Sex and Zen

There's no Zen here, which someone slapped on the English title, just the sex. A needy imperial scholar goes around trying to have lots of it. We see areolas rubbing together. Two women in all fours share a flute. Calligraphy brushes, whips and chains, some bondage. It has proper decor and costumes, a sense of plot. It's still Emmanuella stuff.

The same thing grates as in all the other skin flicks. Is sex just two bodies slathering together? In a teenager's mind maybe or if sexy means seeing a boob. Or is it a matter of context you inhabit, in which you change someone? More proper to call it sexual or erotic, it has started long before you enter the room and glows long after. Women know about this more than we do. Mind blowing sex is always with someone you know or can harness yourself in a context in which you do; the rest is monkeying around to extinguish a boner.

So what's sexy about a thing like this? What's deviant or risky? Cardboard characters who we don't know in the slightest go around rubbing themselves on each other. One pretends to be ravished, another pretends to be aroused at being whipped. It's like fake bondage for a Penthouse spread.