This essay by a writer from Nanking discusses the way in which the tiny foot added interest to sexual relations. Our apologist counters the arguments of natural-foot advocates and never questions the superior beauty of the three-inch standard.
Like writing about brush and ink, that which is wondrous is unexplainable, for it arises from our sense impressions. The lotus-loving scholar has been a phenomenon for more than a thousand years. While sexual intercourse represents the extreme of bedroom delight, it is rather vulgar simply to lie down and enter battle in naked embrace. How many times a day can this be done without getting fatigued? One is at a loss for what to do the rest of the time and feels an isolation in the midst of Warm-Soft Village. And there is no describable sweetness in what has occurred.
Now, before and after the act, one must extend warm affection, imitate intertwined roots, and make many sensual sounds together. Later heart and spirit become so oblivious to the mundane and so immersed that the pleasures of intercourse are multiplied and limitless enjoyment known, apart from the act itself. The husband’s spiritual expression consists of his smiling facial appearance; physically, he kisses his wife’s cheeks and hand-manipulates her breasts. Love feelings thus transcend the norm, and desire becomes intensified until intercourse itself becomes a sign that an irrepressible peak of passion has been reached. Even the delights of gods and immortals fail to surpass this.
This is the order of the sexual life, common to mankind. Our race shares in it and yet has added a point of dissimilarity, the three-inch golden lotus, which affords endless pleasure. The achievement of the golden lotus, difficult to attain, is to be treasured. People are afraid to imitate it because of the difficulties of production. Left out in a corner, they have to seek another path to beauty, so they change their views and reject it. The ancients who rejected it, like the Taoists, advocated simple dress and austere living, appealing to morals rather than to the senses. Today’s advocates of human rights favor a similar “style of dress.” They obviously want to eliminate seductive and misleading postures of either sex towards the other; however, the feasibility of their doctrine has already caused doubts.
Their theories give rise to a natural aesthetic contradiction. There are two reasons for beauty being conceptualized as such, one its being rarely seen, the other the difficulty of obtaining it. For example, a piece of flawless jade by its very nature is rarely seen, and it is carved into a sceptre by a skill which is difficult to obtain. Today, footbinding is Heaven-sent and then adorned, like beauty added to beauty. There is nothing laughable about it. Those who reject it know this and change their tone, saying: “It makes a plaything of woman.” They look austere and grave, like advocates of human rights.
In actuality, the ancients restricted their playing to the deepest recesses of the inner apartments. Modern couples leave home arm in arm and amuse themselves in villages and large cities, by famous mountains and rivers, amidst gatherings of hordes of people. They have beautiful slogans—sowing the seeds of women’s rights, equality of the sexes, etc. Women ignorantly fall into the snare and come to hate intensely the fact that they are playthings. Now men definitely shouldn’t regard women as playthings, and vice versa. But when exchanging pleasures, they must play with one another. After they undress and touch and move as sexual desire dictates, they throw off all restraints of propriety. Things which they ordinarily couldn’t bear to do physically are then done to a degree which seems beyond human indulgence. Many great scholars corroborate this.
So the word “play” cannot be obliterated with a mere brush stroke. There were educated ancient women who not only didn’t oppose the male view in books written about sensual pleasures, but followed it. Women restrained by the teachings of propriety had to accept masculine ideas as their source of enjoyment. But women are now largely emancipated. If treated improperly, they demand apologies and submission from the opposite sex. Still, if man today regards something as beautiful, women willingly waste time and money or destroy hair and skin so that each can find joy, without calling this “play.” Many worldly pleasures come from other people. In eating and living together, one may deprive oneself to see that one’s mate is amply provided for. In achievement and scholarship, there is also this factor of deriving satisfaction from pleasing others. When exchanging pleasurable sensations, the woman is stirred by the man’s greed for love, while he is stirred by her alluring, seductive postures.
At this moment, the woman fears only one thing—that he won’t play with her! How can she feel annoyance because he regards her as a plaything? The three-inch golden lotus represents an additional plaything, extremely well liked by the man. The woman wants it to be perfect, and endures endless pain to achieve it. Though we say that it is something for the man to play with, she actually relies on it in order to be able to play with the man.
To consider bound-foot women as playthings is really silly, for viewed historically all women are playthings, not merely the footbound ones. Each part of a man’s or woman’s body secretly serves to spur on sexual desire. The delight of kissing is not equal to that of rubbing the breasts, as kissing is common to both and can be seen. The breasts are sometimes concealed, sometimes seen, and differ in size for each. Rubbing the breasts is not equal to playing with the sex organs, which differ in shape for each sex. The organs are usually concealed and not easily seen, and so unusual thoughts can be imagined about them. At one viewing, sexual desire becomes stimulated and intense, and a wish for direct contact arises. For every race of mankind enjoying sensual pleasures, the dissimilarity is the same. But since our race has the added wonder of being able to play with the Golden Lotus, the order of preludes to the sex act is increased and desire blazes up that much more intensely.
The pleasure of grasping the golden lotus is not inferior to that of sexual intercourse; in other words, one aids the other. The woman’s tiny foot is probably more mysterious than her private parts. The man lusts to see her privates; though difficult to see, they are often exposed in young girls. If one has wives and concubines, their sexual organs can be sought out and rubbed at all times. But once binding starts, even the young girl must keep the foot concealed. She is as apprehensive about this as if it were an untransgressable and divine law ordained by the Holy Sages. With the possible exception of having intercourse with her husband, she is never willing to let a man remove the binding, inspect the foot, and rub it. So the man looks at the tiny foot with more interest than the natural one, for he wonders how small it really is and how much its flesh has diminished. His curiosity is intensely aroused; if one day he can really see it, his mad, intoxicated joy knows no bounds.
One rub was therefore enough to excite. The foot, moreover, was at the end of the lowest extremity, and after rubbing it one’s hand easily extended upward towards the private parts. When playing with the breasts, by way of contrast, special preparation was needed to attain the objective. As to why a woman considered this part of the body most excitable: it was ordinarily concealed and regarded most sedately, even hidden from a servant’s view except possibly when binding. And then one day, rubbed and played with in a man’s hands, the sexual effect was like an electrical charge between them. While the world commonly regards the woman’s foot as dirty, it was so favored and liked that it was placed in the palms, lifted to the shoulders, and even kissed and smelled. As a stimulus and comforter, it was unparalleled. These moments of joy compensated the woman sufficiently for the eight to ten years of pain which she had previously suffered. Through the golden lotus, she won the man’s complete love and secured unlimited good fortune.