Taoist sexual practices

Practitioners believe that by performing these sexual arts, one can stay in good health, and attain longevity or spiritual advancement.

[1][2][3] Some Taoist sects during the Han dynasty performed sexual intercourse as a spiritual practice, called héqì (Chinese: 合氣; pinyin: Hé qì)( lit.

[citation needed] After AD 1000, Confucian restraining attitudes towards sexuality became stronger, so that by the beginning of the Qing dynasty in 1644, sex was a taboo topic in public life.

[citation needed] These Confucians alleged that the separation of genders in most social activities existed 2,000 years ago and suppressed the sexual arts.

Because of the taboo surrounding sex, there was much censoring done during the Qing in literature, and the sexual arts disappeared in public life.

[citation needed] As a result, some of the texts survived only in Japan, and most scholars had no idea that such a different concept of sex existed in early China.

Therefore, some Taoists believe in decreasing the frequency of, or totally avoiding, ejaculation in order to conserve life essence.

While if done incorrectly this can cause retrograde ejaculation, the Taoists believed that the jing traveled up into the head and "nourished the brain.

Another important concept of "the joining of the essences" was that the union of a man and a woman would result in the creation of jing, a type of sexual energy.

Taoist texts described a large number of special sexual positions that served to cure or prevent illness, similar to the Kama Sutra.

Instead of storming the gates, the battle was a series of feints and maneuvers that would sap the enemy's resistance.

[22] Fang described this battle as "the ideal was for a man to 'defeat' the 'enemy' in the sexual 'battle' by keeping himself under complete control so as not to emit semen, while at the same time exciting the woman until she reached orgasm and shed her Yin essence, which was then absorbed by the man.

The deity known as the Queen Mother of the West was described to have no husband, instead having intercourse with young virgin males to nourish her female element.

Taoist sexual books by Liangpi[26] and Sanfeng[27] call the female partner ding (鼎) and recommend sex with premenarche virgins.

Liangpi concludes that the ideal ding is a pre-menarche virgin just under 14 years of age and women older than 18 should be avoided.