The East, the West, and Sex: A History Book

Can't believe it took me so long to post this review. Here goes:

I impulsively bought a copy of Richard Bernstein's The East, The West and Sex at Elliot Bay recently, finished it in a state of moderate dissatisfaction, and started in on my next impulse purchase, Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. I'm almost finished reading about the Mongols and it's helped me figure out how to express my low opinion of TETWS.

I should say why I bought the book in the first place. There's a lovely ukiyo-e painting on the cover, and I made the assumption that the book would be about the differences in private sexual behavior between the two worlds, a subtle, poetic analysis of the more spiritual conception of sex in the East, etc… and boy, was I wrong. I might have read the back cover more carefully, to note that the author also wrote The Coming Conflict with China, or glance at a few chapter titles, such as "The Whole World as the White Man's Brothel", "The Fantasy Comes True" or "I Souvenir. You Boom-Boom", but I'm not a very perspicacious book-buyer. I wasn't that day, anyway.

So, after the first chapter or two I realized that I was reading a history of the West's sexual conquest of the East, and after a few more chapters I realized that I was reading an *apology for* and *prurient celebration of* that sexual conquest. And by the time I finished the last chapter, I'd learned that Mr. Bernstein is a 55-year-old white guy with a Chinese wife who enjoys hanging out in Thai bars run by American ex-pat pimps and feels that "moral deliberations can't take place on an abstract or absolutist level". So, although my list of frustrations with the book is long, I'll limit myself to two arguments: Bernstein's discussion of Orientalism and his brief discussion of the Mongols.

The book sets up straw men with some regularity, and Edward Said's Orientalism makes several appearances in that role. And for good reason: Said's argument ' that observers from the West quickly dehumanized and objectified "the East", seeing them not as unique peoples but as an undifferentiated and phantasmal Other ' is a rather salient perspective to consider in a book brimming with honeyed anecdotes about Western imperialists screwing any conquered body they could get their hands on. But instead of engaging that question, Bernstein feels that Said is "ambiguous" on whether sex in the East actually offered licentious opportunities for Western men that weren't available back home, and that by "hiding" from this reality Said's argument somehow loses its force. Never mind that "in eloquent, erudite, sophisticated paragraphs, Said laid out the view that this scholarship was based not on verifiable facts about the East but on fantasies, clichés, and stereotypes embedded in the Western mind", because by failing to acknowledge the existence of harems, admit that Western imperialists could purchase the services of any native girl, and luridly recall stories of visiting bishops who were offered sexual favors as diplomatic courtesy, etc., "politically correct" Orientalism falls to pieces on the rocks of "the world as it was and is".

Bernstein finds many ways to reassure the reader that "the East" doesn't make the same judgments as we do about prostitution and the subjugation of women, and that one mustn't get too hung up on Western, Christian notions of sex as sin or sex as categorically not-to-be-purchased. "They're just different", is the theme ' "we" are just naturally curious, explorers by nature, and "they" are more likely to sit at home and, well, be conquered. Several times in the book he asks the reader to imagine how mirthful and surprising it would be for Chinese or Vietnamese explorers to appear in 17th century France, sending long, detailed letters home about the sexual practices of the French and sexual opportunities available to visiting foreigners. "They" just aren't like that, and "we" are, and gee that sure is nice for us white guys, isn't it! The book often reads like a slightly boozy high-five.

But there's at least one terrific counter-example to the pattern of Western men going on a sexual rampage through the East: the Mongols. During the 13th century the Genghis Khan and his descendents found much of the world, including Europe, to be easily conquerable, and amenable to whatever requirements the new leadership demanded. This included sexual slavery, forced marriage and other titillating arrangements, but the Mongols dominated everyone, regardless of whether they were "East" or "West". This doesn't fit a neat pattern of East dominating West or West dominating East, it was simply "might makes right", and the Mongolian men acted like conquering males have throughout history.

Bernstein mentions the Mongols, but through the eyes of an intrepid Westerner who visited them in Mongolia in the hope of converting them to Christianity. He doesn't mention their sexual conquest of the West or their curiosity about and mastery of new martial, economic, political and scientific technology. Dwelling on the intelligent, curious, rapacious Easterner harshes the mellow of the late-middle aged white guy this book was written for, so Bernstein thoughtfully elides any unnecessary details, leaving us instead with thoughts about the "perhaps immoral but mostly alluring sensuality" of the Khan's harem.

The sense of entitlement and privilege grows steadily throughout the book, with reality creeping in only here and there with mention of the appalling subjugation of women that all such delights are built upon, or with sober acknowledgment that most Western sexual tourists would be horrified if their daughters were engaged in similar transactions. But never mind, for Bernstein's opiatic susurrations envelope the reader and shoo away such nagging morning-after thoughts. The book's perfunctory expressions of regret are pale and wobbly, quickly knocked aside by vivid passages about sweet-breathed nut-brown soft-shouldered beauties who "gladly and even charmingly offer themselves up to Western visitors".

I believe prostitution should be legal, and that women should have the freedom ' among many other freedoms ' to choose the profession, but the grinning, racist, triumphalist tone of this book is an affront to anyone who hopes that women will someday have the power and resources to set the terms of their relationships with men as equals, not as objects.