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Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China
The first detailed treatment of the Chinese homosexual tradition in any Western language, Passions of the Cut Sleeve shatters preconceptions and stereotypes. Gone is the image of the sternly puritanical Confucian as sole representative of Chinese sexual practices―and with it the justification for the modern Chinese insistence that homosexuality is a recent import from the decadent West. Rediscovering the male homosexual tradition in China provides a startling new perspective on Chinese society and adds richly to our understanding of homosexuality.
Bret Hinsch's reconstruction of the Chinese homosexual past reveals unexpected scenes. An emperor on his deathbed turns over the seals of the empire to a male beloved; two men marry each other with elaborate wedding rituals; parents sell their son into prostitution. The tradition portrays men from all levels of society―emperors, transvestite actors, rapists, elegant scholars, licentious monks, and even the nameless poor.
Drawing from dynastic histories, erotic novels, popular Buddhist tracts, love poetry, legal cases, and joke books, Passions of the Cut Sleeve evokes the complex and fascinating male homosexual tradition in China from the Bronze Age until its decline in recent times.
Bret Hinsch's reconstruction of the Chinese homosexual past reveals unexpected scenes. An emperor on his deathbed turns over the seals of the empire to a male beloved; two men marry each other with elaborate wedding rituals; parents sell their son into prostitution. The tradition portrays men from all levels of society―emperors, transvestite actors, rapists, elegant scholars, licentious monks, and even the nameless poor.
Drawing from dynastic histories, erotic novels, popular Buddhist tracts, love poetry, legal cases, and joke books, Passions of the Cut Sleeve evokes the complex and fascinating male homosexual tradition in China from the Bronze Age until its decline in recent times.
252 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 1990
23 people are currently reading
527 people want to read
About the author
Bret Hinsch
14 books3 followersProfessor of History at Fo Guang University, Yilan, Taiwan.
Ph.D., History and East Asian Languages, Harvard University, 1993. B.A., Asian Studies, Yale University, 1985.
Ph.D., History and East Asian Languages, Harvard University, 1993. B.A., Asian Studies, Yale University, 1985.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 19, 2021
Reading Passions of the Cut Sleeve is part of my personal deep dive into queerness in Asia (particularly East Asia) in a bid to learn more about my gender and sexual identity through my heritage.
Hinsch is a professor of history in Taiwan and has published books on the history of gender and sexuality in China. Passions of the Cut Sleeve is ordered by dynasty, putting together literature and other sources on homosexuality.
I am always most interested in the author's note and introduction, which often allows readers to get a rich insight into the subject as understood and explained by the author - sometimes a unique take depending on what the background of the author is and if they can bring a new perspective through intersecting disciplines or interests, the context of the text, the field of study, and more.
Hinsch, in his introduction, is quick to point out that his analysis is inevitably limited by, amongst other things, a dominant western perspective and framework imposed on the subject, lack of class perspective because of how literacy was limited to the upper classes in ancient China, and misogyny persistent through time, erasing any women's voices about queerness from the history.
The introduction then goes on to introduce several Chinese concepts to understand homosexual behaviour, such as: egalitarian friendship in a very hierarchical society, defining people as what they do rather than what they are, how status, class, age, and gender intersect in terms of homosexual behaviour.
Hinsch found that in Ancient China, homosexuality was seen as a set of behaviours, rather than something innate, like how the West viewed it, and he gives many examples throughout the dynasties on how homosexual behaviours were analogous to heterosexual behaviour and even complemented the heterosexual lifestyle. Sources included joke books, medical and court documents, novels and other literature. Documents from the past celebrated homosexual love, the most famous story being the origin of the term cut sleeve - where an emperor cut off his own sleeve to avoid waking up his male lover (or favourite), who has fallen asleep on it.
He then traces what he feels are the moments which homosexual behaviour starts to fall out of favour, which includes political reasons (imperial favoritism), a rise in popularity of Confucian values (which included strict sexual propriety, noting that this includes heterosexual behaviour), misogyny (again) and an intolerance for effeminate behaviour, and of course, damningly, the Western influence bringing about homophobia.
I can't comment on the validity and reliability of Hinsch's methodology, and this was the first book I read on the subject. I am not sure if his work is peer reviewed or widely accepted in his field. But I feel there is great value in preserving practices that has been erased because of racism, western and white superiority, and colonialism, and I truly believe it can heal and allow us to get back in touch with ourselves.
I feel cut off from what was once a thriving and accepted way of loving and relating to others around you (of course, only if you're a man, with personal freedoms... misogyny seems to be the unifying thread between the past and the present). In Singapore, homophobia is rampant, and people ironically believe homosexuality to be the western import.
I read this alongside other articles on the cut sleeve, watching Your Name Engraved Herein (which made me sob), and am now attempting to read Qiu Miaojin's works, classic lesbian literature in Taiwan, in Mandarin, its original language.
Hinsch is a professor of history in Taiwan and has published books on the history of gender and sexuality in China. Passions of the Cut Sleeve is ordered by dynasty, putting together literature and other sources on homosexuality.
I am always most interested in the author's note and introduction, which often allows readers to get a rich insight into the subject as understood and explained by the author - sometimes a unique take depending on what the background of the author is and if they can bring a new perspective through intersecting disciplines or interests, the context of the text, the field of study, and more.
Hinsch, in his introduction, is quick to point out that his analysis is inevitably limited by, amongst other things, a dominant western perspective and framework imposed on the subject, lack of class perspective because of how literacy was limited to the upper classes in ancient China, and misogyny persistent through time, erasing any women's voices about queerness from the history.
The introduction then goes on to introduce several Chinese concepts to understand homosexual behaviour, such as: egalitarian friendship in a very hierarchical society, defining people as what they do rather than what they are, how status, class, age, and gender intersect in terms of homosexual behaviour.
"Perhaps among the silent masses outside of this study - two peasants in the same village, fellow sailors on a grain barge drifting down the Yangzi, two apprentices in the same guild - their love might have been expressed as the love of comrades."
Hinsch found that in Ancient China, homosexuality was seen as a set of behaviours, rather than something innate, like how the West viewed it, and he gives many examples throughout the dynasties on how homosexual behaviours were analogous to heterosexual behaviour and even complemented the heterosexual lifestyle. Sources included joke books, medical and court documents, novels and other literature. Documents from the past celebrated homosexual love, the most famous story being the origin of the term cut sleeve - where an emperor cut off his own sleeve to avoid waking up his male lover (or favourite), who has fallen asleep on it.
He then traces what he feels are the moments which homosexual behaviour starts to fall out of favour, which includes political reasons (imperial favoritism), a rise in popularity of Confucian values (which included strict sexual propriety, noting that this includes heterosexual behaviour), misogyny (again) and an intolerance for effeminate behaviour, and of course, damningly, the Western influence bringing about homophobia.
"No longer does the average person think of his or her own sexuality in terms of native conceptions emphasizing actions and tendencies rather than essence. The fluid conceptions of sexuality of old, which assumed that an individual was capable of enjoying a range of sexual acts, have been replaced with the ironclad Western dichotomy of heterosexual/homosexual."
I can't comment on the validity and reliability of Hinsch's methodology, and this was the first book I read on the subject. I am not sure if his work is peer reviewed or widely accepted in his field. But I feel there is great value in preserving practices that has been erased because of racism, western and white superiority, and colonialism, and I truly believe it can heal and allow us to get back in touch with ourselves.
