The East, the West, and Sex

Starred review from April 6, 2009
“Is the notion of the East as a zone of special erotic possibilities purely a matter of Western fantasy and wishful thinking...?” This question is at the center of Bernstein’s wide-ranging, critically astute history of the complicated relationship between Western male sexuality and the East. The book opens in 2006 Shanghai and concludes in contemporary Bangkok; in between, we are led through a sweeping yet focused, male-centered history of sexuality, spanning a broadly defined East and West, from antiquity to the 21st century. Bernstein examines Flaubert’s sexual exploits in Egypt, where he vividly recorded “a sensual intensity, impossible in the West”; British explorer Richard Burton’s travels through the Middle East, India and Africa, all exemplified by a sexual artistry uncultivated in Christian Europe; the fascinating case of the secretive Henry de Montherlant, a pederast who spent years in North Africa “greedy for flesh” and eventually took his own life. Former New York Times
correspondent Bernstein (Fragile Glory
) writes lucidly and with verve. This probing, absorbing and eclectic study critically challenges morally and politically correct interpretations of the Western sexual exploitation of the East. 12 illus.

April 15, 2009
An investigation of the Western male's age-old attraction to Asian women.

International Herald Tribune columnist Bernstein (Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment, 2001, etc.) begins with the story of ChinaBounder, a foreign English teacher in Shanghai who boasted on his blog that he could have unlimited sex with Chinese women. The author attempts to trace this long-running East-West sexual fascination and finds the underlying reasons as pertinent today as they were when British diplomat Paul Rycaut's The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668) first titillated readers with details of the Eastern harem. Western conquest and colonialism translated into Eastern slavery and submission, setting the stage for Eastern reception of Western desire. In his loose-limbed style, Bernstein illustrates this development with solid examples throughout literature. These include the central crisis in the Iliad, in which Agamemnon steals Achilles's beloved slave companion, Briseis; the passion of Antony for Cleopatra; Marco Polo's fabulous descriptions of Kublai Khan's permissive court, and other stimulating travel accounts by Sir John Mandeville and Ludovico di Varthema; and the work of Gustave Flaubert and Richard Burton (both aficionados of prostitution while traveling in the East) as a kind of"sexual and cultural liberation movement" in an era of the emerging bourgeoisie. The author chronicles the various"phases" in this long erotic encounter, including the British nabob in India, the French lusting for Moorish women in Algeria, the war-time occupiers of Japan and Vietnam and the current trend of post–middle-aged Western men taking up marriages in Thailand. In an effort to be fair and nonjudgmental, Bernstein offers feminist viewpoints as well.

A diligent scholar pursues a subject given to theories of exploitation and dehumanization, but intriguing any way you look at it.

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May 15, 2009
Using the writing of prominent historical figures like Marco Polo, Gustave Flaubert, Richard Francis Burton, and Rudyard Kipling, Bernstein ("Out of the Blue: The Story of September 11, 2001, from Jihad to Ground Zero") tracks the fascination that Western men have had with Eastern women, from ancient explorers describing harems and sex bazaars to contemporary sexual tourism in Thailand. Bernstein makes interesting points about the moral ambiguity of the sex trade: the Christian West casts unfavorable judgments upon sex outside of marriage in ways that the East does not, though the author does admit that the fantasy of guiltless Eastern sexuality is just that, a fantasy. He clearly states his own opinion, based on practicality: the women engaged in the sex trade often use the money they earn to support their impoverished families, and it may be no worse than the other unappealing options the women have open to them. This thoroughly researched work is recommended especially to those interested in gender studies and social history. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/09.]Crystal Goldman, Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City

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