漂婚 piāo hūn (pyow hwen)
A fake marriage, of sorts, between two people who are already married to other people, but who manage to establish a life like they are married in another town. This phenomenon is made easier by the fact that many Chinese wind up living and working far away from their spouses due to a strict residence permit system. Literally “floating marriage.”
亚偷情 yā tōu qíng (yah toe cheeng)
Literally “second stolen feelings.” Refers to married people who have an intense friendship with a friend of the opposite sex and are so close that they are practically having an affair, but without ever actually having sex.
CHAPTER FIVE. Sex and Body Parts
For much of China ’s four thousand years of history, sex was an open topic studied and perfected in great detail. Ancient Taoists believed that immortality (or, at the very least, longevity) could be achieved through sex, and medical texts dating as far back as the second century BC have been found to treat sex as an academic field of study. Specific sexual positions with names like Flying Dragon and Jumping Monkey were recommended to treat specific ailments, and illustrated sex manuals were kept by the bed for easy reference and sometimes even given as gifts to new brides. Women were considered to have an inexhaustible supply of yin, a sort of cosmic life essence, and men could replenish their own limited supply of that essence (in them called yang) by inducing a woman to multiple orgasm while refraining from ejaculating themselves, thereby drawing in the woman’s energy. Yin and yang also represented female and male sexual parts. Some texts recommended sex with as many as ten different women in a night; others extolled the life-extending virtues of sex with virgins, ideally no older than fourteen.
The puritan ethics of, first, Confucianism (which, among its many other codes of conduct, dictated that a man and a woman should never touch in public) and, then, Communism (which kept marital sex hidden and outlawed extra-and premarital sex) effectively wiped out such open discourse. But ever since the period of “reform and opening,” beginning with the controversy surrounding new China’s first published photo of a kiss in 1979, sex has steadily become a more and more open topic. Today there are sex shops all over the place, the pickup scene in bars late at night looks pretty much the same as anywhere else in the world, and men across the country, either suffering from erectile dysfunction or just wanting to perk up their sex lives, are snapping up all the caterpillar fungus, deer penis, and Viagra they can get.
Nonetheless, China officially remains an extremely conservative society when it comes to sex. Dating and public displays of affection are frowned upon or even outright banned on many college campuses; TV shows and movies depict women in their late twenties who still live at home in rooms filled with stuffed animals; and a Taiwanese actress who appeared in Ang Lee’s NC-17-rated Lust, Caution has been blackballed from the mainland media.
However, one need only to stroll through the public parks of China at dusk, when every bench and shadow is occupied by ardent young couples strenuously making out (or more), to be reminded that despite the best efforts of China’s sternest cock blockers, nothing will ever keep the birds and the bees apart. To that end, here are the words that help make China the world’s most populous country.
Virginity
处女 chǔnǚ (choo nee)
Virgin (female).
处男 chǔnán (choo nahn)
Virgin (male).
黄花闺女 huáng huā guīnǚ (hwahng hwun gway nee)
Virgin (female). Literally “yellow flower girl,” alluding to a fashion during the Song dynasty when girls would decorate their faces with yellow plum flowers. When these flowers were not in bloom, they used yellow paper cutouts instead.
雏 chú (choo)
Dirty and/or insulting Beijing slang for a virgin. Literally “chick” or “young bird.” Before 1949 this was frequently used in brothels to refer to a young prostitute without much experience in entertaining the customers: “chicken” is slang for a prostitute, so a “chick” would be a young prostitute.
破雏 pò chú (pwuh choo)
Insulting and/or lewd Beijing slang for losing one’s virginity. Literally “break chick.”
破处 pò chǔ (pwuh choo)
To lose one’s virginity. Literally “break virginity.”
开包 kāi bāo (kigh baow-kigh rhymes with “high”)
Beijing slang for losing one’s virginity. Literally “open the package.”
Lust
性欲冲动 xìngyù chōngdòng (shing yee chohng dohng)
Arousal, sexual desire. 性欲 Xìngyù (shing yee) can also be used by itself to mean “lust” or “desire,” while 冲动 chōngdòng (chohng dohng) alone is literally “impulse” but can mean horny or aroused.
闹春 nào chūn (now chren)
Sexual arousal, lust. Literally “noise in springtime.”
欲火焚身 yù huǒ fén shēn (yee hwuh fen shen)
Sexual arousal, lust. Literally “the fire of lust is burning in the body.”
饥渴 jī kě (gee kuh)
Literally “hungry and thirsty.” Can be used in many different contexts to mean that someone is hungry for something, such as knowledge. In a sexual context, it suggests that someone is starving for sex.
发春 fāchūn (fah chren)
Horny (the most straightforward equivalent to the English). Literally “to develop spring” or “life” or “lust.”
发情 fāqíng (fah cheeng)
Horny. Applies mostly to animals but sometimes said of people in a joking way. Literally “develop passion.”
发骚 fāsāo (fah saow-sāo rhymes with “cow”)
A vulgar and impolite way to say “horny.” Literally “to develop sexy/slutty.”
发浪 fālàng (fah lahng)
Horny (although more usually means “slutty”). Literally “unrestrained.” Not as current as the other three terms above, though still commonly used.
Masturbation
手淫 shŏuyín (show een)
Masturbate, masturbation (technical term). Literally “hand lewdness.”
自慰 zìwèi (dz way)
Masturbate, masturbation (technical term). Literally “self-comfort.”
自渎 zìdú (dz do)
Masturbate, masturbation (technical term). Literally “self-abuse.”
打飞机 dăfēijī (dah fay gee)
The most common slang term for “jerk off” or “hand job.” Literally “shoot airplanes.”
玩老二 wán lǎoèr (wahn laow er)
Jerk off, hand job. Literally “play with little brother.”
打手枪 dă shǒuqiāng (da show chyahng)
Jerk off, hand job. Literally “fire the gun.” More commonly used in southern China than in the North.
手推 shǒutuī (show tway)
Jerk off, hand job. Literally “hand push.”
撸 lū (loo)
Refers to any sort of sliding or rubbing movement done on something else: for example the action of removing a ring from a finger. Can also be a euphemism for jerking off.
射 shè (shuh)
Cum, come. The most common, colloquial way to refer to 射精 shèjīng (shuh jing), which literally means “shoot sperm” and is the formal term for “ejaculation” (noun) or “ejaculate” (verb).