I feel cut off from what was once a thriving and accepted way of loving and relating to others around you (of course, only if you're a man, with personal freedoms... misogyny seems to be the unifying thread between the past and the present). In Singapore, homophobia is rampant, and people ironically believe homosexuality to be the western import.
I read this alongside other articles on the cut sleeve, watching Your Name Engraved Herein (which made me sob), and am now attempting to read Qiu Miaojin's works, classic lesbian literature in Taiwan, in Mandarin, its original language.
June 20, 2017
So, I've read this book... I think about four, five times? And I regret nothing. It was an interesting read and I am glad that I could use this gem of a book as a reference for my seminar paper.
June 5, 2021
The tender power of this image - an array of opulent courtiers fastidiously dressed in colorful silk tunes, each missing a single sleeve - guaranteed that the moment would continue to burn in the imaginations of readers for almost twenty centuries.
This is basically a bible for all things Chinese homosexual tradition and I'm so glad this exists to bring a somewhat tender yet straight forward analysis on the 2000 years of homosexual love in Chinese history, despite being presented through a dominantly Western lens. Though, Hinsch is quick to point this out, as well as how limited his resources were and that this book isn't an account of all homosexual representation, rather it focuses mainly on the literary aspect of it. Even though this was published 29 years ago, a lot of the patterns and trends you see in current Chinese works that heavily feature a gay relationship can be seen today, which makes this book still incredibly relevant.
There is always a value in preserving practices and tradition, even when it is destroyed or desecrated by colonisation, authoritarian government or white supremacy/domination. Over time, their symbol and tenderness can heal us, individually and collectively, even when it feels we are being buried by those in power.
Dong Xian, formed the core of a pantheon of figures seen by later generations as the symbol of male love.
This is basically a bible for all things Chinese homosexual tradition and I'm so glad this exists to bring a somewhat tender yet straight forward analysis on the 2000 years of homosexual love in Chinese history, despite being presented through a dominantly Western lens. Though, Hinsch is quick to point this out, as well as how limited his resources were and that this book isn't an account of all homosexual representation, rather it focuses mainly on the literary aspect of it. Even though this was published 29 years ago, a lot of the patterns and trends you see in current Chinese works that heavily feature a gay relationship can be seen today, which makes this book still incredibly relevant.
There is always a value in preserving practices and tradition, even when it is destroyed or desecrated by colonisation, authoritarian government or white supremacy/domination. Over time, their symbol and tenderness can heal us, individually and collectively, even when it feels we are being buried by those in power.
Dong Xian, formed the core of a pantheon of figures seen by later generations as the symbol of male love.
June 11, 2021
Such an engaging read, before I knew it I'd already finished half of the book in one sitting. I appreciate the author's care in not imposing the modern Western concepts of sexuality in his recount of the male homosexual tradition in dynastic China and his dedication to contextualize the attitude towards homosexuality and explain why it was the way it was—although I think I would benefit a lot more from this book if my knowledge on Chinese history didn't suck. The epilogue on the import of Western homophobia and the subsequent destruction of the tradition is pretty bleak, and I don't really agree with some of his assessments. But overall I'm glad I read this.
It's also such a shame that the nature of most classical Chinese literature means that we're only privy to very few and particular types of homosexual relations of the past, but I guess it's still better than nothing.
It's also such a shame that the nature of most classical Chinese literature means that we're only privy to very few and particular types of homosexual relations of the past, but I guess it's still better than nothing.
July 11, 2025
tw: discussions of pederasty and mutilation/castration
reading experience was probably 2 stars because there were some interesting bits even if it was overall kind of frustrating. but i'm giving this 1 star because this book just has too many issues with it.
first of all, the alleged plagiarism. samshasha, hong kong's first gay rights activist and author of history of homosexuality in china 《中國同性戀史錄》 (1984), has alleged that bret hinsch plagiarised his work and that passions of the cut sleeve (1990) uses suspiciously similar structure, sources, and arguments — in particular the central thesis that homophobia was a western import while homosexuality existed in china as part of an ancient literary and historic tradition — although samshasha never took formal legal action due to limited financial resources. (source: his interview with mark mclelland in intersections) regardless of whether plagiarism really occurred, as helen leung points out, there is a "unequal power dynamic between scholarly studies with institutional support and independent research conducted outside of the academy" (source: archiving queer feelings in hong kong by helen leung) which enables subsummation of local and/or non-western queer writings by academics in western and particularly anglophone institutions. while passion of the cut sleeve is constantly lauded for being "the first detailed treatment of the chinese homosexual tradition in any western language", samshasha's history is (as far as i know) out-of-print, mostly inaccessible, and considered niche. (i had wanted to read samshasha’s book originally, but i couldn’t find it anywhere on or offline, which is why i settled for hirsch in the first place.)
as a result, passion of the cut sleeve is cited everywhere, which is particularly frustrating because it has a lot of misinformation and generalisations in it, and the citation situation is frankly horrendous. hinsch’s reliance on secondary sources (and i'm not the first to point this out — charlotte furth apparently criticised this in her 1991 review discussing the plagiarism allegations) and his neglecting to specify what primary sources those secondary sources quoted makes locating the original chinese extracts so much more difficult and irritating.
this opens the book up to perpetrating errors in previous research: in on the cut sleeve《斷袖篇》(1909-11), qing-dynasty writer a'meng 阿蒙 misdates a passage about pan zhang 潘章 and wang zhongxian 王仲先, thus leading hinsch to claim that it is "the most positive and romantic account [of homosexuality] that survives from the zhou period" (c. 11th-3rd century bc); however, the passage is actually from extensive records of the taiping era 《太平廣記》(978 ad), which was written in the early song period. (source: wikipedia and yes, i know the irony of citing a wikipedia article, but i have checked the original text of taiping guangji and the particular passage hirsch uses is from scroll 卷 389, tumulus part one 塚墓一)
some other errors i noticed:
- hirsch misattributes a passage about court fashion during han emperor ai’s 漢哀帝 reign to book of han 《漢書》 when it was from record of heretofore lost works 《拾遺記》, which frankly contributed to a questionable minor conclusion in the chapter about homosexuality in the han dynasty
- in the chapter about the tang and song dynasties, hirsch employs really sketchy source that he implies is a short story from the tang dynasty (7-10th century); the extract turns out to be from the complete romance of anti-tang(translation of the title mine—hirsch does not offer one in the book, nor can i find any pre-existing translation of the title)《反唐演義全傳》 skimming the text suggests to me that it is a novel of historical fiction based on wu zetian, and the character in the particular extract provided is about her nephew wu sansi; several (unverified) online sources suggest this novel was written in the qing dynasty (17-20th century) though overall there is not much information about this work available
- hirsch claims tang-dynasty poet li qi 李頎 wrote a poem about the general ji long 季龍 and his love for a boy named zheng yingtao 鄭櫻桃, which put the rest of the former’s neglected concubines in danger. however, while it is true some modern chinese scholars (and later writers including ming-dynasty novelist feng menglong 馮夢龍, who wrote the history of love 《情史》) believe yingtao is a singing boy due to his being referred to as such in the book of jin, li qi likely believed that zheng yingtao was a woman — a stance supported by the fact that ji long later had a wife/empress whose surname was zheng. regardless, to reiterate — li qi did not write a narrative poem about male favouritism
- in general, hinsch's translated extracts from (classical and vernacular) chinese texts are occasionally inaccurate or otherwise off in some way
and these are just the things that i, a complete amateur in chinese history with minimal experience reading classical chinese, was able to pick up on! i have no idea how many other inaccuracies and methodological/evidential errors there are in this book. hirsch also not unfrequently made claims with no supporting citations (one of the more egregious examples being the claim “eunuchs were a major fixture of a chinese emperor’s environment, and it would therefore not seem inappropriate for him to view them sexually” being made with little elaboration and no supporting evidence) and it massively impacted my faith in hirsch as a researcher.
