Today, the "Modern Love" column in the NYT seems to be about sex blogging.  A woman discovers that her twenty-something nanny has started a blog that talks about sex, bringing back for the older woman uncomfortable memories of, and comparisions with, her younger self.  The point here is not so much the sex itself, but how much we should reveal of our intimate selves, and what happens when we do. 

     So, let’s get the ancient Chinese guys together and talk about sex.

    Confucius, unsurprisingly, would not have much to say.  He seems rather scared of sex, worried that it might become a diversion from living the moral life.  Not that sex, for him, is immoral – it is obviously necessary – but getting caught up in it takes us away from fulfilling our social duties.  When discussing “noble-minded” men, he says: In youth when ch’i [vital
life force] and blood are unsettled,
they guard against beautiful women.

     "Ch’i" enlivens all of us; it is the energy behind all of our physical potential, sexual drive included.  It is natural and essential, but, for Confucius, it must be harnessed, lest "women" – here symbolizing sexual attraction – generate too much ch’i power. 

     So, Cosmopolitan will not be running, any time soon, an article on Sex Secrets of Confucius…

     Han Fei Tzu recognizes the political implications of sexual power.  In one chapter, entitled “The Eight Villainies,” he
contemplates the strategies used by ministers to undermine their ruler and
claim power for themselves. The very
first villainy is “making use of his bedfellows,” and it bears quoting at
length:

The ruler is
easily beguiled by lovely women and charming boys, by all those who can fawn
and play at love. They wait for the
time when he is enjoying his ease, take advantage of the moment when he is
sated with food and wine, and ask for anything they desire, for they know that
by this trick their requests are sure to be heeded. The ministers therefore ply them in the palace with gold and
jewels and employ them to delude the ruler.

  Sex is power and, therefore, has to be dealt with carefully, lest it be used against the powerful. 

     Taoists share some of the Confucian and Legalist anxieties about sex, but they also see it as a beautiful thing.  In the Tao Te Ching the infant is held up as the exemplar of a naive naturalism, unsullied by adult knowledge and morality.  And an element of this primitive virtue is sexual.  The infant is described as:  Knowing nothing of male and female mingling and yet aroused: this is the utmost essence" (56).  [An alternate translation, from Legge:  It knows not yet the union of male and female, and yet its virile member may be excited;–showing the perfection of its physical essence. (55)]
    
     The image here is of a baby boy’s erection, symbolizing his ch’i power, but isolated from sexual and social context.  It is pure ch’i in and of itself, and it is "perfection." 

     The pure sexual force is a part of a natural perfection.  We can expect, given the general acceptance in ancient Chinese thought of a cosmic male-female, yin-yang duality, that the usual heterosexual expression of ch’i force is an extension of that perfection (though Han’s quote above illustrates the presence of homosexuality).  Popular religious forms of Taoism embraced this idea and pursued various sorts of sexual therapy as a life-prolonging strategies. 

     Philosophic Taoists, however, were rather more restrained.  They  were concerned that sex, like  any other physical  pleasure, could grow into a desire, and the pursuit of that desire would take us away from our natural selves.  Obsession with sex would be just another "twisty path," leading away from the open and vast Tao, or Way.  There are all sorts of such temptations:

The five colors blind the eyes.
The five tones deafen ears.
The five tastes blur tongues.
Fast horses and breathtaking hunts make minds wild and crazy.
Things rare and expensive make people lose their way. (12)

     The bottom line, for philosophic Taoists, is: sex is fine, it is an essential human characteristic.  It is beautiful.  But it is, like anything else, prone to become a focus of our desire.  And when that happens we are setting ourselves up for disillusion and hurt.

     In the end, then, just about all of the ancient Chinese guys would tell the nanny: have a good time, but you really shouldn’t let your boss in on it.   It’s just bad form.