The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality

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The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality

4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 · rating details · 13 ratings · 2 reviews

Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies betwe...more

Paperback, 324 pages

Published October 26th 1998 by Princeton University Press (first published 1998)

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Sep 10, 2009 Phil rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: buddhism, sexuality

The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality by Bernard Faure manages to be both scholarly and a fun read at the same time. In an attempt to uncover "a Buddhist discourse on sex" Faure examines a wide variety of source, ranging from monastic texts, novels, plays, poetics, legal texts myths etc., and considers the role both social and political factors play in shaping religious doctrine. Faure does not dwell overmuch on the Indian roots of Buddhism, and most of the materials he draws upon are...more The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality by Bernard Faure manages to be both scholarly and a fun read at the same time. In an attempt to uncover "a Buddhist discourse on sex" Faure examines a wide variety of source, ranging from monastic texts, novels, plays, poetics, legal texts myths etc., and considers the role both social and political factors play in shaping religious doctrine. Faure does not dwell overmuch on the Indian roots of Buddhism, and most of the materials he draws upon are from Chinese and Japanese sources. A key point he makes is that there is really no universal Buddhism, but rather multivocal 'Buddhisms'.

Faure notes, at the outset, that in the text:
Woman is conspicuously absent, or she appears in as much as she is an element of the Buddhist discourse on sexuality: not for herself, as individual, but as one pole of attraction or repulsion in a gendered male discourse about sex. Denied the role of a subject in this discourse, she is primarily the emblem of larger generative, karmic or social processes, with positive or negative soteriological value.

Indeed, The Red Thread does focus almost entirely on male desire for women or male-to-male desire, and whilst there are occasional references to women's desire (for men or for other women) this book is largely about addressing issues around desire from a male perspective - hence he does not really get past the portrayal of women as either dangerous seductresses or potential 'saviours' (he promises to look more closely at gender issues in Buddhism in a future work). Faure has a good deal to say about the problem of desire in the monastic Buddhist setting - there is an extensive examination of the Japanese nanshoku tradition of 'male love' ranging from aesthetics to jokes about Buddhist priests and their novices and the 'forced moving' of particularly alluring acolytes from monasteries; he also discusses Zen, the 'crazy wisdom' traditions and Buddhist Tantric instances.

Whilst I enjoyed reading The Red Thread I'd say its' probably better to view it as a 'sourcebook' rather than anything more substantive, particularly as Faure actively shies away from drawing anything that resembles an overall conclusion about the wealth of material he examines.

Example of a Japanese 'joke' from Faure:

"Once a priest and his disciple went to a benefactor's house with some religious papers. When they reached the door, they found that the disciple's belt had come loose and the papers had fallen out. 'It looks as if you had no bottom' said the priest. 'If I hadn't,' returned the disciple, 'you wouldn't be able to exist for a single day."(less)

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Aug 19, 2012 Xiaomin Zu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: buddhism, religion, feminism, leisure

It' quite interesting to find out that homosexuality in medieval Japan is perceived as Buddhist, Manjuri is considered the most important patron of male homosexuality.
Faure's apt use of Bataillean concept of transgression and Foucultian concept of power allows us to see the multiple power relations from below that produces mobile and transitory points of resistance, unstable fault lines. Even the dominant discourses like the five feminine "obstacles" can become a factor of hope, "a reason to cl...more

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May 17, 2013 Elīna Rozentāle rated it 5 of 5 stars

May 08, 2013 C. Derick Varn marked it as to-read

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Dec 16, 2012 Daniel Dillon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nov 29, 2012 Kris marked it as to-read

Shelves: buddhism, gender-studies, history-of-sexuality, non-fiction, religion-spirituality

Sep 17, 2012 Ekaterina marked it as to-read

Sep 11, 2012 C. Todd White marked it as someday

Shelves: anthropology, sex-gender, religion

Jun 12, 2012 Nellalou rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: buddhism

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Shelves: buddhism

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Sep 26, 2011 Daniel Burton-Rose rated it 5 of 5 stars

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Apr 13, 2011 Rob Same rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dec 05, 2010 Cera-Jann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oct 27, 2010 Siddartha Sikdar added it · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, sex, general, gender, studies, asia, buddhism, world, religions, theology, non-christian, religious, aspects, social, doctrinal, sexuality, groups

May 19, 2010 Kay Baird marked it as to-read

Apr 08, 2010 Hermes marked it as wishlist

Shelves: east-asia, psychology-of-asia

Mar 22, 2010 A. Jesse marked it as to-read

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