Abstract
With the increasing development of modern technology and the societal openness to alternative sexualities in the West, digisexuality or robosexuality is no longer a forbidden topic. This paper approaches technology-based sexual activities, especially sex-bots, from a Daoist perspective in conjunction with my response to a Foucauldian distinction between scientia sexualis and ars erotica. I will submit the argument that sex robotic technology would be problematic for Daoists who see sex as an integral part of the practice of “inner alchemy” to enhance both physical and spiritual development.
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12 February 2022
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Notes
- 1.
CBS Radio, January 25, 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/the-spark-guide-to-life-episode-ten-ai-and-us-1.5192455/digisexuality-emerges-as-a-new-sexual-identity-1.4988400 (accessed December 10, 2019).
- 2.
See Journal of Sexual and Relationship Therapy Volume 32, Issue 3–4, 2017. It is a special issue on sex and technology
- 3.
See “China’s high-speed sexual revolution” by Sarah Buckley in BBC News (February 27, 2016).
- 4.
Foucault examines the emergence of “sexuality” as a discursive object and separate sphere of life, arguing that the notion that every individual has a sexuality is a relatively recent development in Western societies.
- 5.
According to Foucault, sex has been colonized, exploited, deployed as a codeword, used as a point of anchorage for a whole variety of concerns: disciplining, governing and surveying a population; securing the sovereignty of a territory; maintaining the productivity of the nation through the regulation of reproduction and the bodily economy (see Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge). Much of what Foucault has to say about power is not relevant to Daoism as discussed in this paper, except for his appropriation of sex as ars erotica in China.
- 6.
Daoism is an umbrella term under which we have daojia 道家 (philosophical Daoism) and daojiao 道教 (religious Daoism), which respectively refer to a more intellectually oriented tradition known as the “Lao-Zhuang thought”, on the one hand, and to a more socially organized religious tradition that combines the Lao-Zhuang thought with many other beliefs, on the other. In this paper, both philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism are mentioned. The Daoist or proto-Daoist texts under discussion include the Laozi (also called the Daodejing), the Zhuangzi , the Huangdi neijing suwen, the Baopuzi, the Huainanzi and Daoist sex manuals. The tradition of religious Daoism is more emphasized in the discussion of Daoist sexuality as it is linked directly with the religious practice of inner alchemy.
- 7.
The Dao is described as nothing-which-is-something that creates things.
- 8.
Therefore, the concept of “self” in Daoism is understood in terms of relationality, that is, relationship with the cosmos, nature, other people, and oneself.
- 9.
The translation of the DDJ is based on John C. H. Wu’s Tao The Ching (1989). Modifications in wording were done in order to be consistent with the major concepts used in this paper.
- 10.
The concept of yin and yang is one of the dominant ones shared by different schools of thought throughout the history of Chinese philosophy. In the Daoist tradition, the interaction of yin and yang is viewed as the merging of the qi-energy between the waxing and waning of the cosmic and human realms. It is also seen as a process of harmonization that engenders a constant, dynamic balance of all things. The yin and yang polarity in Daoist cosmogonic accounts can be viewed as a non-dual duality as they are mutually dependent, mutually inclusive and mutually transformative. In both philosophical and religious Daoism, life is seen as dependent on the mutual interaction of yin and yang, although in some contexts, yin and yang take on specific and alternative meanings. See Louis Komjathy 2013, Chapters 7 and 9.
- 11.
See also Livia Kohn, 1991, p. 227.
- 12.
It should be noted that it would be futile to search in English for a conceptual equivalent to the Chinese concept of qi , just as it is difficult to search in Chinese for the conceptual equivalent to the English word “spirit.”
- 13.
It says, “The spirit of the valley dies not. It is called the subtle and profound female” (DDJ 6). Here Laozi employs the feminine image to refer to the great power of the Dao.
- 14.
The translation of the Huangdi neijing: Suwen is cited from Unschuld and Tessenow 2011, pp. 155–157.
- 15.
See Fabrizio Pregadio’s article, “The Alchemical Body in Daoism.” https://www.academia.edu/6950136/The_Alchemical_Body_in_Daoism. (Accessed December 10, 2019. Also see Kohn, 1991, p. 232).
- 16.
