4. Ancient Imperial Chinese Depravity
Ancient Chinese Emperor Jing of Han (reigned 157 BC – 141 BC) crushed feudal aristocrats who tried to run their fiefdoms as independent realms, and consolidated imperial control of China. All in all, his reign was a good one, and he governed with a light hand. Jing lowered taxes, lifted other burdens from commoners, and paved the way for the Han Dynasty to reach a pinnacle under his successors. In his own household, however, Jing raised some depraved monsters. First of those was Prince Tuan, who had some serious sexual hangups. That was a problem, because one of the main tasks of a royal prince was to sire sons, and so ensure the continuity of the dynasty.
Prince Tuan could not get it up with his wives and concubines. Contemporary texts stated that he suffered a “withering of his potency”. Tuan became physically ill whenever he had to approach a woman. The man was gay, but he nonetheless had an obligation to impregnate his women and continue the imperial line. The tensions eventually got too much, and got to him. He had a boy lover, but his lover was bisexual and also liked the ladies – particularly Prince Tuan’s ladies of the harem, whose needs the prince did not satisfy. When Tuan found out that his boy lover was also loving his harem ladies, he failed to see it as a win-win that relieved him of a task he neither wanted to nor could perform. Instead, he strangled his lover to death with his bare hands.
