The Lotus Lovers: The Complete History of the Curious Erotic Custom of Footbinding in China

Several years ago, while I was visiting China, an extremely elderly woman scuttled across my path at one of the tourist sites near Shanghai. Her sparse hair was white, she was wearing the already rarely seen black cotton pajamas, and her feet were amazingly tiny, smaller than any I had ever seen on an adult. Her little slippers were flat and black, and under white socks great humps of something protruded anteriorly and posteriorly above her shoes. I knew I had been lucky enough to see a vanishing anachronism, a Chinese woman with bound feet. I wished desperately that I could see what it was anatomically that bulged her socks fore and aft. Why did Chinese women bind their feet until the custom, prevalent among rich and poor, was prohibited by succeeding Chinese governments, but most forcibly those of the last 50 years? Until this book, little systematic study has