About five thousand years ago, Chinese sages used the word Tao to symbolize the center, the absolute, God, the infinite power without beginning and ending. They said that the human language did not have the words needed to describe the greatness of Heaven.
The Taoist approach to life is fundamentally different from the Western one. While Westerners revere technology, Taoists appreciate nature. Western doctors, for example, use drugs and tools to treat their patients but Taoist physicians prefer to rely on ancient exercises and herbal medicines to achieve the same end, convinced that man has more in common with a plant or tree than with a scalpel or chemical substances. Western scientists have even put men into space while Taoists feel that a trip to the moon is less satisfying than a trip to a serene mountain peak.
By the same token, Taoist sexology reflects a concern about the natural principles of human sexual relations and so contains principles that might at first seem unconnected to the sexual theme. Nonetheless, since all methods of knowledge are but an assorted collection of concepts, in time even the strangest of Taoist principles will make sense to the reader.
The Three Questions of Emperor Chien Lung During the reign of Emperor Chien Lung (1711 BC 1799), the emperor would occasionally travel throughout the country incognito so he could hear the opinions of the people. While away from the palace, he was replaced by an individual who greatly resembled him and was able to convince others that the emperor was still at his post. Once outside the royal enclave, Chien Lung sought to understand people's customs, to learn about their thoughts and feelings, to detect official corruption, and to gauge the level of loyalty among his subjects.
One day, he and two of his ministers disguised themselves as commoners and went out into the streets of the capital to mingle with the people. Observing the passersby, the emperor pointed to a shirtless, muscular blacksmith forging iron, a strong young man pushing a heavily loaded cart, and a beautiful girl with very small bound feet who was sitting on the right shoulder of a tall man, being carried down the street. He then asked his companions, "Which of the three men is the strongest?" One of his ministers promptly answered, "Although the men are strong, the woman is strongest of all because she made the dragon (the emperor himself) turn his head twice to look at her."
Practical knowledge allows man to work, study, better his environment, produce his own food, and create tools and objects that enhance his standard of living. However, although man has accumulated much knowledge over the centuries and become civilized, his sexual urges are as strong as those of the beasts. Taoists seek to control these urges through the practice of sexology, a method designed to help people enjoy sexual intercourse by teaching them how to make love in a skilled and controlled manner.
Although Taoist sexology seems deceptively simple, it is best appreciated by those who study it in earnest, just as the beauty of a diamond in the rough is best appreciated by experienced jewelers.
Taoist sexology provides people with methods for remaining healthy and for enjoying the greatest pleasures of sexual intercourse. It explains, for example, that every man is born with a predetermined physical capacity for producing semen, the source of male vitality, and that his body cannot produce an endless amount of semen, regardless of how sexually active he is. Some men are able to produce gallons of semen in their lifetime but others produce much less.
After a man's ability to produce semen is exhausted due to old age or excessive sexual activity, his kidneys and liver become weak, his bone marrow shrivels, and he dies. Thus, if a man expends his sexual vitality prematurely, he will become impotent at an early age or fall sick, a fate that often befalls womanizers.
The essence of Taoist sexology is therefore simple: the more semen a man spends, the less Chi energy he will have left to protect his general health.
In regard to sexual positions, the principles by the Yellow Emperor's guide suggest that although people need only use one or two positions when making love, they can prevent boredom and enhance their enjoyment of the sexual act by using a greater variety of stances. In actuality there are 108 Chinese sexual positions but Taoist masters have discarded the difficult positions and those suited only for young and nimble bodies and combined the remaining ones into a set called the "Heaven and Earth Positions." Each position represents a special principle of health or pleasure that benefits practitioners.
Because each person differs in height and weight from others and has differently sized sexual organs, sexual positions also differ. For instance, positions in which a woman lies on her back allow the man to penetrate her more deeply while other positions allow only shallow penetration. Most women can easily reach a climax by engaging in a coordinated series of changing sexual positions with their partners. To derive the most pleasure from their lovemaking, a couple must ensure that they carry out the posture changes in a systematic and rhythmic fashion.
