y conversation. The boys have been
carefully brought up for this occupation, receiving an excellent
education, and their mental qualities are even more highly valued than
their physical attractiveness. The women are less carefully brought up and
less esteemed. After the meal the lads usually return home with a
considerable fee. What further occurs the Chinese say little about. It
seems that real and deep affection is often born of these relations, at
first platonic, but in the end becoming physical, not a matter for great
concern in the eyes of the Chinese. In the Chinese novels, often of a very
literary character, devoted to masculine love, it seems that all the
preliminaries and transports of normal love are to be found, while
physical union may terminate the scene. In China, however, the law may be
brought into action for attempts against nature even with mutual consent;
the penalty is one hundred strokes with the bamboo and a month's
imprisonment; if there is violence, the penalty is decapitation; I am not
able to say how far the law is a dead letter. According to Matignon, so
far as homosexuality exists in China, it is carried on with much more
decorum and restraint than it is in Europe, and he thinks it may be put
down to the credit of the Chinese that, unlike Europeans, they never
practice unnatural connection with women. His account of the customs of
the Chinese confirms Morache's earlier account, and he remarks that,
though not much spoken of, homosexuality is not looked down upon. He gives
some interesting details concerning the boy prostitutes. These are sold by
their parents (sometimes stolen from them), about the age of 4, and
educated, while they are also subjected to a special physical training,
which includes massage of the gluteal regions to favor development,
dilatation of the anus, and epilation (which is not, however, practised by
Chinese women). At the same time, they are taught music, singing, drawing,
and the art of poetry. The waiters at the restaurants always know where
these young gentlemen are to be found when they are required to grace a
rich man's feast. They are generally accompanied by a guardian, and
usually nothing very serious takes place, for they know their value, and
money will not always buy their expensive favors. They are very
effeminate, luxuriously dressed and perfumed, and they seldom go on foot.
There are, however, lower orders of such prostitutes.[26]

Homosexuality is easily