in terms of using homoerotic literature as evidence for a homosexual tradition, i wish hinsch also delved into the implications of homosociality in ancient china. i don’t know how to feel about the fact that there’s a whole section in the chapter about northern and southern dynasties dedicated to literary appreciation of male beauty, hence implying that male appreciation of male beauty is inherently homosexual, which is a HUGE generalisation. appreciation of male beauty was among the literary and cultural trends of the time, and i feel that it is highly unlikely expression of that necessarily signifies that all male authors who wrote on the topic were sexually attracted to or had sexual relations with men.
in general, i felt that hirsch massively overstated acceptance of homosexuality in (early) imperial china. (this was something samshasha changed about his own book in the revised 1997 edition — rather than arguing homophobia was a western import, samshasha suggested existing homophobia in china became westernised.)
[tw for the following: discussion of pederasty, self-mutilation/castration, violence and parental death]
i also tentatively want to say that hirsch occasionally comes off as romanticising ancient chinese homosexual relations, many cases of which are not unlike ancient greek and roman (and japanese) pederasty, which is of course not at all what modern people consider to be a healthy and loving egalitarian homosexual relationship. hirsch does establish this early on in the book and briefly explains the typical age and class gap within homosexual/pederastic relationships in ancient china; however, later on in the book, i think hirsch sometimes either consciously or unconsciously manipulates and sugarcoats historical evidence to be more palatable(?) and romantic and congruent with his view that homosexuality was socially acceptable in most of imperial china.
[tw: mention of sex work and exploitation]
this sugarcoating might have led to the epilogue’s conclusion, where hirsch laments the lack of a “revival of the homosexual tradition […] not only is the native homosexual tradition unknown among critics of homosexuality, but it has also virtually disappeared among homosexuals themselves.” he disapproves of what he sees chinese/sinophone aueer communities basing their ideas of queerness off the modern western world. but i think advocating for a “revival of the homosexual tradition” is an incredibly nativist sentiment (for a community hirsch does not belong to, no less) and imperial chinese pederasty isn’t something modern gay men should aspire to, anyway. and it’s not like gay male communities in italy and greece are calling for a return to ancient roman and greek pederasty either! it’s just a conclusion that really rubs me the wrong way.
tl;dr: this book has many many methodological issues and errors and hirsch overstates acceptance of homosexuality in imperial china as well as understating exploitation and inequalities within pederastic relationships.
reading experience was probably 2 stars because there were some interesting bits even if it was overall kind of frustrating. but i'm giving this 1 star because this book just has too many issues with it.
first of all, the alleged plagiarism. samshasha, hong kong's first gay rights activist and author of history of homosexuality in china 《中國同性戀史錄》 (1984), has alleged that bret hinsch plagiarised his work and that passions of the cut sleeve (1990) uses suspiciously similar structure, sources, and arguments — in particular the central thesis that homophobia was a western import while homosexuality existed in china as part of an ancient literary and historic tradition — although samshasha never took formal legal action due to limited financial resources. (source: his interview with mark mclelland in intersections) regardless of whether plagiarism really occurred, as helen leung points out, there is a "unequal power dynamic between scholarly studies with institutional support and independent research conducted outside of the academy" (source: archiving queer feelings in hong kong by helen leung) which enables subsummation of local and/or non-western queer writings by academics in western and particularly anglophone institutions. while passion of the cut sleeve is constantly lauded for being "the first detailed treatment of the chinese homosexual tradition in any western language", samshasha's history is (as far as i know) out-of-print, mostly inaccessible, and considered niche. (i had wanted to read samshasha’s book originally, but i couldn’t find it anywhere on or offline, which is why i settled for hirsch in the first place.)
as a result, passion of the cut sleeve is cited everywhere, which is particularly frustrating because it has a lot of misinformation and generalisations in it, and the citation situation is frankly horrendous. hinsch’s reliance on secondary sources (and i'm not the first to point this out — charlotte furth apparently criticised this in her 1991 review discussing the plagiarism allegations) and his neglecting to specify what primary sources those secondary sources quoted makes locating the original chinese extracts so much more difficult and irritating.
this opens the book up to perpetrating errors in previous research: in on the cut sleeve《斷袖篇》(1909-11), qing-dynasty writer a'meng 阿蒙 misdates a passage about pan zhang 潘章 and wang zhongxian 王仲先, thus leading hinsch to claim that it is "the most positive and romantic account [of homosexuality] that survives from the zhou period" (c. 11th-3rd century bc); however, the passage is actually from extensive records of the taiping era 《太平廣記》(978 ad), which was written in the early song period. (source: wikipedia and yes, i know the irony of citing a wikipedia article, but i have checked the original text of taiping guangji and the particular passage hirsch uses is from scroll 卷 389, tumulus part one 塚墓一)
some other errors i noticed:
- hirsch misattributes a passage about court fashion during han emperor ai’s 漢哀帝 reign to book of han 《漢書》 when it was from record of heretofore lost works 《拾遺記》, which frankly contributed to a questionable minor conclusion in the chapter about homosexuality in the han dynasty
- in the chapter about the tang and song dynasties, hirsch employs really sketchy source that he implies is a short story from the tang dynasty (7-10th century); the extract turns out to be from the complete romance of anti-tang(translation of the title mine—hirsch does not offer one in the book, nor can i find any pre-existing translation of the title)《反唐演義全傳》 skimming the text suggests to me that it is a novel of historical fiction based on wu zetian, and the character in the particular extract provided is about her nephew wu sansi; several (unverified) online sources suggest this novel was written in the qing dynasty (17-20th century) though overall there is not much information about this work available
- hirsch claims tang-dynasty poet li qi 李頎 wrote a poem about the general ji long 季龍 and his love for a boy named zheng yingtao 鄭櫻桃, which put the rest of the former’s neglected concubines in danger. however, while it is true some modern chinese scholars (and later writers including ming-dynasty novelist feng menglong 馮夢龍, who wrote the history of love 《情史》) believe yingtao is a singing boy due to his being referred to as such in the book of jin, li qi likely believed that zheng yingtao was a woman — a stance supported by the fact that ji long later had a wife/empress whose surname was zheng. regardless, to reiterate — li qi did not write a narrative poem about male favouritism
- in general, hinsch's translated extracts from (classical and vernacular) chinese texts are occasionally inaccurate or otherwise off in some way
and these are just the things that i, a complete amateur in chinese history with minimal experience reading classical chinese, was able to pick up on! i have no idea how many other inaccuracies and methodological/evidential errors there are in this book. hirsch also not unfrequently made claims with no supporting citations (one of the more egregious examples being the claim “eunuchs were a major fixture of a chinese emperor’s environment, and it would therefore not seem inappropriate for him to view them sexually” being made with little elaboration and no supporting evidence) and it massively impacted my faith in hirsch as a researcher.
in terms of using homoerotic literature as evidence for a homosexual tradition, i wish hinsch also delved into the implications of homosociality in ancient china. i don’t know how to feel about the fact that there’s a whole section in the chapter about northern and southern dynasties dedicated to literary appreciation of male beauty, hence implying that male appreciation of male beauty is inherently homosexual, which is a HUGE generalisation. appreciation of male beauty was among the literary and cultural trends of the time, and i feel that it is highly unlikely expression of that necessarily signifies that all male authors who wrote on the topic were sexually attracted to or had sexual relations with men.
in general, i felt that hirsch massively overstated acceptance of homosexuality in (early) imperial china. (this was something samshasha changed about his own book in the revised 1997 edition — rather than arguing homophobia was a western import, samshasha suggested existing homophobia in china became westernised.)
