Sexual Behavior in China

Fang Fu Ruan's fascinating book Sex in China is a history of sexual behavior in the world's largest nation during the past 3,000 years. As Ruan demonstrates in the historical data he has compiled, sexual liberty, rather than repression, was usually the rule in China for the first 2,000 years of recorded history. Yet, for the past 1,000 years, since the Sung Dynasty (960-1279), the repression of sexuality increasingly became the norm. In the last half of the twentieth century, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), this repression has reached its highest pitch. Prior to the centuries of repression, however, the Chinese made the broadest and most practical of contributions to sexology of almost any nation in the world. It is Ruan's hope that these ancient texts will prove to be helpful to the Chinese people once again. But, in the meantime, he studies the contrasts between the openness of the distant past and the severe repression of the present day. Ruan offers, however, few speculation as to why this change took place. Governmental reforms that were broadly repressive seem to have sparked waves of sexual repression that endured, and Ruan offers a few incidental historical clues to the change. But, in general terms, he offers no theoretical explanation of why China went from such great sexual liberty to such severe repression in the course of its history. Clearly such an approach would require a book of far greater scope that Ruan's--an understanding of

Related Essays

The Legal Situation of Gays & Lesbians .... After that, homosexuality did not officially exist in China. .... Sexual behavior and sexual identity are involved in this movement as well, for different ethnic .... (4149 17 )

Sexual violence against Women .... the Japanese learned in Korea and China during the .... are responsible for such barbaric behavior in so .... studies to fully explain wartime sexual violence against .... (1253 5 )

Sexual violence against women in Wartime .... the Japanese learned in Korea and China during the .... are responsible for such barbaric behavior in so .... studies to fully explain wartime sexual violence against .... (1253 5 )

Adolescence and Sexual Attitudes .... of students at a senior high school in Weifang City in China found that .... A study of sexual behavior among college students in Hong Kong found that the mean age .... (9388 38 )

Femininity in Late Imperial China .... aristocratic] standard of familial and sexual morality to .... with respect to social status, roles, and behavior. .... During Late Imperial China a paradigm shift in .... (1626 7 )

nd other Yin and Yang divisions. And the general approach to the treatment of disease is dictated accordingly. As the Nei Jing says, for example, "a cold disease should be heated up, a hot disease should be cooled down . . . a dry disease should be lubricated, an acute disease should be slowed down . . ." (13). This dichotomous approach to the principle of balance is the overriding belief that, no matter whether Confucianism, Taoism, or Buddhism prevails, informs all thought and attitudes in China. Confucianism was an ordering doctrine that established a basis for the scholarly bureaucracies that administered China for many dynasties. It was a doctrine that accepted sexuality as natural, but also saw the basic union of man and women as heads of family as a key unit in the social order--which was valued quite highly by Confucianists. Buddhism placed a premium on sexual purity as apart of its priests' and nuns' lives. But there were branches of Buddhism that took an almost religious view of sexual practices of various types, and Buddhists generally held a positive view of sexuality. Taoism, however, was the philosophical and religious doctrine that viewed sexuality in the most positive light. Religious Taoism held, for ex

Category: Psychology - S