Daughter spring pictures
"Spring palace pictures," meaning erotic art, refers to drawings and paintings depicting men and women engaged in sexual activity, and all kinds of positions for sexual intercourse. They were usually mounted as horizontal hand scrolls or bound into albums.
"Spring palace pictures" first originated in the palaces of the Han emperors. Later they became an instrument of sex education. When girls married, their parents would not forget to place a few erotic pictures in the bottom of their trousseau chests for reference on the wedding night. Thus erotic pictures also came to be known as "chest-bottom pictures."
Chan Hing-ho observes that according to descriptions in literary works of the Ming and Qing, erotic pictures were sold quite openly during those dynasties. Chan says, "Outside Suzhou's temples they were sold in broad daylight along with New Year pictures."
In his A Back Window on Folk Customs, Yin Teng-kuo, a scholar of folk customs, also mentions that the village of Yangliuqing near Tianjin was famous for producing erotic prints, and these prints were all the work of women and girls of respectable families. Thus they acquired the flowery name of "daughter spring pictures."
The words which people of former times used to rationalize erotic art are very amusing. Salacious sex pictures were reputed to have the magical power to subdue ghosts and spirits and dispel evil. They were ascribed the ability to protect from evil and from fire. When the bashful god of fire saw a place of sexual activity he would turn away in embarrassment, so he would naturally also keep a respectful distance from any place hung with erotic art. Thus scholars could openly display pictures of the "secret game" (also called "fire-repelling pictures") in their studies.
Ceremonial arches to chastity
To go even further in commending chaste girls and virtuous women, the Qing dynasty instituted "ceremonial arches to chastity," and set up "halls of chastity" throughout the land as refuges for women of virtue.
The Qing dynasty was also particularly strict in its censorship of the printed word. Professor Wang Chiu-kui of the history department at National Tsing Hua University observes that at the accession of each Qing emperor, a list of forbidden books would be published. Books to do with love or relations between the sexes were all banned, and not one of the erotic novels of the Ming dynasty was ever allowed. Thus under the Qing, the amusing phenomenon appeared of many such books being published repeatedly under one different name after another.
The lessons of history
Since there has been life, there has been sex. From an age of worshipping sex and reproduction in total ignorance, our ancestors developed through times of promiscuity and communal marriage, and eventually to today's system of monogamous marriage. Throughout this process, human sexual attitudes swung between conflicting biological and social pressures.
Looking at the present in the light of history, we can see clearly that the more closely society controls individuals, the more sexual taboos and the more rigorous sexual prohibitions there are. But in periods of sexual repression, there is a correspondingly strong reaction.
As sexual attitudes have continuously developed, human beings have continuously searched for a point of balance. But what is important is that this point of balance should be arrived at naturally by the forces of supply and demand. It is not something that can be imposed by one person or group of people.
Self-appointed guardians of morality always feel that things are going from bad to worse, but looking back at the sexual culture of ancient China as a whole, we find to our surprise that the "good old days" of their imaginations in fact never existed. Many scholars believe that seen from a historical perspective, society is still advancing and becoming more and more humane. We should have confidence in society!
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The saying goes that "a real man has three wives and four concubines." I n ancient China, every man from the emperor and his generals and ministers right down to the ordinary people, wanted to be a "real man." (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)
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"Three-inch golden lotuses" were a mysterious and intimate part of ancient Chinese women's sexual attraction. For the man in the picture, fondling the woman's bound foot is highly stimulating. (courtesy of Golden Maple Publishing Co.)
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Sinologist Robert van Gulik wrote Sexual Life in Ancient China, the first book devoted to research into China's sexual culture. (photo by Cheng Yuan-ching)
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Van Gulik was intoxicated with Chinese culture. His research into sexuality in ancient China shattered people's stereotyped image of China as traditionally conservative in sexual matters. (rephotographed by Cheng Yuan-ching)
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"Spring palace pictures" were one of the tools of sex education used to guide newlyweds in ancient times. (courtesy of Golden Maple Publishing Co.)
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From the Song and Ming dynasties on, Chinese women lived eight or nine centuries in the shackles of a moral code which taught that "to starve to death is a trifling matter compared to being unchaste." (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)