These are the four fundamental positions:
1. The Close Hug Position: The woman lies on her back with the man on top of her. This face to face, comfortable supine position is also called the "Normal Position." While in this position, the woman should follow the man's lead from start to finish, and the man lean forward so he can be more closely united with his partner. From this basic posture, the couple can shift to any other position.
2. Horn of the Unicorn Position, now known as Riding the Horse Position: From the first, or normal position, the woman moves up to sit astride the man. He then tightly clasps her waist or sides and directs her movements. When in this position, the man can maintain a full erection for a long time.
3. The Fish Displays Its Gills Position: The man positions himself behind the woman and enters her. He then draws her close to him and gently pushes her forward so that she ends up lying face down with her legs separated like a fish displaying its gills to the sun. If this posture is begun while the woman is on bent knees or standing, it is called "Making Fire Behind the Hill."
4. The Intimate Position, or Rolled Bedclothes: The lovers lie on their sides like logs, facing each other. Again, they move into this position from the first position in which the man is on top.
The desire to engage in sexual intercourse is instinctive. However, a man's natural sexual desire can be enhanced by the Taoist principles of sex. These principles teach a person how to remain healthy and strong after engaging in sexual intercourse, instead of becoming exhausted. While making love, a man naturally seeks to thrust and will only develop the ability to relax his mind by relying on a method. Once he has mastered this method, he will be able to end intercourse as soon as the woman has reached a climax and thus avoid having an unnecessary ejaculation that would exhaust him. Since women are sexually stronger than men, they can easily withstand the physical effects of eight orgasms while men can usually only sustain the effects of one. In sexual matters, only a man who knows the secrets of sex is able to skilfully blend the principles of Yin and Yang with the erotic pleasures of the flesh and feel great satisfaction without harming his health.
Cunning rulers who want to destroy their family roots send their sons to schools where they live in residence with other boys and soon develop a good understanding of male sexual anatomy and boys will be turned into homosexuals by other boys. Once this happens, the boys will remain focused on their sexual needs and lose all desire to obtain royal power, a power whose allure can be stronger than a parent's love for a child. In early China, these places were monasteries and border towns. In modern Europe, they are private schools. By taking this step, rulers retain their hold on power for as long as possible because a homosexual prince is like a castrated horse that looks normal but has lost its virility. Without his inherent virility, a gay prince will lack the audacity to take the throne by force and will meekly obey the ruler even if that person is a woman. He would rather live a "normal" life and pursue his own artistic and sexual endeavors than assume the responsibility of ruling the country.
People have long known about and studied sexual positions, first by studying erotic figurines and then picture books (the Chinese call them "fire-escape maps" because sexual desire is like fire). The invention of film has made things more exciting but people would still rather make love to a person than look at a picture. However, students of sexual methods feel that books and movies are useful because they can study the illustrations or images at leisure and discover the principles associated with each position before having to make love. Today some people still own Chinese paintings that depict traditional scenes on one side of the canvas and erotic activities on the reverse. At night they can turn the pictures over and enjoy the exquisite sexual scenes in private.
Notorious Western courtesans have bragged that they had to go all the way to the East to learn special sexual techniques in Chinese brothels. Surely they were jesting. Such techniques can be learned without having to leave home. Nonetheless, in both East and West, women are eager students of the "Bewitching Sexual Techniques." These Chinese techniques do not involve the use of sorcery but are just as effective. When a woman uses these techniques, a man becomes enchanted with her and no longer wants to have sex with any other woman. With these techniques, average girls can capture princes, salesgirls marry business tycoons, and homely women steal the handsome husbands of high-class wives. Women not familiar with the bewitching techniques risk losing their men to more skilled competitors.
It seems that success in the bedroom is tied to success in all other walks of life, so seducers pursue fame and fortune as avidly as they pursue women, setting out to conquer the world and never allowing others to block their advance. All great conquerors have been great lovers as well, thus the saying, "All heroes and great men love sex." Such men act as if the world belongs to them and instinctively know how to handle dangerous situations and beautiful women.
