Taboo and Indulgence (A Cultural Study of Ming and Qing Erotic Novels)

Author: Li Mingjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: In the era of prosperity of Ming and Qing erotic novels, heaven's will gave way to conscience, and human's basic survival desires were affirmed as never before, laying the foundation for the formation of new sexual concepts and heralding the arrival of a truly liberated age of thought. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, hedonism flourished, with indulgence in sensual pleasures, "prostitutes scattered across the land," scholars associating with courtesans becoming fashionable, erotic art albums popularizing in society, and bedroom techniques becoming a topic of discussion. Worldly indulgence constructed a distorted world of desires. The motivations behind the creation of erotic novels were either to cater to the secular, to express the joys of life, or more often, to vent irrational desires, even treating the drifting in the sea of desire as the scholars' romantic life. The world of The Golden Lotus is a world of desires devoid of emotions, The Biography of the Happy Vessel reveals historical truths through male and female sexuality, The Flesh Cauldron uses sexual adventures as a vehicle to contemplate the Dao, and The Book of Deliberate Fantasy is a masterpiece of erotic novels.