Learn about ancient sexual techniques

The Eastern Han Dynasty attached great importance to sex education

In the history of our country, formal records of sex education began in the Han Dynasty. In the fourth year of Jianchu in the Eastern Han Dynasty, that is, in 79 AD, the imperial court organized a nationwide symposium on Confucian classics, which was presided over by the emperor himself. The minutes of this meeting were later compiled and edited by Ban Gu into "Baihutong De Lun", or "Baihutong" for short. This was the official standard answer to Confucian classics at the time and had a great influence on later generations.

However, even such an official and extremely "orthodox" book attaches great importance to sexual issues. There is also a section in Baihutong that specifically discusses Biyong. "Biyong" was a kind of academy in ancient times, where male noble children learned various skills required to be a noble. The curriculum even included sex education. This was also a way for ancient dignitaries to learn about sex, and it was a sexual custom of their time.

Sex education is a compulsory course for children of the nobility

So, why should sex education be conducted in school and not at home? From the Baihutong, it seems that this issue was also raised at the imperial meeting. The Baihutong recorded it. The original text explained: "Why doesn't the father teach his son himself? It is a disrespect. Moreover, the way of teaching should explain in detail the changes of yin and yang, husband and wife, and it should not be taught by father and son to each other." It means that a father cannot teach his own son, which is disrespectful and not serious.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, sex education was made a compulsory course in schools for children of the nobility. This shows that people at that time had quite open-minded views on sex and attached great importance to studying sexual issues. Of course, from today's point of view, it is not necessarily true that sex education cannot be taught between father and son.

Sex education for the common people: using pornographic paintings as dowry

So, in ancient my country, did the general public have the custom of sex education? Of course they did. "Dowry painting" is one of them. The "dowry painting" is actually a scroll containing about 8 to 12 erotic paintings of different sexual intercourse methods. Due to the huge demand for it in society, it is mostly printed on woodblocks and has a strong local and folk flavor. Before their daughter gets married, parents often buy one or two rolls of "dowry paintings", put them in the dowry, and take them with their daughter to her husband's house. On the wedding night, the couple, who are often ignorant about sex, spread the "dowry paintings" on the bed and do the same.

The earliest record of "dowry paintings" can be found in the Han Dynasty, and many of them were discovered in the early years of the Republic of China, which shows that this object has existed for a long period of time in Chinese history. Zhang Heng, a writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty, once wrote "Song of the Same Voice", in which he describes the feelings of a man and a woman on their wedding night in the first person perspective of a woman. This poem was highly praised by later generations, who believed that it was "beautiful but not lewd", "has lofty sentiments", and "is a metaphor for the service of a minister to his king".

For three generations, women have been naked

There is a historical tradition that women do not wear underwear. Wang Xiaobo wrote in his "Hongfu's Night Escape": "The prostitutes on the streets of Luoyang were the most rude to Hongfu. They would turn around and lift up their skirts to show her their bare buttocks. After seeing these buttocks, Hongfu realized that these people did not wear underwear.

Not wearing underwear seems to highlight the buttocks, but those buttocks themselves are not good-looking. Then they turned around and said: Do you want to arrest me? Go back and ask how many times I have been to the palace!" Although there is no record that prostitutes in Luoyang did not wear underwear, it is not difficult to find that Wang Xiaobo's description is appropriate after examining the unofficial historical notes. But it is unknown whether they had the glorious deeds of "entering the palace several times". For three dynasties, women had no clothes on their lower body, and they did not wear open-crotch pants until the Han Dynasty.

"The bottom of the box" is also a sex education tool

In addition to the "dowry painting", there is another sex education tool in ancient China called "the bottom of the box". It is a kind of porcelain, some of which are smaller than a fist. Most of them are fruit-shaped, with a lid and a pair of men and women in copulation position inside. Usually, people put it at the bottom of the box to ward off evil spirits. Before her daughter gets married, the mother takes out the "bottom of the box", opens the lid and shows it to her daughter, so that she can experience the "way of husband and wife".

Singing folk songs also has a role in sex education

Of course, sex education in ancient times was by no means limited to "hint guidance". There were also some ancient sexology books available for reading, but they were not so popular. When a young girl gets married, her wet nurse, midwife, and younger sisters may teach her; sometimes the younger sisters will sing folk songs in front of the bride's window. These folk songs all have sexual content, and singing folk songs has a teasing element, but it also has the function of sexual enlightenment.