[tw for the following: discussion of pederasty, self-mutilation/castration, violence and parental death]
i also tentatively want to say that hirsch occasionally comes off as romanticising ancient chinese homosexual relations, many cases of which are not unlike ancient greek and roman (and japanese) pederasty, which is of course not at all what modern people consider to be a healthy and loving egalitarian homosexual relationship. hirsch does establish this early on in the book and briefly explains the typical age and class gap within homosexual/pederastic relationships in ancient china; however, later on in the book, i think hirsch sometimes either consciously or unconsciously manipulates and sugarcoats historical evidence to be more palatable(?) and romantic and congruent with his view that homosexuality was socially acceptable in most of imperial china.
[tw: mention of sex work and exploitation]
this sugarcoating might have led to the epilogue’s conclusion, where hirsch laments the lack of a “revival of the homosexual tradition […] not only is the native homosexual tradition unknown among critics of homosexuality, but it has also virtually disappeared among homosexuals themselves.” he disapproves of what he sees chinese/sinophone aueer communities basing their ideas of queerness off the modern western world. but i think advocating for a “revival of the homosexual tradition” is an incredibly nativist sentiment (for a community hirsch does not belong to, no less) and imperial chinese pederasty isn’t something modern gay men should aspire to, anyway. and it’s not like gay male communities in italy and greece are calling for a return to ancient roman and greek pederasty either! it’s just a conclusion that really rubs me the wrong way.
tl;dr: this book has many many methodological issues and errors and hirsch overstates acceptance of homosexuality in imperial china as well as understating exploitation and inequalities within pederastic relationships.
October 30, 2024
Read this in my liesure time because I was curious about queer history in China and was not disappointed! I went in expecting a very academic and calculated textbook, but this historical deep dive actually offers countless examples and accounts in an easy to digest and interesting manner! The author does a great job in explaining everything and finding informative and compelling historic examples, painting a picture of homosexuality by reading between the lines and filling in missing puzzle pieces. Very well done and a great read! I learned so much!
March 14, 2022
been waiting to read this for a long time and it DID NOT disappoint. an incredible survey of the history of gay male experiences in imperial china. hinsch is a very careful & kind writer and i appreciate the way he leads us through this history, how he contextualizes the material we have, & the attention he pays to what we can - and can't - know from the existing sources. only wish there was more.
June 5, 2019
I'm so glad I read this book. The author does a great job tracing the literary homosexual tradition in China (not homosexuality in general). But I appreciated his framing the study in that way because it acknowledged the limitation of his sources. I would say that it changed my perception of sexuality in general, not just of male homosexuality in China. It revealed how we take for granted the categories of gay, straight, etc. as "scientific" and "natural" when they are a recently-invented cultural phenomenon. Through this careful examination, it exposed my own biases and culturally-influenced understandings of sexuality and identity. As a Chinese-language student, I only wish that the author had included Chinese characters along with pinyin for some of the words he uses, to make it easier for me to do research on my own. Otherwise, I wouldn't change anything about this book. I just wish that some of my professors had even mentioned this offhand when I was majoring in Chinese in college.
February 18, 2022
This book was a bad experience, especially since several of the issues of this book couldn't possibly be explained by the author making mistakes, a few times at least he must have lied. And it had the lack of nuance that I came to expect.
Something was suspiciuous early on as he states that sex in general is only limitedly depicted in chinese writing and references to lesbianism is only very little. So how can his earlier claim about same-sex marriage for men and women be true? If sources on male sex are so few, how does he know which "favorites" of emperors were so due to sex? Especially since the term referred to political status, not sexual activities.
I think he defines homosexuality based on actions and not desire or feelings. Which would explain why he considered rape and prostitution as homoerotic. And saying sexual practices other than anal are "relatively rare" in the documents would be an understatement in my eyes.
He couldn't even stay consistent in the start of the books, when he talks of "many chinese men" who experienced changes in their sexual roles. Of course from what I know, this is to be expected as those roles are heavily gendered, class-based and age-based. Boys get fucked because they are younger, less powerful and when they are feminine.
The introduction didn't make me feel confident with what was to come, several things were already questionable, including how he defines homosexuality, or when he claims the limits of "transgenderal" homosexuality are theaters and some eunuchs. Which suggests also a very technical definition of homosexuality.
Unlike what he claimed, we have no idea whether there was anything sexual between Duke Ling of Wei and Mizi Xia, nor would I call it love. The stuff between Wang Zhongxian and Pan Zhang seems a stable and happy relationship, if you only go by what he says. I found the tale in another book of mine and not only do these two life together, but they also went mad suddenly and died. And their relationship was several times in the story referred as something undesirable and causes the death of their fiances. Does he not know or not tell?
Considering many of the early issues with the author (omitting or ignorant of information, saying chong could as well mean respect or sexual relationships and other vague/ambivalent things, etc), I really wondered whether he is right when he says the word "Mei" was originally referring to both genders and later only to women and effeminate boys and men (men?). He only states it changed, but where is the proof?
And his statement about the reasons for the prevalence of what he calls bisexuality (the need for children) shows that he mostly goes by behavior and not desire, albeit later on he switches back and forth, so confusing this even more.
And while I can belief that he made many mistakes, sometimes I think he is just lying. You see, there is one quotation in this book that reads: "A beautiful lad can ruin an older head; a beautiful woman can tangle a tongue. " However, the author claims that this line compares "two sexual partners, a beautiful woman and man," but there is no "man" here, the original quote clearly compares a woman to a lad.
The story of Lord Long Yang and the king of Wei is one of the few were you could say this is true homosexuality. Still, the author says himself that the body of information on homo/bisexuality during the Zhou is miniscule and so you shouldn't generalize about the forms of homosexuality in ancient times. But then how does he know that it was truly tolerated and only mentioned when it hinders imperial workings as he claims?
Sometimes I wondered what on earth is he talking about. E.g. in what way is Deng Tong "just one in a long line of men who rose to high position through the use of sexual wiles"? Where did the text actually suggest this? The emperor dreamed of him pushing him to heaven or is that supposed to mean "sex"? Or is it "to amuse himself" at Dong's place that is "sex"? That is really vague, so what is he basing it on? And if the passages regarding Deng Tong and other favorites have the title "Ning Xing" and ning originally referred to "artful flattery" and the title means "Those obtaining favor [through] artful flattery", based on what has that anything to do with sex? What is he basing it on?