Men usually find a way to take advantage of women even when their intentions seem to be fair. Take marriage, for instance. This institution is good for men because a wife does not draw a salary, earn overtime, or ask for fringe benefits. She has to serve her husband and be nice to his relatives with little or no thanks from them. In some countries she does not even have the option of quitting her job. Of course, it can be argued that women marry because they want reliable husbands to protect, support, and stay with them forever but even women who marry rich men often end up living like hostages, trapped in struggles with their in-laws.
Sons are treasured because they work, defend the nation in wartime, and support their parents in old age. A mother always has great hopes for her son's future and wants him to become a lamp that will light her house. This is especially true in the Orient where girls leave home after marriage but boys remain behind to take care of their parents and the families' ancestral altars. Thus, in the old days, the written character for boy was synonymous with the character for lamp. Nonetheless, in the East or West, a clever woman can take control of a man's life and separate him from his parents, thus ensuring that he becomes a lamp in the house of others and benefits his wife and mother-in-law rather than his own mother. Once she has become intimate with her husband, she will discover his weaknesses and be able to keep him away from his family, becoming the most precious woman in his life. He will not allow her to be insulted even though he will tolerate insults made about his mother and brothers, allowing her to hit him even though he will not let himself be hit by his parents or strangers. A man so besotted with his wife believes he owes everything to her, not his mother, much like a stupid, punch-drunk boxer believes that he owes everything to his manager, not himself. He has become a puppet, a man as useless as a general who has surrendered to the enemy.
Experience tells us that wherever there are women there are bound to be men. This makes sex an easily marketed merchandise that attracts playboys, merchants, gigolos, and prostitutes. This is why the Chinese say that seekers of easy sex and money are "soldiers in the same trench."
Gigolos, hustlers, and prostitutes are birds of a feather who are always searching for customers. However, unlike playboys who lavish money and gifts on their conquests, gigolos and prostitutes demand to be paid for their services. These traffickers in human flesh love a pretty face but love money even more and so have developed a method to extract money from their victims. They first court them like all other suitors, but after they have seduced their prey, they display the sexual skill needed to gain complete control over their lovers. Since it is more difficult to make love skilfully than to command an army, gigolos and prostitutes who remain attentive to their clients become an indispensable part of their lives.
If there were schools for playboys, they would teach fundamental secrets such as the following:
Be discreet when having an affair in order to protect the woman;
Be gracious with women;
Be persistent and daring when pursuing them;
And most importantly, know when to accept defeat and give up on a relationship.
All men are monkey-like where their sexual desires are concerned, but a playboy is more eager than most and so is always on the lookout for women. Being intelligent, he knows where and how to find them and keeps a mental list of which types of women are easily seduced and which are not. Women who love to flirt and are easily seduced include actresses, musicians, the wives of old, impotent, or ugly men, divorcées, widows, poor women, and childish and foolish girls who like to talk. Those who are difficult to seduce include those who have a natural coldness toward men, those who love their husbands, the smart, and the very rich.
In sexual matters, those who want to seduce and conquer members of the opposite sex know that cunning is a much better weapon than force, so they often turn to the secret art of sorcery. The art of enchantment allows them to cast love spells that make their victims look up to them and to come running when they beckon in their direction. A man in love who discovers that his feelings are not reciprocated has only two options: he can forget his beloved, or use sorcery spells to make her become susceptible to his charms. If he chooses to use a spell, he has many to choose from. One such spell requires that he light a candle and pray for love on the eve of an important day of the year such as New Year's Eve, the first day of spring, or his love's birthday. When he next meets his love, he must take her head in his hands and kiss her, thus ensuring that she will fall under his spell and never leave him.
