Another sixteenth century Portuguese traveler to China, Galeote Pereira, reported in Certain Reports of the Province of China that “the greatest fault we do find is sodomy, a vice very common.”īut China was not alone in its acceptance of bisexuality. Western visitors to China over the centuries were shocked (and appalled) over what Portuguese Friar Gaspar da Cruz called “a filthy abomination are so given to” in his Treatise of China in 1569. The tree’s branches “embraced one another” and the people “considered this a miracle.” While the duke later turned on Mizi Xia, this vignette led to both “the bitten peach” and “Mizi Xia” becoming catchphrases referring to gay love in Chinese.Ĭhina was not alone in its acceptance of bisexuality.Īnother story that has lasted through the ages is that of the “Shared Pillow Tree.” Hinsch quotes Lin Zaiqing’s Chengzhai zaji’s story of the love between two men, Wang Zhongxian and Pan Zhang: “They fell in love at first sight and were as affectionate as husband and wife, sharing the same coverlet and pillow with unbounded intimacy for one another.” The tale continues that they died together and were buried together on a mountain where a tree grew. “You forgot your own appetite and think only of giving me good things to eat!” “How sincere is your love for me!” exclaimed the ruler. As quoted in Passions of the Cut Sleeve:Īnother day Mizi Xia was strolling with the ruler in an orchard and, biting into a peach and finding it sweet, he stopped eating and gave the remaining half to the ruler to enjoy. Han Fei wrote of Mizi Xia, a man who sought the love of Duke Ling of Wei, who lived from 534 BCE to 493 BCE. The Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE) produced two of its own legends that led to turns of phrase that lasted thousands of years-like the cut sleeve. There is evidence of same-sex love even before the Han dynasty. Seymour agrees that relationships between men were “widely accepted and sometimes formalized by marriage,” adding that “almost all of the emperors of the last two centuries B.C. Writing in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, James D.
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Gil, writing in the Journal of Sex Research, China had “a long history of dynastic homosexuality” before the Revolution of 1949, with “courtly love among rulers and subjects of the same sex being elevated to noble virtues.” He says that the surviving literature from that time period in China “indicates that homosexuality was accepted by the royal courts and its custom widespread among the nobility.” A Time of AcceptanceĪccording to medical anthropologist Vincent E. Dong Xian and his wife and children were all moved inside the imperial palace grounds to live with Emperor Ai and his wife. Everyone in Dong Xian’s family benefitted from the emperor’s patronage Dong Xian’s father was named the marquis of Guannei and everyone in Dong Xian’s household, including his slaves, received money. Thanks to detailed records that have survived two millenia, we know that these favorites received great privilege and power in exchange for their intimacy.Īi bestowed Dong Xian with the highest titles and ten thousand piculs of grain per year. These rulers were also married to women, but their male companions were important parts of their lives as well. These rulers were also married to women, but their male companions were important parts of their lives.Įmperor Gao favored Jiru. They each had a “male favorite” who is listed in the Records of the Grand Historian (the “Shiji”) and the Book of Han (the “Hanshu”).
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The historian Bret Hinsch asserts in Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China that all ten emperors who ruled over the first two centuries of the Han dynasty were “openly bisexual,” with Ai being the tenth. In fact, a majority of the emperors of the western Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE) had both male companions and wives.
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The Han HeydeyĮmperor Ai was far from the only Chinese emperor to take a male companion openly. The tale’s influence outlived its time, producing the Chinese term “the passion of the cut sleeve,” a euphemism for intimacy between two men. This story of the cut sleeve spread throughout the court, leading the emperor’s courtiers to cut one of their own sleeves as tribute. So tender was the emperor’s love for this man that, when he had to get up, instead of waking his lover, he cut off the sleeve of his robe. Lying on one of his sleeves was a young man in his 20s, Dong Xian, also asleep. He was in his palace, in Chang’an (now Xi’an, China), hundreds of miles inland, wearing a traditional long-sleeved robe. In the last years BCE, Emperor Ai was enjoying a daytime nap.