Another gay story in Chinese mythology is about "The Farmer and the Pig." In this tale, there was a farmer in the Yangtze River region who maintained a gay relationship with a castrated pig. But he sold the pig to a butcher. After the pig was slaughtered, its soul could not rest. It went to the Emperor of the Nether World and complained about the farmer.

The pig said: "I can not complain about being butchered as I was destined to reincarnate into a pig. But since my master had affection with me, he should not have sent me to the butcher for money."

Sponsor Message.

The Emperor decided that the pig was right and allowed it to take revenge on the farmer. The pig bit the farmer on his ass in a dream. When the farmer awoke, he felt his rear itching and he desperately needed men to sodomize him in order to stop the itching. However, when he grew older and could not attract anyone to do it for him, he could only use bamboo stakes for the task. One day, he got drunk and his ass began to itch; he went into a butcher shop and picked up a sharp cutting knife used for butchering pigs. When he used the knife to stop the itching, he pierced himself and bled to death.

This story illustrates the principle of Buddhist karmic retribution, as well as beliefs of earlier religions in animal spirits and sexual intercourse between human and animals.

"Fox Fairy and a Scholar"

Another story is called the "Fox Fairy and a Scholar." In this story an old scholar, with no attraction toward women, lives alone in a big house. One night, a man dressed in black enters the house and asks the scholar for sex.

The man dressed in black is actually the scholar's "husband" and the scholar was his "wife" in their lives before reincarnation. Then they loved each other and vowed to keep their intimate relationship in their future lives. But when they made the vow, it was during a war, and the beautiful wife was captured by rebels. At last, she committed suicide to escape rape. The husband, however, followed the rebels and became one of them, and later was also killed during the war.

Because of the chastity of the wife, who was willing even to kill herself to preserve it, she was permitted by the Emperor of the Nether World to reincarnate as a man. But the husband, who followed the rebels and showed no loyalty to the king, was forced to reincarnate as a fox.

Still, the fox wanted to maintain his relationship with his (dead) wife for one more year. So he practiced alchemy and became a man, which enabled him to search for his wife in the earthly world. After listening to the man dressed in black (actually a fox), the old scholar faintly remembered his past life. But the scholar wondered if they could maintain any sexual relationship now, since both are now males.

The fox then smiled and replied : "It should not be any problem, so long as we love each other; it does not matter if it is between males, or between male and female, we still could love each other."

So the old scholar agreed. He unfastened his clothing and shared intimate moments with the man-fox . The fox then came once every two days for some time. One night, however, the fox told the scholar: "This is our last night together. Tomorrow you can check our loving relationship on one of the pillars of the house." The next morning, the scholar woke up and checked out the pillars: there was a pillar with 365 denture marks! The fox had succeeded in maintaining his relationship with his former wife, now a man, for an additional year.

In this story the philosophy is clear. Love is love; it does not matter whether it is between two men or between a man and a women. This idea actually anticipates the approach of gay liberation.

The Rabbit God

Finally, there is the story of "The Rabbit God." This tale concerns a young official of the Fujian province, who was very handsome and intelligent. His beauty captured the heart of a man called Wu Tien Bao, who followed the official wherever he went. Every time the official appeared for a court case, Wu attended. The official became aware of Wu's constant presence, but he did not know why he was following him.