Also, there are two things:
1) If "homosexuality" was part of daily court life and the writers (of the Han as well) felt the need to account only for the extraordinary, where are the positive examples of homosexuality described in detail? Where are the sages, the poems etc?
2) Why is the story of Li Yannian here? His sister used sexual wiles, not him.
Other insertions were also questionable. Take Huo Guang who had a "beloved" that "was a mere slave master" named Feng who after Huo's death had a "passionate affair of their own." Apart from the fact that by the laws of the time his wife had no other way but tolerating Feng, but whose to say that Feng wasn't basically raped by Huo? And based on what were chinese men free to live out their full range of sexual desire? Where is his evidence? Where is the evidence that bisexuality would be at least as popular as pure homosexuality or perhaps even strict heterosexuality? He claims it is plausible, but based on what? A lot of what he writes is bad research and theorizing at best. And he, once more, mentions a low number of data. And what male concubines is he writing about? Not a single primary source that he stated ever referred to a male as a concubine. Is he making this stuff up? I think he does, because none of the books written later ever mentioned a male imperial concubine. Some lower ranking men may have had some, but none was ever mentioned for an emperor.
His reasoning is weird. He basically just said, that homosexuality was attractive during the Han because it would foster friendship, gain favors and there can be no unwed mothers resulting from it. How many straight friends fuck eachother or fuck guys because women can get pregnant? Only the sex for favors thing makes some sense. In fact, some stuff later straight up suggests a lack of women as a reason. And speaking of the Han emperors: If this Ban Gu wrote that emperor Ai "did not care for women" then this could mean he actually was homosexual based on the modern day definition, and the fact that the author doesn't point out this destinction despite quoting the two definitions much earlier speaks volumes.
And he himself says that early historians were prone to hyperbole, so why take those by their word? Where is the additional evidence? And why does he constantly say "men" when the terms in original only say "male"? And did it ever occur to the author that those historians could not conceive homosexuality at court in any way except favoritism? After all, they often warn of such favoritism and again: Where are the positive examples?
Despite all the things he himself wrote that make early chinese accounts of "homosexuality" suspicious, low number of data, tendency for hyperbole, ambivalent meaning of terms, he seems so incredibly sure of what he states. That doesn't make sense in my mind. And often I had no way of checking him.
And reading about how he writes about looks via cosmetics and the like during the Han and mentions He Yan and Du Yi, makes me wonder whether he might apply gay stereotypes and/or doesn't know the difference between admiration and sexual desire.
And he constantly claims "men" when the text doesn't say that, to give an example: he states that the poem from the "Jade Terrace" collection of love poetry "beautifull illustrates the stock imagery on which men of his time could draw in conceptualizing and describing love for another man." But the very first line says: "In days of old there were many blossom boys." In another example he tells you the age of a male prostitute (15 sui aka about 14 years) and he still calls that one a man. It got so bad that he claimed that some heir apparent, named Li Chengqian, favored a young entertainer, who was little more than ten years old at the time. That is straight up pedophile territory if it truly was sexual and yet the author never pointed that out.
He also seems to discard the substitution for women theory because it clashes with his own narrative, despite all the things he wrote before about feminine beauty as well as his statements about how "favorites" among the Tang lacked the significant power of earlier ones and that instead the influence of steppe peoples enabled powerful women to monopolize the niche in court life held earlier by male favorites. And if that favor is based on sex, as he earlier claims, this has implications: that they fucked boys (maybe men) because no women were available.
And despite this and other signficant evidence that he himself states here, he continues on and on with his claims of tolerance and acceptance. Which is really odd, when you consider that he himself writes how an author includes homosexuality in his panorama of sexual life, but relegating it to the end among lewd monks and crude peasants hardly gives it a place of honor. And if homosexuality was so tolerated in imperial times, why did people in Zhejiang in Song times avoid the word duck as ducks were thought to favor homosexual intercourse? And he straight up mentioned Song texts that regard homosexuality as a sin. And what he writes about the decline of favoratism under the Song makes it really sound as if his beloved homosexual tradition was only started to gain power and influence for oneself. And speaking of the Song times, he mentions favoritism and prostitutional homosexuality, but where are the examples of non-prostitutional homosexuality? And him insisting on the existence of a highly developed system of male prostitution just showed his tendency to downplay again, as well as his seeming inability to accept the fact of two very contradictory strains of culture existing at the same time, that happens in any society that is just big enough. And speaking of big, his examples only refer to big urban centers.
And when he wrote that "when analyzing Chinese humor we must not ignore this possibility that many seemingly negative jokes first arose among men attracted to homosexuality", I thought that "when reading this book we must not ignore the tendency of the author to sugarcoat bad things, confuse boys and men, define sexuality by performed acts and constantly try to ignore or downplay negative elements that don't fit his view of "tolerance". And while he claims that there are numerous surviving jokes about all forms of sexuality so one should not conclude hostility toward homosexuality, I noted that after all these jokes that can clearly, if not primarily, interpreted as homophobic, the only example he gave of alleged hostility against straight sex, is about taoist abstinence.
And why is it that for his statements he so often has no evidence or barely any? The same with his claim of "sexually passive men" who were that for their lifetime. Where is the evidence?
And it is telling that he can't put one and one together and speculate that the reduction of all forms of sexuality to the bare essentials in these jokes means that in those times romanticism wasn't present in their image of men fucking boys.
Before I forget, he claimed there was gay marriage and as I suspected, it was about an alleged "custom" in Fujian. He mentions a story with it that I also know, but I was not preferred for his lack of facts. About the context of a story, he claims that "both men know that the day of separation will some day come when Ruiji inevitably leaves to marry a woman." But he doesn't tell you about the aversion to men "Ruiji" will develop and how the growing penis robs him of his beauty according to Jifang. And the author tries to claim that Ruiji castrated himself out of gratitude to Jifang, but that is not the reason. The reason was that he thought his penis to be a terrible thing as Jifang stated. And while he claims that the "male marriage" was portrayed in idealistic terms, the story states that one should not do such a thing. In fact, it says it several times. But for some reason the author doesn't tell you such things. Neither does he count it as transgenderal homosexuality even though Ruiji now has a scar the form of a vulva and looks like a woman.
About the wider existence of this Fujian custom, he claims that "Throughout the marriage, many of which lasted for twenty years, the qixiong was completely responsible for his younger husband's upkeep." In other words: he pays for everything. However: what is the source of his statement for many of these "marriages" lasting for 20 years? No source is given. Even calling this a marriage is really stretching it.
Just like referring to rape as taking the passive sexual role, as we get told in a story straight up that the "lover" Zhong "secretly penetrates Zhang while the soldier sleeps." And when he later states that spanish accounts claim that "Chinese immigrants were causing native Filipinos to take up homosexuality", it made me think those chinese wanted to fuck the filipino teenagers, young teenagers most likely. That was the picture he so far presented. Of course what he presents and what not follows no pattern, except maybe sticking to his narrative. He talks about a love between a chinese gentlemen and a kabuki actor... so... how old was the actor and what did he actually look like? Male or female? What forms of homosexual behavior did Qing society allegedly show a high degree of tolerance for? And where is the alleged difference to the Ming times? And considering that this author himself lied several times, called an instance of obvious rape love, and never really adressed that servants had to sexually submit to their masters, I don't think his opinion is a valid one. So, is he sure that only "sometimes" there was rape of male victims? How does he know? I don't trust his statements in either way, there are too many issue with this book.
