Traversing China I continue to be delighted and surprised with its amazing juxtapositions of the very old and new. My recent trip to Tongli, another of China's beautiful water towns, is no exception.

The slow boat rides down ancient canals, past exquisite mansions, cobbled streets and arching bridges. Many of the lovely old buildings are still in use, including the China Sex Museum. The sex museum? Yup, Tongli has it all, including one of the world's few museums dedicated solely to all matters sexual.

If your purpose is to pay 20 yuan and romp around in a titillating porno palace, you will be terribly disappointed. The purpose of the museum's founder, professor Liu Dalin, is to add to our body of knowledge, not necessarily our knowledge of bodies. He is an esteemed professor of sociology and the author of many books on love, marriage and sex.

There is lot to see and the museum is divided into sections, including: Sex in Primitive Society, Marriage and Women, Sex in Daily Life and Unusual Sexual Behavior.

Then there's the matter of taste. In English we talk about "good taste" and "bad taste". Which is highly subjective. Visiting people's homes and seeing what people wear shows that what is elegant to one is hopelessly garish to another. How can one design a sex museum that is in good taste and not just an exhibition for the prurient?

Visit the China Sex Museum and I'm sure you'll agree they pulled it off. The museum is housed in a gorgeous group of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) buildings, formerly the Lize Girl's School, and surrounded by a lovely garden. The statuary in the garden all relate in some way to matters sexual. Some are sweet, goddesses and fully clothed courtesans, while others are startling in their graphic portrayals. The garden sets the tone. It says that this is a place of beauty and respect for that oldest of human endeavors, but be prepared for explicitness. Fair enough.

Entering the first building, the exhibits relating to primitive society are often carvings, both people and animals of all kinds having sex. Lest you get the giggles, it carefully explains that these were objects of worship because the ancients worshipped sex -- and nothing much has changed over the intervening period.

The section called Marriage and Women might make a feminist cringe. It appears from the exhibition that most of the sexual history of women is about their sublimation and degradation. The museum points this out and seems to have scholarly sympathy for their plight through the ages.

Moving on to Sex in Daily Life, one finds the sex instruction scrolls called Pillow Books in the West. These make present day texts to educate the youngsters seem like very pale pudding, indeed. They are explicit and move well beyond the "missionary position". Many of them are wildly funny.

Now that we have been inured to multiple portrayals of "the act" we move into Part 4, Unusual Sexual Behavior, which is described as "opposite to the common sexual behavior of most people". This seems to be rapidly changing, as any glance at modern mores shows that "most people" are quickly expanding the definition of "common", and of "unusual", for that matter.

We all know that China is where gunpowder, paper, moveable type printing and the compass were invented. To add to this list of pride is the invention of the chastity belt and "sex tools", some of precious jade.

Today's news abounds with stories about how to protect youth from seeing sexual content. With the museum's 9,000 years of evidence of interest in the topic, I say "good luck."

Source: Chinadaily.com.cn

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