Of longing and waiting: An inter-Asia approach to love and intimacy among older lesbians and bisexual women

Abstract

This paper examines same-sex intimacies formed by and among older Chinese lesbians and bisexual women who were born from the late 1930s to the late 1950s through qualitative interviews and participant observation conducted in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. For this paper, I aim at complicating cultural notions of love, romance and intimacies, that were brought up within interstices of connected histories, gender roles and marginalized sexual subjectivities. Based on ethnographic data collected during 2016–2018, I elaborate on the moments of longing and waiting as redefining modern notions of love and intimacy across time and spatial dimensions. Then I bring up a methodological episode where inter-Asian referencing intersects with Chinese modernities to illustrate how gender and sexuality meet, intersect and influence each other in the cultural imagination and eventual materialization of women’s same-sex desires. The last section will examine the politics of butchness as protection and as a form of politeness.

(Dis)Engagement with queer counterpublics: Exploring intimate and family lives in online and offline spaces in China

“…China and other East Asian contexts, such as Japan and Taiwan, share similar Confucian values, which attach great importance to traditional family values and make it difficult for same-sex relationships to be acknowledged in the family of origin (Brainer, 2019;Khor & Kamano, 2019;Tang, 2020). However, the parental and societal pressure on adult men and women, especially that on women, to marry the opposite sex and have children is extraordinarily pronounced in China (Jackson, 2019;Lo & Chan, 2017).…”

“…It is almost impossible to decipher lalas' (dis)engagement with queer counterpublics in cyberspace without understanding their ‘relational self’, which is inclined to pursue self‐interest and yet simultaneously strives to meet family expectations and interests in their family‐centred context (Lo, 2020; Qi, 2016). China and other East Asian contexts, such as Japan and Taiwan, share similar Confucian values, which attach great importance to traditional family values and make it difficult for same‐sex relationships to be acknowledged in the family of origin (Brainer, 2019; Khor & Kamano, 2019; Tang, 2020). However, the parental and societal pressure on adult men and women, especially that on women, to marry the opposite sex and have children is extraordinarily pronounced in China (Jackson, 2019; Lo & Chan, 2017).…”

The Production of Contemporary Sociological Knowledge in Hong Kong

“…An overview of contemporary research areas included domestic division of labour among lesbians (D. Wong, 2012), elderly gay men (Kong, 2012), lesbian sexualities among migrant workers (Lai, 2018; Sim, 2010), lesbians and urban spaces (Tang, 2011), same‐sex relationship and immigration (Suen, 2019). An emerging trend is to conduct comparative studies on sexualities such as Chinese gay identities in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan (Kong, 2011), same‐sex marriage in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Tang et al., 2020), older lesbians in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore (Tang, 2020), transmen in Hong Kong and Thailand. Similar to other research areas, the unique geopolitical position of the city and its relative academic freedom have allowed Hong Kong scholars to study LGBT issues in China (Choi & Luo, 2016; L. Y. L. Kam, 2019; Kong, 2011).…”