And naturally for an author of his ilk, he claims that "unlike contemporary gays in China, who exist cut off from this tradition, Qing society was still steeped in an awareness of the ancient icons of the male custom." The custom of grown man fucking and exploiting teenage boys. He never points out the big age differences here and so far barely mentioned the system of abuse and exploitation that sing song boys represented. And even when he quotes cases were homosexual advances were considered offensive, he never considers that evidence against his line of reasoning, then again, he didn't complain about actors being forced prositutes, so he is able to rationalize alot apparently.
And as part of his line of reasoning, he naturally considers Bayou from Dream of the Red Chamber to be sexually interested in homosexuality, despite the fact that the text clearly references nothing of that sort. In fact the cases he mentions of other characters from the novel refer to clearly feminine boys, not men. And Bayou himself is quite effeminate, something he also never points out.
And when it comes to his claim that "there is no question that homosexuality was widespread almost to the point of universality among young actors," he never states that this was because they had no choice, especially dan actors were primarily prostitutes. He barely hints at it and the fact that so little is known of the lowest prostitutes but it doesn't seem to bother him, despite saying that the association of passive homosexuality and hence prostitution contributed to the low social status of actors, but how can that be if the society was allegedly so tolerant?
Towards the end of the book he comes to the end of the Qing empire and to the republican period and naturally cannot help but defend what he says a homosexual tradition. And if you ask me, what killed what the author calls homosexuality was rather the destruction of strict gender segregation and human rights. You can't exploit teenage boys if they suddenly have rights. But that is nothing he would ever consider, what he sees is "a society in which homosexuality was relatively open and,tolerated." Compared to the spanish inquisition maybe, plus, what he presented was highly romanticized. So naturally he thinks there is a big difference compared to the imperial times. Of course, he blames the West, in fact, the moment the Qing times are over, the West is entirely to blame, even claiming that due to the relative isolation of China from the scientific main stream has allowed outdated Western ideas about homosexuality to persist. But Hong Kong and Taiwan weren't isolated, so why did the author say similar attitudes exist in all three countries? Also, both Taiwan and Hong Kong kept the traditional writings and works, so why didn't they go to the traditions as he wishes so much apparently? In fact, the sensationalist nes media examples he lists sound like several of the traditional texts that he referenced but whose darker sides he rarely, if ever acknowledged. And his claim that the "now common association of homosexuality with violent crime lacks precedent in native traditions" is completely wrong. Just look at the rootless rascal trope of Qing fiction. You know, the one that only gets fucked by the master so they can get access to the master's women. This claim is as wrong as the one that the intolerance towards homosexuality originated in the West.
As a sort of appendix he states some things about lesbianism at the end of the book, but not only did he provide no true evidence of same sex marriage among women, only some sort of oath that he claims is marriage without evidence. But his examples for other things are often as vague as the one for men, possibly even downplaying rape again. And ironically, that passage of lesbian tool use and sex varieties was literally more detailed than all the examples of the "great homosexual tradition" given more space by this author. And that even though he claimed sources on lesbianism are so rare. And keep in mind: the chapter on lesbians is not even 10 pages long, would it have killed him to quote some more examples?
In the end, I was happy, that this book was over.
Something was suspiciuous early on as he states that sex in general is only limitedly depicted in chinese writing and references to lesbianism is only very little. So how can his earlier claim about same-sex marriage for men and women be true? If sources on male sex are so few, how does he know which "favorites" of emperors were so due to sex? Especially since the term referred to political status, not sexual activities.
I think he defines homosexuality based on actions and not desire or feelings. Which would explain why he considered rape and prostitution as homoerotic. And saying sexual practices other than anal are "relatively rare" in the documents would be an understatement in my eyes.
He couldn't even stay consistent in the start of the books, when he talks of "many chinese men" who experienced changes in their sexual roles. Of course from what I know, this is to be expected as those roles are heavily gendered, class-based and age-based. Boys get fucked because they are younger, less powerful and when they are feminine.
The introduction didn't make me feel confident with what was to come, several things were already questionable, including how he defines homosexuality, or when he claims the limits of "transgenderal" homosexuality are theaters and some eunuchs. Which suggests also a very technical definition of homosexuality.
Unlike what he claimed, we have no idea whether there was anything sexual between Duke Ling of Wei and Mizi Xia, nor would I call it love. The stuff between Wang Zhongxian and Pan Zhang seems a stable and happy relationship, if you only go by what he says. I found the tale in another book of mine and not only do these two life together, but they also went mad suddenly and died. And their relationship was several times in the story referred as something undesirable and causes the death of their fiances. Does he not know or not tell?
Considering many of the early issues with the author (omitting or ignorant of information, saying chong could as well mean respect or sexual relationships and other vague/ambivalent things, etc), I really wondered whether he is right when he says the word "Mei" was originally referring to both genders and later only to women and effeminate boys and men (men?). He only states it changed, but where is the proof?
And his statement about the reasons for the prevalence of what he calls bisexuality (the need for children) shows that he mostly goes by behavior and not desire, albeit later on he switches back and forth, so confusing this even more.
And while I can belief that he made many mistakes, sometimes I think he is just lying. You see, there is one quotation in this book that reads: "A beautiful lad can ruin an older head; a beautiful woman can tangle a tongue. " However, the author claims that this line compares "two sexual partners, a beautiful woman and man," but there is no "man" here, the original quote clearly compares a woman to a lad.
The story of Lord Long Yang and the king of Wei is one of the few were you could say this is true homosexuality. Still, the author says himself that the body of information on homo/bisexuality during the Zhou is miniscule and so you shouldn't generalize about the forms of homosexuality in ancient times. But then how does he know that it was truly tolerated and only mentioned when it hinders imperial workings as he claims?
Sometimes I wondered what on earth is he talking about. E.g. in what way is Deng Tong "just one in a long line of men who rose to high position through the use of sexual wiles"? Where did the text actually suggest this? The emperor dreamed of him pushing him to heaven or is that supposed to mean "sex"? Or is it "to amuse himself" at Dong's place that is "sex"? That is really vague, so what is he basing it on? And if the passages regarding Deng Tong and other favorites have the title "Ning Xing" and ning originally referred to "artful flattery" and the title means "Those obtaining favor [through] artful flattery", based on what has that anything to do with sex? What is he basing it on?
Also, there are two things:
1) If "homosexuality" was part of daily court life and the writers (of the Han as well) felt the need to account only for the extraordinary, where are the positive examples of homosexuality described in detail? Where are the sages, the poems etc?
2) Why is the story of Li Yannian here? His sister used sexual wiles, not him.
Other insertions were also questionable. Take Huo Guang who had a "beloved" that "was a mere slave master" named Feng who after Huo's death had a "passionate affair of their own." Apart from the fact that by the laws of the time his wife had no other way but tolerating Feng, but whose to say that Feng wasn't basically raped by Huo? And based on what were chinese men free to live out their full range of sexual desire? Where is his evidence? Where is the evidence that bisexuality would be at least as popular as pure homosexuality or perhaps even strict heterosexuality? He claims it is plausible, but based on what? A lot of what he writes is bad research and theorizing at best. And he, once more, mentions a low number of data. And what male concubines is he writing about? Not a single primary source that he stated ever referred to a male as a concubine. Is he making this stuff up? I think he does, because none of the books written later ever mentioned a male imperial concubine. Some lower ranking men may have had some, but none was ever mentioned for an emperor.
