Tung Hsien-tsu has said: “Before making love the man must sit at the woman’s left, and the woman on the man’s right side. The man stretches out his legs and takes the woman in his arms. Then he grips her thighs and strokes her body, embracing her tightly in order for their souls to achieve harmony. He can also clasp her, caressing her and kissing her on the lips. The man should gently nip the woman’s lower lip, as she gently nips his upper lip. They should exchange their saliva and swallow it, or they should gently nibble each other’s tongues and lips. If they sit facing one another the woman should take the man’s head in her hands, or as they clasp one another she can nibble his ears lightly. They must stroke the upper parts and rub the lower parts. It is necessary to thrust from the east and to suck from the west. This deepens their longings, and reticence will vanish. The woman should take the man’s royal scepter in her left hand, and the man should rub the woman’s royal gate with his right hand. He will sense the woman’s feelings, and his royal scepter will rise vigorously like a solitary mountain peak pointing toward the Milky Way.”

From Michel Buerdeley, Shinobu Chujo, Motoaki Muto, and Richard Lane’s Erotic Art of Japan: The Pillow Poem, Hong Kong: Leon Amiel Publisher, no date (first published in 1973), pp. 35-36, quoting from Tamba no Yasuyori’s (912-995) The Quintessence of Medicine, 984, no page.

Addendum (March 4, 1996)

Perhaps the key problem in the relationship between the sexes is the notion that it could and should be harmonious.