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Right before the holidays, I received the following email from my friend Lony:
 "Let me give you all an early Chanukwanzfestimas gift. This is the story of our trip to my mom's house to trade presents last weekend. This was on Dec. 10th mind you, so my Aunt had not exactly been shopping for gifts yet. Her husband ran upstairs to get god-knows-what. In his case, god-knows-what is exactly what may be upstairs. He collects everything. His has original Chagall and Dali paintings in the living room. He has five, count them five, ancient Victrola crank record players. He comes bounding down the stairs with an object wrapped in a white towel. This gift he says, goes to whichever one of us that wants it. He unveils a 9 inch long, 2 ½ inch in circumference, Ming Dynasty phallus. The ancient member, carved in black jade with a carefully articulated head, is then passed around the room with much sputtering of the chant "oh, Ming Dynasty that's nice." Yes, even my mother. My mother muttered "Ming Dynasty" right along with us, waggled the item at her husband who visibly shrank away from it. And yes, we took it. We are now the somewhat puzzled owners with no clear idea how one displays a large ancient dildo."
I need to see this! I thought. I mean, I'm surrounded by sex toys all the time (tough job, I know), but nothing Jade, nothing manufactured pre-1600, and definitely nothing from the same folks that constructed the Great Wall!
Jade -- a beautiful choice for a...well, I started to wonder....had this been used as a dildo or was it an erotic carving meant only for admiration and not...intimate use? I thought I would try to find out before I had the pleasure of seeing it up close and personal. I promptly Google "Jade Chinese Phallus" and start searching through the 14,000 sites that come up.
On ebay, I find a few similar items for sale. Ancient Erotic Phallic, 11" Jade Phallus w Dragon reads one headline. 5" Erotic Jade Phallus reads another. The seller of this particular item has included this information:
In the Chinese culture, as well as many ancient cultures, the phallus is believed to possess very awesome power in warding off evil elements and bad luck. It is also a symbol of fertility and people worship it in the hope of bearing the next generation.
Granted this is a salesperson, and perhaps not an "expert" in ancient sex-toys (or maybe they are), I don't question the information.
Score:
"symbolic carving": 1
"sex-toy": 1
On wikipedia.org, I find this tidbit of information:
A beautiful jade phallus, which may very well have been used as a dildo, and is reckoned by curators to be about 4000 years old, is currently on display in the Ancient Chinese Sex Culture Museum near Shanghai. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Stroker_II) |
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Interesting!
Score:
"symbolic carving": 1
"sex toy": 1
Several weeks later at Lony's house, finally holding the Jade beauty in my hand, I am struck by its heft and weight, not to mention its realism. I picture her family passing it around and chuckle to myself.
"Wow, Lony, this is quite the find!" I say, and then I started drilling her with questions like any good friend who writes stuff about sex toys would do.
"What was your first thought when handed this gift?"
How do we (me and my wife) accept this gift in front of my family without them thinking we are running straight home and acting out 'Girl on Girl' Vol. 1 through 10?
"Did anyone talk about what it may have been used for (art vs. sex)?"
"No, there was no conversation about its use. (See comment above-we were so not going there.) Although, I saw a couple of museum sites on the internet that talked about them as being symbols of fertility.
"Did your uncle say why on earth he had bought it?"
Again, no discussion as to purpose at all. But, he did say that he had purchased it as a set, and they were keeping the larger one.
"Larger one?"
That's what he said: "There are two, but we are keeping the big one."
"Wow. So, truthfully...have you been tempted to use it?"
No freaking way. The reasons are numerous, but I can narrow down a few of the eeewww factors: 1) Who knows where this thing has been and what chemicals might have been used to polish it, store it etc. 2) It is made of Jade. I have no idea what putting a rock in one's yoni does. 3) In general, I am uber careful what gets near the nether regions. I love my naughty bits in working order, thank you very much, and I would like to keep everything running like clockwork well into my 90s and beyond. (4) It was a holiday gift from my eccentric aunt and uncle. Not a sexy association.
Yeah, how does Jade measure up as a sex-toy material? I wonder myself. Is Jade porous or non-porous? Did Lony's precious find have its own history lying right below it's shiny surface or has it spent its years repelling remnants of its past? I find conflicting reports on the internet.
I find a site dedicated to natural health, selling Jade Eggs used for kegel exercises:
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"The eggs are polished to a smooth, poreless surface. The Jade Eggs may simply be boiled to sterilize them, or rinsed with water after use to maintain cleanliness. The smoothed to perfection surfaces is a glistening proof of hygiene." http://www.resolveincontinence.com/product.htm |
But then I find this information, specifically about dark-colored Jade:
"Mercury is easily absorbed into the porous nephrite jade, turning it a dark brownish black...so when the jades are excavated and cleaned, this blackish mercury alteration is not washed out because it has bonded itself into the chemical structure of the jade...just another of the unique minutae of the jade experience. The black color change in these (usually) Han and Ming jades is highly desirable and eagerly collected by most jade scholars."
http://www.antiquejades.com/cnming1.htm
Yikes! Mercury?
Well, I'm still searching for the answer on this one (darn the internet for "too much information!"), but I do know one thing....there's no need to worry that this phallus will ever break, as Jade is harder and tougher than steel.
http://www.jadesite.com/physical.html
"So, what are your future plans for your new acquisition?"
If I had some money and time on my hands, a nice shadow-box type display with its authenticity paperwork is where it would be headed. Since I have no time and not a whole lot of money, it will most likely will shuffle around from desk to bookshelf to coffee table and back again.
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