Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900-1950

Conclusion

Conclusion Male same-sex relations in China during the rst half of the twentieth century appeared in many different sites: language, translated sexological writings, literary works, tabloid newspapers, and the Peking opera eld. It is important to note that these ve areas were not isolated: they overlapped with one another. Most obviously, the language that described male same-sex relations was used in all the other areas. Translated sexological thought not only appeared separately in specialized works, but also was appropriated and utilized in literary works and tabloid articles. Literary works not only reinforced certain kind of translated sexological thought, such as the afrmative belief that celebrated male same-sex love, but also provided representations of the lives of Peking opera actors. Tabloid newspapers reported and commented on male same-sex relations occurring in various sectors of society, spreading translated sexologicalideasandnewsaboutthePekingopera.Thechangingunderstandings of male same-sex relations were crystallized and circulated through the writings on Peking opera dan actors. Together, these ve venues make possible a fragmented but usable history. From the beginning of the twentieth century to the early 1930s, the meaning of male same-sex relations was actively contested. Writers of different political persuasions and social concerns understood it quite differently. Nationalist cultural conservatives wanted to establish a masculine image of China in the international arena and to maintain the old hierarchical gender order. Ironically, in order to do so, they had to rewrite the history of male same-sex relations that had partially supported that old order. They understood men who were engaged in sex with other men as debasing themselves by acting as women, thus not only disrupting the gender order but also damaging the image of the nation. Some translators of sexological writings, such as Yang Youtian, also represented this position. They introduced new Western knowledge that pathologized homosexual men in order to condemn them morally. Iconoclastic intellectuals, who were no less nationalistic, also wanted to import modern Obsession 146 Western knowledge to strengthen the nation. Among them, Hu Qiuyuan chose to translate the British socialist Edward Carpenter’s writing and used his ideas about homosexual love to imagine a utopian society. The positive value of love between men also resonated in the literary works by Yu Dafu, Guo Moruo and others who portrayed intimacy between young male friends as a protest against conventional social and sexual morality, as meaningful as the freedom to engage in heterosexual romantic love. Beginningfromtheearly1930s,astheJapaneseinvasionofChinaintensied, the iconoclastic agenda yielded to the task of national salvation. Establishing a masculine image of Chinese men became a priority. Prior to this period, popular writings could celebrate the close relationship between literati and male actors as a form of righteous brotherhood by avoiding mention of physical sex, similar to the presentation of male same-sex love in literary works. From the mid1930s to the early 1940s, however, even progressive literary writers such as Ba Jin, Lao She, Wu Zuguang, and Qin Suo’ou either denounced the actor-patron relationship as a form of class and sexual exploitation or made efforts to erase the history of actor-patron relations in order to establish a heterosexual image of the dan actor in the Peking Opera eld. Meanwhile, cultural conservatives continued to condemn men who were engaged in sex with other men, from high-ranking ofcials to male prostitutes, and used them as a sign of the problem of the nation. Many studies have demonstrated the indispensable connection between nation-state building and the pursuit of modernity on the one hand, and the construction of gender and sexuality on the other.568 This book suggests that the meaning of masculinity and male same-sex sexuality was also determined by the meaning of nationhood and modernity in twentieth-century China, and vice versa. Under the colonial threat, to build a strong nation meant to establish a masculine image of Chinese men. To pursue modernity in China under the self-conscious semi-colonial gaze meant to abolish male same-sex relations. The signicance of masculinity and male-male sexuality were viewed through the prism of nationhood and modernity. The China case also suggests that colonial conquest, whether successfully completed or threatened by the unstable relations of semi-colonialism, involved the emasculation of local men. The pursuit of modernity under colonial threat included the policing of sex between men not only by external authorities, as works on other locales demonstrate,569 but also by local elites. In this book, I have adopted a queer approach...