A time-honored prejudice dividing East and West concerns our concepts of the other's sex lives. The Chinese are prim, demure, and scandalized by the least bit of raunch, while Westerners are all confirmed sex addicts before they're done with grade school.

Like virtually all prejudice, this one springs from ignorance, and our need to generalize in order to avoid the trouble of thinking. The history of the PRC from inception to internet did go down like a large dose of saltpeter. But China has enjoyed far more lascivious times, as its literary heritage reveals.

So disillusionment gives you one reason to delve into the following works of Chinese erotica. To the busy man in the street who wonders why he'd ever read something sexy, when the multi-sensory internet is so much faster and easier, the answer lies in the question. These novels actually possess literary merit, providing context for the naughty bits, which as women and the mature will tell you, makes them far more gratifying.

Need another reason? Most of these books are still officially banned in China. So getting your jollies by reading them in China would make you a rebel twice over.

The Golden Lotus
Written by Wang Shih-cheng
Translated by Clement Egerton

The Goden Lotus was penned during the late Ming Dynasty. Only The Dream of Red Chambers tops it in erotic name-recognition. Bored with his four wives, Qing Ximeng goes about procuring a fifth and sixth. A man of action in an age without personal ads, Qing takes to the streets. The first beauty he meets has a dwarven pancake vendor for a husband. Rather than leave the poor man his one consolation, Qing goes about seducing his wife and plotting his murder.

The whole town gets wind of his perfidy, but wealth and privilege save Qing's bacon from the fire. He whisks the widow back to his seraglio, where she soon goes mad competing with the other wives in amorously currying his favor. Rarely does a main character grow less sympathetic as a story develops, but such is the case with Qing, a study in the havoc wreaked by a man who need never constrain his desires.

The Fountainhead of Chinese Erotica: The Lord of Perfect Satisfaction

Translated by Charles E. Stone

This short 16^th century novel tells of legendary Tang Empress Wu Zetian, the only Chinese empress to rule China on her own, rather than as a regent. The book is a first not only for the graphic depiction of sexuality, but also for being told from a woman's point of view. Those who can bear some historical edification with their hanky panky will delight in the leitmotif of fu, a highly evolved form of court poetry combining politics, morals, and refined behavior.

The story is not nearly as prominent as in The Golden Lotus, centering instead on subtly intertwined instances of court intrigue and extended discourse. In keeping with the feminine perspective of the novel, stages of seduction and its consequences are more important than physical acts, although these are described with shocking directness, such as when an emperor dies from an excess of copulation.

The Carnal Prayer Mat

Written by Li Yu in 1657
Translated by Patrick Hanan

This bawdy romp makes for a thoroughly enjoyable story even without the whoopy, an erotic satire in league with The Decameron. A young scholar bound for monkhood is convinced that he should sample life's sensual pleasures in order to renounce them without regret.

His first forays into licentious abandon reveal that he is woefully underequipped for the game of love. Instead of retiring to Woody Allen-like sangfroid, he struggles valiantly to compensate with amorous technique. To no avail - but the resourceful scholar resorts to a marvelously prescient solution, considering the book was written mid-seventeenth century: he has his member replaced with that of a dog.

Somehow his transplant is no hindrance in bedding a succession of beauties, culminating in a five-some with four sisters. But like Candide, this is satire with a moral. His turpitude leads to destruction and the loss of all he holds dear- his wife, his daughters, even his canine appendage.

A Tower for the Summer Heat

Written by Li Yu, 1657
Translated by Patrick Hanan

The author of The Carnal Prayer Mat, Li Yu, also wrote this collection of ribald stories, which provide an in depth survey of Ming Dynasty society while revealing how little has truly changed. The translation is named for the first story, in which a scholar acquires a telescope from the West, and uses it to spy on his neighbors. Putting the intelligence to good use, he convinces a young beauty that he is omniscient, and her father that he is preordained to marry her.

Subterfuge is the predominant theme of these stories: a world class con-artist who finally repents, a rapscallion who plots his ugly wife's death, a lusty matron who uses her wits to overcome the mores of the time. At once eye-opening and unabashedly fun, the books' frequent sex scenes are almost a distraction.

K: The Art of Love

Written by Hong Ying

Required reading for all wannabe expat Lotharios, K: The Art of Love plumbs the depths of a torrid interracial love affair, set in chaotic 1930s China. Tired of country club life, Julian Bell takes a teaching post at a Chinese university. Rather than do the unthinkable and poach students, Bell takes up with Lin Cheng, the dean's wife.

No interracial dalliance, their affair blossoms into a venus flytrap of obsession and spiritual dependence, threatened always by the specter of war with Japan. Lin spices up their frequent encounters with Daoist postures and other Oriental variations of slap and tickle. Bell disengages himself by running off to the Civil War raging in Spain, leaving Lin alone to contemplate suicide. A great read for anyone who needs a little perspective on East-West romance.

And just in case you think Chinese erotica always comes couched in pretty prose, that the ancients never read straight-up smut, here's an extended excerpt from the blush-worthy Embroidered Couch, courtesy of Google Books. You better be over 18.