The saying, "As in war so in love," indicates that people must know strategy if they are to successfully face the dangers that surround sex. The struggle that men and women wage in bed allows them to use strategy to deal with an opponent, albeit in more pleasurable ways. And, when civilians cannot apply strategical principles on the battlefield, they can still rehearse them in the intimacy of the bedroom. The most important principle of strategy is that of "adapting to circumstances." This principle states that to win a battle, a person must adapt to the opponent's changes just as water conforms to the shape of the ground over which it flows, or he will perish at his adversary's hands. Sex is like a fight in which everything changes quickly, so an individual who wants to successfully handle the experience must not think emotionally or impulsively. After all, adapting means being able to profit from disaster, not being defeated by it.
When outnumbered by the enemy, a stubborn and simple-minded man will fight face to face in the open until he is killed. A smart man reacts differently: "If he is skilled, he pretends to be incapable; if he is close by, he pretends to be far away, and if he is far away, he pretends to be near by." When attacking a powerful opponent indirectly, one of the best tactics is to undermine his health with women sent to seduce and weaken him physically, or to give him a poisonous substance or venereal disease.
Unbeknownst to unreasonable Western priests, sex and religion are not fundamentally at odds with each other. In China, certain Buddhist temples contain murals that depict lovers in different sexual postures. Visitors who donate a few coins are allowed to study these murals. Moreover, although many prelates may now find this strange, Catholic priests from Italy and Spain brought this Chinese custom to the West during the Middle Ages and began to display erotic images in their own churches. There are still some churches in Spain where one can view these images. One such church, the "Santillana del Mar" in Cantabria, contains a stone image of a couple engaged in sexual activity, and there at least forty other Catholic churches in the locality that contain similar depictions. In these churches, visitors can see many stone statues, including those of phalluses, of women whose sexual parts are clearly visible, and of couples who are stimulating each other or having sexual intercourse.
A man can hone his perceptive skills by trying to determine the nature or occupation of every woman he sees on the street. Is she a wife, a student, an artist? Is she poor or rich? Does she have an important job? More importantly, does she look as though she would allow herself to be seduced? This practice sharpens his mind and enables him to correctly assess the character of prospective sex partners.
Every person transmits sensual energy that surrounds his or her body like an aura, just as the early morning sun creates a shimmering light as it rises above the horizon. Those who can feel this energy in others can instantly gauge a person's level of sexuality and availability.
The study of the five senses is part of sexology. Taoists recommend that a person remain alert and in control of his senses even when asleep or in bed with a partner, just as he would in a dangerous situation when he cannot see the threat with his own eyes.
There can be no love between high-class women and beggars, so it is not good to be without money. A poor man who imagines that he can have a close relationship with a rich woman is the proverbial "king of fools," and a poor fool never amounts to anything.
The principles of Chinese medicine that pertain to sex are priceless, especially those that teach a person how to maintain a healthy circulatory system and how to balance the hot and cold system in his body. When both systems are well balanced, a man will not suffer from impotence.
Chi energy is also called "internal power" because it develops inner strength without the help of drugs or stimulants. In Taoism, Chi Fa means "womb breathing." It is given this name because the male practitioner nurtures the growth of Chi in his lower abdomen as if it were a fetus in the womb. In time, this "immortal embryo" becomes a small ball in his lower abdomen, much like a fetus that is never born. In this process, the Yin and Yang essences mix together in his body and become one with it. The Chi of such an individual continues to grow until he dies, when it becomes the spirit that leaves his body to be reincarnated. This is the moment of transformation, when he is "born" into the other world. Anyone who has mastered Chi Fa can make the "embryo" move up and down at will and can be physically seen as it ascends and descends. Taoist sexologists say that a man who practices Chi Fa should be able to have an iron-hard erection, even when he is old. If his manly stem is not able to surge and leap ahead like an active snake, he may have a serious circulatory problem or some other illness. Aphrodisiacs can enhance a man's virility but they cannot create what is not there. If he is impotent or has weak sexual energy, aphrodisiacs will only worsen his condition. In this case, Chi Fa breathing is more beneficial.
Women say that a good lover does not need to have a large manhood as much as he needs to have staying power. Taoists also disregard the matter of physical endowment, saying, "Learn how to maintain a full erection during coitus and you will be able to satisfy every woman you meet regardless of your size."
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