His reasoning is weird. He basically just said, that homosexuality was attractive during the Han because it would foster friendship, gain favors and there can be no unwed mothers resulting from it. How many straight friends fuck eachother or fuck guys because women can get pregnant? Only the sex for favors thing makes some sense. In fact, some stuff later straight up suggests a lack of women as a reason. And speaking of the Han emperors: If this Ban Gu wrote that emperor Ai "did not care for women" then this could mean he actually was homosexual based on the modern day definition, and the fact that the author doesn't point out this destinction despite quoting the two definitions much earlier speaks volumes.
And he himself says that early historians were prone to hyperbole, so why take those by their word? Where is the additional evidence? And why does he constantly say "men" when the terms in original only say "male"? And did it ever occur to the author that those historians could not conceive homosexuality at court in any way except favoritism? After all, they often warn of such favoritism and again: Where are the positive examples?
Despite all the things he himself wrote that make early chinese accounts of "homosexuality" suspicious, low number of data, tendency for hyperbole, ambivalent meaning of terms, he seems so incredibly sure of what he states. That doesn't make sense in my mind. And often I had no way of checking him.
And reading about how he writes about looks via cosmetics and the like during the Han and mentions He Yan and Du Yi, makes me wonder whether he might apply gay stereotypes and/or doesn't know the difference between admiration and sexual desire.
And he constantly claims "men" when the text doesn't say that, to give an example: he states that the poem from the "Jade Terrace" collection of love poetry "beautifull illustrates the stock imagery on which men of his time could draw in conceptualizing and describing love for another man." But the very first line says: "In days of old there were many blossom boys." In another example he tells you the age of a male prostitute (15 sui aka about 14 years) and he still calls that one a man. It got so bad that he claimed that some heir apparent, named Li Chengqian, favored a young entertainer, who was little more than ten years old at the time. That is straight up pedophile territory if it truly was sexual and yet the author never pointed that out.
He also seems to discard the substitution for women theory because it clashes with his own narrative, despite all the things he wrote before about feminine beauty as well as his statements about how "favorites" among the Tang lacked the significant power of earlier ones and that instead the influence of steppe peoples enabled powerful women to monopolize the niche in court life held earlier by male favorites. And if that favor is based on sex, as he earlier claims, this has implications: that they fucked boys (maybe men) because no women were available.
And despite this and other signficant evidence that he himself states here, he continues on and on with his claims of tolerance and acceptance. Which is really odd, when you consider that he himself writes how an author includes homosexuality in his panorama of sexual life, but relegating it to the end among lewd monks and crude peasants hardly gives it a place of honor. And if homosexuality was so tolerated in imperial times, why did people in Zhejiang in Song times avoid the word duck as ducks were thought to favor homosexual intercourse? And he straight up mentioned Song texts that regard homosexuality as a sin. And what he writes about the decline of favoratism under the Song makes it really sound as if his beloved homosexual tradition was only started to gain power and influence for oneself. And speaking of the Song times, he mentions favoritism and prostitutional homosexuality, but where are the examples of non-prostitutional homosexuality? And him insisting on the existence of a highly developed system of male prostitution just showed his tendency to downplay again, as well as his seeming inability to accept the fact of two very contradictory strains of culture existing at the same time, that happens in any society that is just big enough. And speaking of big, his examples only refer to big urban centers.
And when he wrote that "when analyzing Chinese humor we must not ignore this possibility that many seemingly negative jokes first arose among men attracted to homosexuality", I thought that "when reading this book we must not ignore the tendency of the author to sugarcoat bad things, confuse boys and men, define sexuality by performed acts and constantly try to ignore or downplay negative elements that don't fit his view of "tolerance". And while he claims that there are numerous surviving jokes about all forms of sexuality so one should not conclude hostility toward homosexuality, I noted that after all these jokes that can clearly, if not primarily, interpreted as homophobic, the only example he gave of alleged hostility against straight sex, is about taoist abstinence.
And why is it that for his statements he so often has no evidence or barely any? The same with his claim of "sexually passive men" who were that for their lifetime. Where is the evidence?
And it is telling that he can't put one and one together and speculate that the reduction of all forms of sexuality to the bare essentials in these jokes means that in those times romanticism wasn't present in their image of men fucking boys.
Before I forget, he claimed there was gay marriage and as I suspected, it was about an alleged "custom" in Fujian. He mentions a story with it that I also know, but I was not preferred for his lack of facts. About the context of a story, he claims that "both men know that the day of separation will some day come when Ruiji inevitably leaves to marry a woman." But he doesn't tell you about the aversion to men "Ruiji" will develop and how the growing penis robs him of his beauty according to Jifang. And the author tries to claim that Ruiji castrated himself out of gratitude to Jifang, but that is not the reason. The reason was that he thought his penis to be a terrible thing as Jifang stated. And while he claims that the "male marriage" was portrayed in idealistic terms, the story states that one should not do such a thing. In fact, it says it several times. But for some reason the author doesn't tell you such things. Neither does he count it as transgenderal homosexuality even though Ruiji now has a scar the form of a vulva and looks like a woman.
About the wider existence of this Fujian custom, he claims that "Throughout the marriage, many of which lasted for twenty years, the qixiong was completely responsible for his younger husband's upkeep." In other words: he pays for everything. However: what is the source of his statement for many of these "marriages" lasting for 20 years? No source is given. Even calling this a marriage is really stretching it.
Just like referring to rape as taking the passive sexual role, as we get told in a story straight up that the "lover" Zhong "secretly penetrates Zhang while the soldier sleeps." And when he later states that spanish accounts claim that "Chinese immigrants were causing native Filipinos to take up homosexuality", it made me think those chinese wanted to fuck the filipino teenagers, young teenagers most likely. That was the picture he so far presented. Of course what he presents and what not follows no pattern, except maybe sticking to his narrative. He talks about a love between a chinese gentlemen and a kabuki actor... so... how old was the actor and what did he actually look like? Male or female? What forms of homosexual behavior did Qing society allegedly show a high degree of tolerance for? And where is the alleged difference to the Ming times? And considering that this author himself lied several times, called an instance of obvious rape love, and never really adressed that servants had to sexually submit to their masters, I don't think his opinion is a valid one. So, is he sure that only "sometimes" there was rape of male victims? How does he know? I don't trust his statements in either way, there are too many issue with this book.
And naturally for an author of his ilk, he claims that "unlike contemporary gays in China, who exist cut off from this tradition, Qing society was still steeped in an awareness of the ancient icons of the male custom." The custom of grown man fucking and exploiting teenage boys. He never points out the big age differences here and so far barely mentioned the system of abuse and exploitation that sing song boys represented. And even when he quotes cases were homosexual advances were considered offensive, he never considers that evidence against his line of reasoning, then again, he didn't complain about actors being forced prositutes, so he is able to rationalize alot apparently.
