It is, in fact, impossible to know the full sexuality of any historical figures from most of Chinese history, unless they are indicated to be bisexual, since only affairs which were considered out of the ordinary were documented. He noted, "They are intensely jealous of each other." Įxcept in unusual cases, such as Emperor Ai, the men named for their homosexual relationships in the official histories appear to have had active heterosexual lives as well. One mention by Ying Shao, who lived about 140 to 206, does relate palace women attaching themselves as husband and wife, a relationship called dui shi. Throughout written Chinese history, the role of women is given little positive emphasis, with relationships between women being especially rare. This phrase was linked with the earlier story of Mizi Xia's bitten peach to create the formulaic expression yútáo duànxiù (余桃断袖) to refer to homosexuality in general. The cut sleeve was imitated by many people at court and became known as Duànxiù, or "breaking the sleeve". The story of Emperor Ai which most struck later writers, however, was when the Emperor carefully cut off his sleeve, so as not to awake Dongxian, who had fallen asleep on top of it. The Han emperor most strongly devoted to his male companion was Emperor Ai, who "by nature.did not care for women", and who attempted to pass the throne on to his lover, Dongxian (董賢). Besides this lover, he also had many famous empresses and imperial concubines, like Zhao Feiyan, Zhao Hede, Empress Xu and Ban Jieyu. They were deeply in love with each other, but were forced to depart by Liu Ao's mother, the Grand Empress Dowager Wang. According to the Book of Han, he had a male lover named Zhang Fang. The Emperor Cheng of Han, also named Liu Ao, was a bisexual person. The last of these emperors overlapped chronologically with "all but one" of the first fourteen Roman emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual by historian Edward Gibbon. Many were the men of ancient times who gained favor this way. Yet it is not women alone who can use their looks to attract the eyes of the ruler courtiers and eunuchs can play at that game as well. The proverb says, "No amount of toiling in the fields can compare to a spell of good weather no amount of faithful service can compare to being liked by your superiors." This is no idle saying. Thus I made The Biographies of the Emperors' Male Favorites. Those who served the ruler and succeeded in delighting his ears and eyes, those who caught their lord's fancy and won his favor and intimacy, did so not only through the power of lust and love each had certain abilities in which he excelled. Grand Historian Sima Qian notes that, unlike female wives and concubines, the male companions of the emperors were often admired as much for their administrative abilities as for their sexual abilities: Many were recorded in detailed biographies in the Memoirs of the Historian by Sima Qian and the Records of the Han by Ban Gu. Scholar Pan Guangdan (潘光旦) came to the conclusion that many emperors in the Han dynasty had one or more male sex partners.
Another example of homosexuality at the highest level of society from the Warring States period is the story of Lord Long Yang and the King of Wei. Mizi Xia's sharing of an especially delicious peach with his lover was referenced by later writers as Yútáo, or "the leftover peach". The historian Han Fei recorded a more exalted example in the relationship of Mi Zixia (彌子瑕) and Duke Ling of Wei (衛靈公). The Intrigues of the Warring States, a collection of political advice and stories from before the Han dynasty, refers to Duke Xian of Jin (reigned 676–651 BCE) planting a handsome young man in a rival's court in order to influence the other ruler and to give him bad advice. Homosexuality was regarded differently among social classes and the sexes, meaning that it was at times acceptable but other times not. Homosexuality has been documented in China since ancient times.