Li Yinhe talks about sex

Chapter 15 Ignorance is Power

People's sexual ignorance includes general ignorance of sexual physiology; ignorance of sexual behavior; ignorance of sexual pleasure; and ignorance of the relationship between sexual behavior and reproduction, etc.

In this world, there is a process from ignorance to knowledge about everything in life. There is nothing to say about this.However, if people’s ignorance on something is caused by man-made factors, that is, someone intentionally or unintentionally caused people’s ignorance on something, or intentionally delayed the time for people to understand something, it would be more interesting. Sex is a matter of A typical case.Our society has been in a state of serious ignorance for decades.People's sexual ignorance includes general ignorance of sexual physiology; ignorance of sexual behavior; ignorance of sexual pleasure; and ignorance of the relationship between sexual behavior and reproduction, etc.

A middle-aged woman I interviewed described her sexual ignorance with a vivid example: "I didn't understand how people would have children at the time. I thought that sperm could crawl around like lice and fleas. When I went to the Corps That’s how I thought, so I never dared to hang the clothes and quilts on the boys’ clothes for fear of getting them. One incident aggravated my thinking. At that time, we even had a girl who was also an educated youth in Beijing. It’s very simple. Somehow, her belly grew bigger. Others said she was bad, and asked her if she had sex with a boy. She said, what is “having sex”? She only admitted to hang out with a boy on a wire I really thought that I could get pregnant. Later, the girl went to the hospital for an examination and found that it was a uterine tumor, but her reputation was already bad, and her mother even went to the leader of the Corps to protest. I heard When I saw this, I felt very puzzled, how do people get pregnant? I can only keep this question in my heart, and I don’t dare to ask others.”

Sexual ignorance was at one time a sign of purity and something to be proud of; conversely, knowledge of it was a shameful thing.I remember that in 1974, when I was studying history at university, I once chatted with female students in the dormitory about "eunuchs".A girl asked me if I knew what an eunuch was, and I said yes, but she immediately said proudly: "I don't know what an eunuch is!" The implication was that she was much purer than me.I still remember the shame and embarrassment I felt for knowing eunuchs before anyone else.It is worth mentioning that we are a group of college students studying history!The illustrative implication of this is that if there is a society or period in which people are ashamed of some kind of knowledge (knowledge of whatever it is) then one cannot hope much for the rationality of the people in that society or period .The most incisive summary of such a society can only be what George Orwell said in his famous prophetic novel "1984": "War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength."

(End of this chapter)