The use of art names by courtesans and prostitutes was a Chinese custom spanning two millennia. One enthusiast listed the names of tiny-footed prostitute acquaintances in Peking, with addresses, for fellow lovers of the lotus. The commonest names were Moon Immortal, Phoenix Immortal, Red Treasure, and Golden Bell. Golden Bell referred to the bell concealed in the shoe which tinkled as the woman walked. Gold formed the most popular first half of the name and was used in Golden Bell, Golden Phoenix, Golden Pearl, Golden Treasure, Golden Flower, and Golden Jade. Jade was next in popularity (Jade Youth, Jade Treasure, Jade Vase, Jade Phoenix, and Jade Pavilion). Treasure was the most common second character (Golden Treasure, Jade Treasure, Kingfisher Treasure, and Red Treasure).
The prostitutes who were available to all comers were most prone to sexual license in which the tiny foot played a major role. But for women of respectable upbringing, concealment of the foot was a canon of behavior rarely violated. This outlook was a product of moral training and the inner conviction that the weird shape was unaesthetic. Unavailability served to increase the craving of the lotus lover. “Things hard to get are comforting to acquire, like eating when you are starved.” Proper women kept their feet a secret, and they were mortified if ever touched or played with by the vulgar or rustic. This was particularly true in the north, where women remained in concealment and were apprehensive about going out alone. There was one account of a young girl who was so mortified at having her feet rubbed by a stranger, who had crawled through to her in a crowd, that she took to her deathbed. A popular form of entertainment in the villages was the evening play. Women enjoyed going to these plays, but the more prudent sewed socks and shoes together to prevent theft. There were still admirers who stole the shoes by cutting the threads. One young girl reputedly lost her shoes while absorbed in watching a play, and she was forced to swallow poison by an enraged and humiliated mother. In general, girls of modest means tried to catch the shoe thief and make their annoyance known, but upper-class families hushed things up and merely ordered a servant to bring another pair of shoes. The accounts about shoe purloining which follow indicate male sexual aberration.
There was an old woman who had only one daughter, famed for her beauty. The girl drew shoe patterns for neighbors and showed them how to embroider flowers on the shoes. She had tiny bowed feet and walked with elegance. She was admired for a long time by several shiftless youths, who found her bowed shoes most lovable. But they had no chance to touch her feet, as she was zealously guarded by the widow. One day she attended a village play with a few girl friends. It was a dark night in winter, and the weather was so cold that her lower limbs became numbed. When the play ended, she discovered the loss of one shoe. She had to endure the pain of walking home leaning on walls for support. She said nothing to her mother and went to sleep beside her. Suddenly, something was thrown through the paper window in the bedroom. The widow awoke in fright and noticed the object, her daughter’s missing shoe. It had been lewdly saturated with semen. The girl wept with shame, but the understanding mother comforted her without a word of scolding. Culprits spread the news around until it became public gossip.
There were a certain male actor and an actress in a Tientsin troupe. The actor admired the actress for her tiny and beautiful feet and wanted to become intimate with her, but he was rejected. He therefore stole her shoes, discharged semen into them, and put them back in their original place. The actress discovered this only when she was about to go on the stage and was extremely embarrassed and annoyed, but she had to maintain silence. The actors circulated the story, and it was published in several newspapers.
Ku Hung-ming, a conservative Chinese writer and intellectual, was the leader of a post-revolutionary hard core of opposition to the elimination of footbinding. Ku felt that the tiny foot was an integral part of Chinese culture and that its advantages outweighed other considerations. He once noticed a young lady who to him appeared about twenty years old. Discovering that she was thirty-two, he remarked that preservation of youthful-ness was characteristic of the pre-Republic woman. Because she had bound feet and spent her days secluded in the bedroom, he explained, she was not exposed to the sun and wind. In this way, she kept her youth and facial beauty. Ku asserted that the modern woman, with her daily tennis playing, aged prematurely and looked old before thirty. He contrasted the European practice of confining a woman’s waist with the Chinese one of foot-binding, stating that a woman’s gracefulness resulted from the way in which her figure impressed the observer. Foreign women emphasized small waists to make their hips protrude and accentuate the beauty of their curves. But pressure on the waist injured the internal organs. Footbinding, however, did not interfere with well-being, but naturally broadened a woman’s hips and enhanced her femininity. Rather than imitate Westerners and tamper with the waist, a region which contained the source of future generations, Ku asserted that it was much better to bind the feet instead.
Ku was representative of the educated Chinese who, in spite of having lived abroad, never wavered in preference for tiny feet. There was a diplomat named Sun Mu-han, for instance, with tiny-footed concubines. Sun was assigned to Russia; he transported a trunk filled with their shoes and privately amused himself with them. He traveled without dependents and took along only two tiny-footed maid servants. Most of Ku Hung-ming’s concubines had tiny feet. He was an ardent advocate and would tell people that footbinding was one of China’s national treasures. When he met a woman socially, he would first look at her feet and then her face. Before going to sleep, he had his bed partner change into bright red sleeping shoes. One of his conversations on the subject was recorded in the Shanghai press:
The smaller the woman’s foot, the more wondrous become the folds of the vagina. [There was the saying: the smaller the feet, the more intense the sex urge.] Therefore, marriages in Ta-t’ung [where binding is most effective] often take place earlier than elsewhere. Women in other districts can produce these folds artificially, but the only way is by footbinding, which concentrates development in this one place. There consequently develop layer after layer [of folds within the vagina]; those who have personally experienced this [in sexual intercourse] feel a supernatural exaltation. So the system of footbinding was not really oppressive.
Ku also asserted that binding caused the blood to flow upwards and produced more voluptuous buttocks and that women wore high heels for the same reason. Chang Ching-sheng supported Ku’s theories, saying that footbinding had its wondrousness. The difficulty of walking caused strength to be concentrated in the buttocks, which became larger. The vagina also became developed, Dr. Chang remarked, so “. . . from the viewpoint of sex, footbinding was very profitable.” It was also believed that tiny feet not only made the buttocks more sensual, but concentrated life-giving vapors on the upper part of the body, making the face more attractive.
Rubbing, smelling, chewing, licking, and washing the feet were popular pastimes of lotus lovers, varying according to individual preference. There were stories circulated about an official who forced his concubines to let him use their plantars as human ashtrays, while another insisted on immersing a tiny-footed concubine’s foot in a basin of tea, which he then drank as a nightcap. Love-intoxicated tiny-foot admirers might put the feet in their hands, on their shoulders, or hold them up to their nostrils. This partly explains why women were so particular about decorating shoes and stockings, filling the inside of the shoe with fragrance. Love under the bedcovers partially consisted of caressing the toe portion with lips and tongue and the heel with tongue and teeth. Sleeping shoes might become covered with tooth marks. At a moment of high passion, the dirt of the shoe was forgotten. But when that moment passed, the lover might feel that the shoe was tasteless and the smell of alum repugnant.