The Culture of Sex in Ancient China is not a study of sexuality or sexual behaviour in ancient China, but of the ideology of sex found in its literature. With over a hundred pages of critical apparatus (notes and bibliography) and quotations provided both in translation and the original Chinese, Goldin's is most definitely a scholarly work. While familiarity with the history of ancient China and its literature would be helpful to the reader, however, it is accessible without that and should interest anyone involved with comparative gender studies, or simply after a different approach to early Chinese literature.

After a brief historiographical introduction that looks back at van Gulik's Sexual Life in Ancient China, Goldin covers three major topics. Chapter one surveys copulation imagery in pre-imperial literature, principally the Canon of Odes, the Tso-chuan (a commentary on the Springs and Autumns), and the Lyrics of Ch'u. Copulation was used as a metaphor for the relationship between worshipper and deity, or between ruler and adviser. And eating was used as a metaphor for copulation, which potentially involved the exchange of ching, or "refined essence". Goldin also examines possible connections with shamanism.

.