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2024/25 School of Chinese Research Student Seminar

性慾與性育：張競生及其性學理論

Sexual Desire and Sex Education: Zhang Jingsheng and His Sexological Theories

Abstract:

張競生致力於推廣性學，針對女性情慾的相關問題如性高潮、避孕等，多所闡述，力圖使大眾了解如何享受性愛的愉悅，語言風格大膽，因而他的性慾與愛情觀理論一經傳播便引發爭議。張對於性、愛情和女性權力的闡釋，有其自由開放的一面，然而，其對同性戀的抵觸態度、對男性氣概和女性氣質劃分的重視，以及對優生學的推崇，暗示著他延續19世紀末知識分子「強國強種」的心願。那麽，張與1920年代其他的男性知識分子圍繞「新性道德」所產生的爭論，究竟給予女性何種程度的自由，以及為了獲得這種自由，女性又需付出何種代價？在1920年代看似自由的「新性道德」討論中，又潛藏著怎樣的保守性，而張競生乍聽之下前衛的性解放言論，出發點究竟是個人解放或女性解放，還是他自己的社會藍圖？本演講從張競生在1920年代發表的具爭議性的性慾和性育理論出發，通過他與其他五四文人圍繞著這兩個話題所展開的論戰，探索五四後期性慾理論的開放性與保守性。

Zhang Jingsheng devoted himself to promoting sexology, boldly addressing issues such as female sexual desire, orgasm, and contraception in an effort to educate the public on the pleasures of sex. His provocative language and theories on sexual desire and romantic love immediately sparked controversy upon dissemination. While his interpretations of sexuality, love, and women’s rights exhibited a liberal and progressive veneer, his resistance to homosexuality, insistence on rigid gender binaries, and advocacy of eugenics revealed an underlying alignment with the late-19th-century intellectual aspirations of “strengthening the nation and its people” (強國強種). These complexities raise critical questions: In the 1920s debates among male intellectuals over “new sexual morality” (新性道德), to what extent did women actually gain freedom, and at what cost? What conservative undercurrents lurked beneath the seemingly liberatory discourse of “new sexual morality”? Moreover, while Zhang’s rhetoric of sexual liberation appeared radical, was its ultimate goal individual emancipation, women’s liberation, or the fulfillment of his own societal blueprint? This talk examines Zhang’s contentious theories on sexual desire and sex education during the 1920s, analysing his polemics with other May Fourth intellectuals on these topics. By doing so, it interrogates the paradoxical interplay of progressivism and conservatism in post-May Fourth discourses on sexuality.