And as part of his line of reasoning, he naturally considers Bayou from Dream of the Red Chamber to be sexually interested in homosexuality, despite the fact that the text clearly references nothing of that sort. In fact the cases he mentions of other characters from the novel refer to clearly feminine boys, not men. And Bayou himself is quite effeminate, something he also never points out.
And when it comes to his claim that "there is no question that homosexuality was widespread almost to the point of universality among young actors," he never states that this was because they had no choice, especially dan actors were primarily prostitutes. He barely hints at it and the fact that so little is known of the lowest prostitutes but it doesn't seem to bother him, despite saying that the association of passive homosexuality and hence prostitution contributed to the low social status of actors, but how can that be if the society was allegedly so tolerant?
Towards the end of the book he comes to the end of the Qing empire and to the republican period and naturally cannot help but defend what he says a homosexual tradition. And if you ask me, what killed what the author calls homosexuality was rather the destruction of strict gender segregation and human rights. You can't exploit teenage boys if they suddenly have rights. But that is nothing he would ever consider, what he sees is "a society in which homosexuality was relatively open and,tolerated." Compared to the spanish inquisition maybe, plus, what he presented was highly romanticized. So naturally he thinks there is a big difference compared to the imperial times. Of course, he blames the West, in fact, the moment the Qing times are over, the West is entirely to blame, even claiming that due to the relative isolation of China from the scientific main stream has allowed outdated Western ideas about homosexuality to persist. But Hong Kong and Taiwan weren't isolated, so why did the author say similar attitudes exist in all three countries? Also, both Taiwan and Hong Kong kept the traditional writings and works, so why didn't they go to the traditions as he wishes so much apparently? In fact, the sensationalist nes media examples he lists sound like several of the traditional texts that he referenced but whose darker sides he rarely, if ever acknowledged. And his claim that the "now common association of homosexuality with violent crime lacks precedent in native traditions" is completely wrong. Just look at the rootless rascal trope of Qing fiction. You know, the one that only gets fucked by the master so they can get access to the master's women. This claim is as wrong as the one that the intolerance towards homosexuality originated in the West.
As a sort of appendix he states some things about lesbianism at the end of the book, but not only did he provide no true evidence of same sex marriage among women, only some sort of oath that he claims is marriage without evidence. But his examples for other things are often as vague as the one for men, possibly even downplaying rape again. And ironically, that passage of lesbian tool use and sex varieties was literally more detailed than all the examples of the "great homosexual tradition" given more space by this author. And that even though he claimed sources on lesbianism are so rare. And keep in mind: the chapter on lesbians is not even 10 pages long, would it have killed him to quote some more examples?
In the end, I was happy, that this book was over.
September 22, 2019
A helpful, but short overview of the history of male-male desire throughout written Chinese history. The dominant focus is one the imperial and elite class, as well as the literati. It isn't until the Yuan and Ming Dynasties where there is more record of the male-male customs among the smallfolk and merchant class.
Overall I enjoyed it. I was hoping there would be some more space given to eunuchs, but there wasn't much.
Further Reading to do: "Dream of the Red Chamber" by Cao Xueqin, "The Precious Mirror of Ranking Flowers" by Chen Sen, and "Cartographies of Desire" by Gregory M. Pflugfelder.
Overall I enjoyed it. I was hoping there would be some more space given to eunuchs, but there wasn't much.
Further Reading to do: "Dream of the Red Chamber" by Cao Xueqin, "The Precious Mirror of Ranking Flowers" by Chen Sen, and "Cartographies of Desire" by Gregory M. Pflugfelder.
July 1, 2021
Interesting book in the academic-yet-accessible vein, even for someone like me who knew very little about the topic or Chinese history. However i do wish it had gone a but more in depth into some of the source material though i so now have a long reading list if i can find decent translations!
It's also worth boring this book was written in 1990 and some of the terminology might seem outdated to today's reader, and the epilogue - adressing homosexuality in current china, taiwan and hong kong - is 30 years or of date.
It's also worth boring this book was written in 1990 and some of the terminology might seem outdated to today's reader, and the epilogue - adressing homosexuality in current china, taiwan and hong kong - is 30 years or of date.
June 10, 2024
For readability this is probably a 4 star book. For information I wouldn't find elsewhere including so many fascinating historical details, definitely 5 stars. Very helpful background for recent reading of a #danmei (Chinese "boylove") novel (The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish: Canji Baojun De Zhangxin Yu Chong (Novel) Vol. 1 by Xue Shan Fei Hu), and a modern fantasy novel with historical flashbacks (The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang).
Read
December 27, 2022really informative! chapter on homosexuality and popular humor was esp interesting. pegging springs eternal
November 26, 2024
Fascinating!
January 29, 2025
An interesting study of the topic, with many examples.
October 12, 2020
This was the first book-length study on male homosexuality (homoeroticism) in pre-modern China in the English language. Since its publication nearly three decades ago, this field has exploded in popularity. Certainly, there are some issues with the research methodology, interpretations of primary source materials, and the implied assertion that ancient China was a veritable "paradise" for male homoeroticism is not entirely accurate (it is much more complicated, with the "popularity/acceptance" versus "backlash" ebbing and flowing many times over two thousand years). Nevertheless, this volume was ground-breaking for the field and presents an excellent introduction to the topic as well as copious amounts of source material that the reader (if interest, and can read Chinese) can seek out to study further on their own. I'm sure the author would write this book very differently now, especially in light of the mountain of additional research that has been done since then, but it's position in this niche area of Chinese literary, historical, and anthropological studies is undeniable.
July 8, 2013
Without this book I would have no idea that male homosexuality was a part of ancient Chinese court life. It is unfortunate that much less information is know about common people and about female homosexuality but Hinsch seemed to provide everything available and analyzed it fairly. This book is a great supplement to my knowledge of history and has encouraged me to read more Chinese literature and to find out about homosexuality in the history of other places such as Japan. Thoroughly enjoyable read, it is written from a very professional standpoint so there is no particular voice or connection with the author. It is purely academic which is to be expected because it is a study. Overall it is a very interesting read and I'm sure that I will have to reference it at some point since most people, even Chinese people, are ignorant of homosexual tradition in ancient China.
February 7, 2008
It is very interesting probe in to the history of homosexuality in China. The short stories are accompanied with detailed commentary upon each story and the customs connected to view of homosexuality in China. The book is not meant to tell any particular story but to bring the picture of homosexual life in China. The subculture was flourishing during various epochs of Chinese Empire. The male love is described among various persons from emperor, to monk, to scholar and even to the poor. The name of the book came from particular story when Emperor and his lover rested together and eventually fell asleep, but the Emperor had to go. He cut his sleeve in order not to wake up his lover. Thus the love among the males were called passion of the cut sleeve.
September 9, 2015
Mind-blowing book I read in college about homosexuals in Classical China. Rather difficult to distill into a few words, but the Classical Chinese concept of what homosexuality meant is quite different than today's Western constructs, in a word.
January 5, 2018
Trailblazing study of the homosexual tradition in China from the ancient Zhou dynasty until the end of the Qing dynasty in the early twentieth century. For my complete review, see https://wp.me/p9w4kV-4z.
August 15, 2011
A book I bought back in 2007, but never read. The interest that had me buying the book has waned. No interest in reading it anymore. Gathering it for charity.
March 30, 2015
i liked this book when i read it but i was laughed to scorn when i referenced it in class so..... i think the methodology is like flawed or whatever idk
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