chinese Porcelain Tile
19th century
Physical love is praised without pretence but also without vulgarity in the verses of a popular Chinese song:
The window open in the light of an autumn moon,
The candle snuffed out, the silk tunic undone,
Her body swims in the scent of the tuberoses.
Mural displayed in sections
In the erotic images of paintings on silk or porcelain, wood engravings or illustrations, sexuality is never shown in its crude state or in a pornographic manner, but always in a context of beauty and harmony.
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Symbolic, meaningful details enrich these illustrations, evoking the tenderness which occupies a favoured place in Chinese iconography. Nevertheless, these details are difficult for Europeans to decipher: the cold and impassive faces of the lovers are a long way from our idea of a blaze of passion.
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Thus it is that one of the most fertile and ancient cultures in the world invites us, through its religious practices, to make love. Taoist manuals advocate the technique of holding back from ejaculation, a truly prodigious invention which allows the man to satisfy the woman.
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By doing this, a subtle alchemy is achieved: the man receives Yin from the woman, who obtains from him the pure essence of Yang. For this reason, coitus reservatus is considered in Taoism and Tantrism to be the most subtle form of sexual union, because it allows the crossing of the divide between masculine and feminine energy.
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The creation of a new life is not the principal aim of the sexual act. It is more to do with an identification with cosmic forces than with the forces of life.
The ‘theory of juices’ holds that sperm passes through the spinal column directly to the brain.
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During the 17th and 18th century, European medicine laboured under the same misapprehension. How painful it must have been to be a young boy masturbating and believing that doing so would lead to a degeneration of the spinal chord and a drying-out of the brain!
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Whilst ejaculation provides a mere instant of pleasure which is very swiftly lost and finishes in the relaxation of the entire body, a buzzing in the ears, tiredness of the eyes, and a dry throat, coitus reservatus or coitus interruptus provokes a growth in vitality and an improvement in all the senses.
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Among the best-known manuals are those of Sou Nu King and Sou Nu Fang, which, among other things, recount how the legendary Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti (2697–2599 BCE, according to traditional historical reckoning) used experienced women to teach him about the art of love-making.
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In The Treaties of the Bedroom there is a conversation between the Emperor and one of his mistresses, a simple young girl:
The Yellow Emperor asks the simple young girl, ‘My spirit is listless and lacking in substance; I live constantly in fear and my heart is full of sadness. What can I do to cure myself?’
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The young girl replies quite simply, ‘All human weaknesses come from an unhappy union of bodies during the sexual act. As water wins in the fight against fire, so woman gains in the fight against man. Those who are skilled in pleasure are like good cooks who know which five spices to add to a soup.
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Those who understand the art of Yin and Yang can unite the five modes of pleasure; those who do not know this die before reaching the age of maturity and without having had the slightest pleasure from sex. Should one not forestall this danger?’
And in another lesson in the same work, Huang-ti asked, ‘What does one gain from practising sex according to the path of Yin and Yang?’
Painting from a 12-page album
19th century
Paper, 27 × 32 cm
‘For man, sex makes his energies surge – for woman, it serves as protection against sickness.
