There were many kinds of prostitutes in ancient China. In the book Huang Yinger written by Feng Menglong, a famous writer in Ming Dynasty, there are more than 40 kinds of prostitutes, but their classification is more complicated. Seems to be more in line with the actual situation. If distinguished by clients, it can be divided into palace prostitutes, official prostitutes, camp prostitutes, domestic prostitutes and city prostitutes. If distinguished by nature, it can be divided into male prostitutes and private prostitutes; According to the nature of occupation, it can be divided into geisha, maiko, happy prostitute and excellent prostitute. According to age, it can be divided into old prostitutes and young prostitutes.
Prostitutes in ancient China appeared earlier, including palace prostitutes, official prostitutes, camp prostitutes and domestic prostitutes. It can be collectively called public prostitutes, serving a few privileged people, and most of them come from violent oppression, such as robbery or treating the wives and daughters of sinners as official prostitutes. However, most city prostitutes and private prostitutes come from money, realizing "everyone is equal before money".
Geisha, maiko, happy prostitute and excellent prostitute are mainly artistic performances, supplemented by prostitution. There is a development process from these prostitutes to the main "sleeping" people. These prostitutes represent the level of ancient music, dance and drama in China, embody a prostitute culture, and show the characteristics that ancient China literati often enjoy prostitutes with spirit as the body and flesh as the supplement.
As for prostitutes, they are divided into old prostitutes and young prostitutes. Some women will be ravaged by men when they are underage, and some women will engage in such cheap transactions when they are old and sick, which reflects the cruelty of the profession of prostitutes.
There are three sources of prostitutes in ancient China: prisoners of war, registered slaves and traffickers. In a word, men abuse women with power, violence or money. Palace prostitutes, official prostitutes, camp prostitutes and domestic prostitutes are mostly seized and maintained by power and violence, which can be seen from the fact that they can be bought, sold, given, exchanged and killed by their owners at will. Of course, raising a large number of prostitutes also costs money. City prostitutes and private prostitutes are relatively "free" and can exchange money and flesh "equally". This is the product of commodity economy, and with the development of commodity economy, this kind of prostitute seems to better reflect the essence of prostitution. Under the condition of slavery, slave owners raped women with naked violence; Under the feudal system, feudal owners used their power to realize the "first night right" to farmers' daughters; Under the condition of commodity economy, rich people play with women with money. In the evolutionary history of prostitutes in ancient China, these three factors all existed.
In the history of China, in the Han and Tang Dynasties, the prostitution industry gradually changed from government-run to private-run and reached a very prosperous level. Almost all the dignitaries and literati go whoring, not to mention the residents of Beijing. Many poems handed down from that era are full of romantic feelings, relying on green flowers to woo red flowers. Li Bai, Lu and Li Shangyin are all like this. For example, Li Bai, a great poet, is bohemian if he only looks at his life style regardless of his literary talent. He once wrote a poem:
Wine, golden snails, and fifteen pony camels of Hu Ji.
The hawksbill banquet is drunk, and the lotus account is worthy of you!
It's about a 15-year-old Hu girl. Li Bai drinks and whores.
After the mid-Song Dynasty, Zhu Cheng's neo-Confucianism theory of "preserving righteousness and destroying human desires" was advocated, and sexual imprisonment was gradually implemented in society. In fact, there are almost no high-ranking officials in the Song Dynasty who don't go whoring, such as Su Shi and Ouyang Xiu. They are all "big prostitutes", and they have to take a group of prostitutes when traveling, not to mention those powerful people who don't go whoring.
The most ridiculous thing is that Song Huizong, the romantic emperor of the Song Dynasty, was tired of playing Liugong powder makeup and went whoring in the city wearing little clothes. He seems to be the first emperor recorded in history to sneak out of the palace gate and go whoring. Some emperors in Ming and Qing dynasties just followed suit. Huizong has many romantic things. He "filled the home of Li Shishi, a prostitute in Bianjing Anfang, and gave more than 100,000 yuan in gold, silver, silk and food." . "His appearance is not good, and prostitutes are forbidden in Yuan Dynasty, but Tang An 'an has a superb voice and won the favor of the emperor."
There is a true story: Song Huizong fell in love with Li Shishi, a famous prostitute in Beijing at that time. Of course, Li Shishi has many other lovers. One day, Li Shishi fell in love with a man named Zhou Bangyan. Suddenly, when I heard that the emperor was coming, Zhou Bangyan got under the bed in fright. After Song Huizong came in, the sweet words and sexual voices with Li Shishi were heard by Zhou Bangyan and written into the text. Song Huizong was furious and ordered Zhou Bangyan to be expelled from Beijing. The day before Zhou Bangyan left, Song Huizong asked Li Shishi, "What new works did he have when he left?" Li Shishi showed him Zhou Bangyan's new words and praised them, calling Zhou Bangyan's recall "Da Lezheng".
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou, Datong and Hangzhou were all prosperous places where prostitutes were rampant. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the court strictly prohibited prostitution, but after only 30 or 40 years, prostitution became more and more serious. The Qing emperor went whoring. Emperor Tongzhi asked the little eunuch to lead the way and went out of the palace to go whoring incognito. It is said that he finally contracted syphilis and died.