Sex, Science and Morality in China

Marriage manuals

The science of sex

Thousands of titles promote the science of sex that will keep couples satisfied and happy with their marriage.

Age/frequency tables show readers how often to have intercourse. Women are encouraged to overcome their ‘feudal consciousness,’ say ‘no’ less often and harmonise with the more demanding male drive.

There are instructions for cleansing the body and sanitising the room before physical contact. Men are told how to conduct foreplay on their wife, for how many minutes, and how to read for signs of interest.

Positions are set out like a handbook on semaphore, and intercourse is choreographed with simultaneous orgasm presented as the greatest of marital glues.

Marriage manuals are full of the clinician’s abstractions and the statistician’s precision, far removed from individual difference and personal preference, and worlds away from the over-crowded, over-worked, displaced lives of so many Chinese today.

Read an overview from the 'abnormality' chapter