For the English translation of the Huangdi yinfu jing, see James Legge, Yin Fu King, or Classic of the Harmony of the Seen and the Unseen in the Texts of Taoism (1891). Heshang Gong was the author of one of the earliest commentaries on the DDJ of Laozi to survive to modern times, which is dated to the latter part of the Han dynasty. For the English translation of Heshang Gong’s commentary, see The Heshang Gong Commentary on Lao Zi’s Dao De Jing by Dan G. Reid (2019).
- 17.
For discussion on body and the art of governance, see James Miller 2001, pp. 265–282.
- 18.
Van Gulik’s works on the history of Chinese sexology have a strong influence in the West. Some French postmodern thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Francois Lyotard are said to be inspired by his research on ars erotica .
- 19.
It should be mentioned that the term “internal alchemy” may sound weird to contemporary readers, especially in the West, since the world “alchemy” suggests an image of medieval monks in a smoky dungeon, trying to transform lead into gold. But the Daoist alchemy, which has a history of more than 2000 years, is much more complicated. It includes external alchemy (waidan 外丹) and internal alchemy (neinan 內丹). The former focuses on laboratory experiments on drugs while the latter works on meditations to connect the microcosm of the human body with the macrocosm of the universe. The discourse on Daoist alchemy is often represented as an esoteric or mystical set of works on of the body.
- 20.
It should be noted that unlike religious Daoism, philosophical Daoism represented by Laozi and Zhuangzi rejected both the possibility and desirability of the idea of immortality, nor did they show special interest in issues related to sexuality.
- 21.
The Chinese word jing means literally “the pure part” or “to select”, “to sort out” (see Kohn (ed.), Daoism Handbook, 2018, p. 98).
- 22.
According to Yuasa, this unconscious quasi-body is similar to the theories of body proposed by Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (see Yuasa 1993, pp. 37–65).
- 23.
See Yan Shanzao 嚴善炤 The Formation and the Development of the Art of Bedchamber in Ancient China, 《古代房中術的形成與發展》. (Taibei台北:Xuesheng Shuju學生書局, 2007). According to Yan, key factors of sexual techniques in ancient Chinese culture were linked to health in terms of prolonging life expectancy. The spiritual part was added later during the late Warring State period (453–221 BCE) when jing 精and shen 神were combined as jingshen 精神, that is, the spirit. In the Huainanzi for example, it says, “What is called jing is the vital qi-energy, and what is called shen is a person who is capable of preserving the vital qi-energy.” The spirit in this context has six characteristics: (1) It is not independent from the body; (2) It is associated to psychological and mental formation; (3) It can be enhanced through cultivation and social activities; (4) It is fluid as qi-energy and can be transformed; (5) It enables some practitioners to have supranatural abilities; and (6) It returns to its original nature when one achieves the unity between his or her spirit and the spirit of the Dao (Yan 2007, pp. 6–23).
- 24.
Also see Stephen T. Chang, The Tao of Sexology (1986).
- 25.
Shusterman also points out insightfully, that “Foucault’s sexual theorizing was not principally inspired by the Asian erotic arts but rather by his study of ancient Greek and Roman literature on the erotic and by his own erotic desires and activity,” contending that the Daoist view of sex in China entails aesthetic dimensions in the classic Chinese ars erotica (see, e.g., Shusterman 2007, p. 58). For a broader discussion on the body issue. Also see Shusterman, Thinking Through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetic (2012).
- 26.
Some Chinese scholars, such as Liu Dalin, have adopted the Foucauldian scientia sexualis / ars erotica distinction. In his book, The History of Sexuality 劉達臨 (Xing de lishi 《性的歷史》), for example, Liu speaks of a history of Chinese sexuality in terms of the history of repression or scientia sexualis. But most of his discussion on repression is based on the Confucian tradition (Liu 2001). At the same time, he follows Robert van Gulik’s romanticizing of ancient Chinese/Daoist sexuality in terms of ars erotica in his other works.
- 27.
Foucault claims that the West produced a scientia sexualis (modern sexology) that applied scientific classification and methods of analysis to the understanding of sex, while the East, notably China, produced an ars erotica tradition that focused on somatic sensation (see Foucault 1978, pp. 59–60).
- 28.
In the Daoist sex act, a deferral of “pleasure” (i.e., enjoyment in orgasm) is often emphasized. For instance, men are asked to avoid ejaculating as Daoists believe that too much ejaculation is harmful to one’s health. On this point, Shusterman points out that “[Foucault] is confused in thinking that pleasure, for them [the Chinese], is more important than the sexual act because it is pleasure that they seek to prolong by delaying and even abstaining from the act. Instead, it is the act itself that the Chinese male seeks to prolong so as to magnify his yin and yang powers and the salutary benefits these bring” (see Shusterman 2007, p. 60).
