Stuart's Taste of the Orient

Modern China is an enigma to most of us in the West and we know little or nothing of the domestic lives of its people today.

But the most intimate details of life in ancient China have been preserved by the artists of the times and their record is fascinating and instructive.

Nowhere do we glimpse that unabashed world behind the silken curtain with such openness as in certain pictorial collections of the Ming Dynasty known as Brides Books (which are sampled here).

These charmingly painted pictures with their fresh colours constituted a treasury of very explicit models of sexual techniques for the young bride and groom to emulate.

In the sexual realm, as in other aspects of life, people were guided by the precepts of Taoism laid down by Lao Tsu in the sixth century B.C.

It was the physical analysis of the body in Taoism, which led to the development of acupuncture. So naturally, with its concern for the universal duality of female (yin) and male (yang) principles.

Taoism necessarily led to a thorough examination and codification of the physical relations between the sexes.

It was important that the sexual mores and techniques be properly taught and followed to maintain top physical health and achieve long life.

The frankness and unique perspective of Chinese sexuality leads many to believe that these erotic pictures, originally produced for the edification of young couples of the Ming period, can also serve a salutary purpose in the twentieth century.

It may for some be very helpful to see that another very wise and beautiful culture accepted a wide variety of erotic practises - indeed encouraged them - while our own culture has only begun to be more sexually honest.

This collection of beautiful prints offer provocative insights to illuminate certain facets of Chinese sexuality such as the practise of coitus reservatus, the primacy of the female orgasm, and the custom of female footbinding that was the obsession of the entire race for ten centuries.

The artwork in this collection is complemented by a selection of Chinese love poems, many of which were written as early as 100 A.D.

The first reference to erotic pictures used for the guidance of bride and groom occurs in a poem from about A.D. 100 - in this poem the bride, preparing for sexual intercourse, says:

Chinese erotic prints and paintings of the Ming period were largely the inspiration for the Japanese ukiyo-e pictures of the eighteenth century.

Chinese erotic art differs in many respects from that of Japan.

The first and most obvious difference lies in the fact that Chinese erotic art does not generally exaggerate the size of the genitals; if anything, it minimises or miniaturises them in those cases which do not depict them in their natural proportions.

Secondly, Chinese erotic pictures are "sweeter" and more romantic in mood than their Japanese counterparts, which often display an aggressive kind of sexuality.

Third, Chinese erotic pictures seem to be anatomically less accurate with regard to the drawing and proportions of the human body.

The upper parts of the body are frequently negligible, so that the male figures in Chinese erotica often seem feminized.

As a result, the Western observer sometimes finds it difficult to distinguish between the sexes.

Perhaps this deficiency in Chinese erotic art is due to the fact that the Chinese artists had less chance than his Japanese colleague to draw the human figure from direct observation.

Instead, he had to content himself with the so-called ti-pen or miniature models of the human figure in wood or ivory which themselves were not very accurate.

(If Westerners occasionally have similar difficulties with regard to Japanese erotic pictures, it is due primarily to the confusing similarity in classical Japanese hair styles for men and women, but hardly ever because the bodies show no definite sex differences.)

While both Japanese and Chinese erotic art frequently show scenes of sexual intercourse between one man and two, three or even more women, there is an essential difference in the concept underlying these pictures.

In the case of the Japanese, the women are courtesans and their assistants, while in Chinese erotica they represent the idea (or, perhaps, wishful fantasy) of the husband having simultaneous intercourse with his plural wives or concubines.