This article examines the changing contours of Chinese sexuality studies by locating recent research in historical context. Our aim is to use the literature we review to construct a picture of the sexual landscape in China and the sociocultural and political conditions that have shaped it, enabling readers unfamiliar with China to understand its sexual culture and practices. In particular, we focus on the consequences of recent changes under the Xi regime for individuals' sexual lives and for research into sexuality. While discussing the social and political regulation of sexuality, we also attend to the emergence of new forms of gendered and sexual subjectivity in postsocialist China. We argue throughout that sexuality in China is interwoven with the political system in a variety of ways, in particular through the tension between neoliberal and authoritarian styles of governance. We explore normative and dissident sexualities as well as forms of sexual conduct that are officially "deviant" but nonetheless tolerated or even tacitly enabled by the party-state. In particular, we highlight the dilemmas and contradictions faced by China's citizens as they negotiate their sexual lives under "socialism with Chinese characteristics."
This book explores Chinese young men's views of manhood and develops a new concept of 'elastic masculinity' which can be stretched and forged differently in response to personal relationships and local realities.
This article examines different forms of inequality within men’s practices of intimacy in urban China. Focusing on the gloomy side of intimacy described by three husbands, it seeks to unravel what stands behind the language of complaints and dislikes. The data reveals that practices of intimacy do not always entail positive feelings, but can sometimes be experienced unpleasantly. It is argued that practices of intimacy are often implicated in practices of gender, class and culture. By whingeing about how their wives fail to perform proper femininities, these men reaffirm the traditional privileges of husbands and achieve a stronger sense of themselves as the authority figure in the family, as stressed in Confucian Chinese culture. While these men demonstrate varying levels of reflexive negotiations that leave space for more marital equality, their unequal practices of intimacy serve to reinforce the existing gender hierarchy and social structure in contemporary China.
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