- 29.
The notion of “secret” here refers to a meditation training as “circulation of light” in which the body and the heavenly mind are conjoined in the one opening of the “door of yin and yang” as a way of the transformation of the qi-energy . For a more detailed discussion, see Yuasa 1993, pp. 82–90.
- 30.
For the English translation of the Secret of Golden Flower, see Cleary 1993. Carl Jung who speaks highly of Daoist meditation described by the Secret of Golden Flower, interprets shen as “conscious spirit” that corresponds to “self-nature” existing at the base of the collective unconscious (Yuasa 1993, pp. 83–87).
- 31.
Sex is viewed as the ritual of the union of the qi-energy that involves all the physical and spiritual faculties of the partners. In fact, early Daoism (i.e., the Celestial Master Daoism) had a sexual initiation rite; that is, a ritualized form of intercourse in the name of merging primordial pneumas or qi . This practice was discontinued later due to criticism from both inside and outside of Daoism. In “The Way of the Yellow and the Red: Re-examining the Sexual Initiation Rite of Celestial Master Daoism” Gil Raz argues that “the procedure [of the initiation ritual] is not an emulation of the procreative coupling of yin and yang, but rather an ascent through this binary stage of emergent cosmogony to the primordial stage of the three primal pneumas [i.e., jing, qi, and shen] within the undifferentiated unity of the Dao.” For detailed discussion on Daoist sexual ritual (Raz 2008, pp. 86–120).
- 32.
This can be evidenced in erotic literature and archaeological finds in ancient tombs.
- 33.
See Fang Fu Ruan, Sex in China : Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture (1991). It offers a comprehensive historical survey of Chinese sexology covering ancient texts, the latest statistics and mass media reports.
- 34.
When Foucault speaks of sex as ars erotica , he says, “In the erotic art, truth is drawn from pleasure itself, understood as a practice and accumulated as experience; pleasure is not considered in relation to an absolute law of the permitted and the forbidden, nor by reference to a criterion of utility, but first and foremost in relation to itself; it is experienced as pleasure, evaluated in terms of its intensity, its specific quality, its duration, its reverberations in the body and the soul” (Foucault 1978, p. 57).
- 35.
According to Wu Wu 吳悮 (1172-?), a Daoist master of the Song dynasty points out in his guidance to the inner alchemy that male control of ejaculation is needed from time to time just like the Daoist practice of “avoiding five grains” (bigu 辟穀) from time to time. See Yan 2007, p. 315.
- 36.
It should be noted, though, that many Chinese erotic literary works in history were closely related to Daoism. For example, one of the best-known erotic writings during the Tang dynasty entitled Poetic Essay on Great Bliss of the Sexual Union of Heaven and Earth and Yin and Yang (Tiandi yinyang jiaohuan dale fu 天地陰陽交歡大樂賦) was written by Bai Xingjian白行簡(776—826), a Daoist practitioner.
- 37.
According to Daoism, to be obsessive with sex is believed to produce “disorderly qi” or “excessive qi” (yinqi 淫氣) that is harmful both to one’s body and mind.
- 38.
Using robots as emotional companions such as are sometimes used in nursing homes has raised a similar ethical issue, but not as controversially as sex robots. For a detailed discussion on sexbots and erobotics, see the article Foundations of Erobotics by Simon Dubé and Dave Anctil (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-020-00706-0)
- 39.
It should be noted that a human partner is required in Daoism based on the argument of purifying human qi-energy . The ethical dimension of the need for a human partner is not the major concern as would be seen in Confucianism.
- 40.
For detailed discussion on this issue, see Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn 2003.
- 41.
Feminists in the West criticize the porn industry today, for example, noting that in a posthumanist age “sex dolls are becoming more and more lifelike and women more and more doll-like” (Loh and Coeckelbergh 2019, p. 149) .
- 42.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that in Daoist sex manuals there are conflicting models concerning what kind of performance is sexually natural and desirable.
- 43.
According to Daoism, both the cosmic world and the human world have a certain rhythm and harmony, and when the harmony is broken, these irregularities will bring catastrophic results to both the world of humans and its environment.
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Zhang, E.Y. (2021). Why Sex? Sex-Bots from a Daoist Perspective. In: Fan, R., Cherry, M.J. (eds) Sex Robots. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82280-4_5
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