Status Updates From Tongzhi: Politics of Same-S...

Yeah, screw this. This is a waste of my time. The historical section had some merit, but the rest is useless to me.

Contemporary Taiwan´? Oh god that is it, I will check the later chapters and if this stays with "contemporary", I will stop this book, because that is useless for me.

I have a serious need to stop this here and now. As he straight up goes to "current" chinese societies, but this book is from 2000 and so it is totally useless to me. In fact, several things before already were pretty unreliable and I notice that his tongzhi so far only covers homo and bisexuals despite his earlier definition.

Tongxinglian or tongxingai is a translation of the Western medical term
"homosexuality," which defines a minority group of individuals according
to their same-sex sexual preference or orientation, as if everyone has a
ccrtain fixed and innate sexual essence.
That confirms what I suspected of this author: He denies something like sexual orientation apparently, so I suspect he is a constructionist.

Funny, considered that this Hong Kong Law was so seldom enforced, you could argue that it was just as tolerant as imperial China, but this author would never do that. He either doesn't know Qing law or downplays that and other things.

it was mixed-race relationships between Chinese and non-Chinese that
received the most attention and constituted around half of the court cases
of homosexuality before 1990.
Having gone through all the newspaper clippings from the late 1960s to
the present concerning homosexual offenses, 1 have found that about half
of tbe offenses in the 1970s and 1980s were between Caucasians and
Chinese men,

This homosexual law is not a reflection of Chinese law or culture but the
imposition of colonial law without any consultation with the colonized
people.
Oh really? Because I could have sworn that the Qing law also criminalized consentual anal sex between two males.

To conclude, it is only since the Republican period that China's Iong
history of cultural tolerance of same-sex eroticism began to fade.
That tolerance was extremely narrow, something he only shortly touched and then ignored. He only mentioned once that homosexuality was not accepted and then never again, which makes his constant talk about tolerance very misleading.

I just noticed that he mostly uses anecdotes and not data. The one piece of data from Taiwan with 26 % of boys and 21 % of girls in these schools encountered same sex eroticism. The rest os anecdotes and assuming literati and the like stand for popular attitudes. And naturally the sex imbalance and Qing law have been ignored so far.

There are public streets füll of boys got up like prostitutes. And there
are people who buy these boys and teach them to play music, sing
and dance. And then, gallantly dressed and made up with rouge like
women these miserable men are initiated into this terrible vice.
And yet he never points this lack of masculine appearance out.

lt was the sexologist's pathologization of homosexuality rather than the
Christian homophobic attitude that was selectively and strategically
adopted by Chinese intellectuals who had their own so~iop?litical agend.a
in mind,

However, the Confuc1an emphas1s
on familial-marital institutions and reproduction is so overwhelming that it
has been a crucial ground for a heterosexist and homophobic construction
of sexuality.
And yet, despite stating that china never accepted homosexuality, he still refuses to see something homophobic there.

Why does he not take the perceived humiliation, nationalism and gender anxieties being present since the Qing take over into account? That is really odd. He only takes Opium and Sino-Japanese War into account. And why does he consider the lack of lesbian stories to be a sign of sexism? With gay he did it the other way around.

Rarely are traditional Chinese exclusively "homosexual." Most dis-
pla.y .a bisexual patt~rn; but the term "bisexual" is also inappropriate,
as it 1s a categonzahon based on the gender of erotic object choice, a
concept that did not exist in the minds of traditional Chinese.
I highly doubt that. However, at the very least he states that talking of western concepts was highly selective and chinese driven.

This is the first book who regards that one story from Liaozhai Zhiyi as something lesbian. And considered that his later examples of alleged lesbianism is among Cantonese area women, I really question whether it makes sense to simply refer to all of this as chinese as we clearly talking a bout different language areas at the very least

The Fujian custom was not egalitarian in any way, there was a clear age difference required and sources themselves stated that those of similar age and status could not be together. It was also no marriage and he clearly lies when he states that "A male mencius's mother raises her son properly
by moving house" is between two men, Riu Lang was clearly an early teen and he also plays down the castration reasons.

The age factor is cru-
cial, as youth symbolizes femininity, innocence, and powerlessness. and that doesn't bother him at all? And his following examples really hammer the feminine appearance down. Something the author never really adresses. And he doesn't tell you that the story of Pan Zhang clearly condemns what he and his boyfriend are doing. They even turn mad and their fiances commit suicide.

What sexual intimacies with males did Baoyu actually have? It wasn't stated as far as I read into the novel and the author had no problem at least alluding to sex. And in regard to Dong Xian and others using powder and the like... so what? Was that considered feminine at the time?

His "qing" is so vague I have no way of knowing whether Wen and Han were actually in a romantic/sexual relationship or not. He made mistakes/lied before. The actor Zhou is still referred to as a libiscus and lotus, so clearly feminized and his statements to Dreams of a Red Chamber, no comment. And in Prayer Mat of the Flesh he says the boy gets fucked because no women are present.

"limited references to same-sex relations in pre-Han China is not the result
of homophobia, but indicates that scholars and historians simply felt there
was little need to record same-sex relationship."
How does he know that? And in the story of Duke Jing of Qi, a plumb-bearer stared at him, not a minor official. And he claims the duke made a "sexual proposal to bathe with this minor official". Questionable

"As same-sex relationships did not seem to be a social issue in traditional
Chinese societies, they were rarely mentioned except as incidents within
the wider narratives of the lives of the emperor and the male elite."
What is he basing this on?

Neither the emperors nor their contem-
p~ranes ever comprehended these behaviors as tongxinglian because erot-
1c1sm toward women or men was not dichotomized. Wans't it? And it is really strange how on the one hand he is careful to claim that the Ai-Dong-Xian thing was mutual but the claims stuff like this.

lt is therefore dangerous to romanticize Chinese traditions of same-sex
eroticism. The cultural tolerance of same-sex eroticism is neither uncondi-
tional nor wholehearted, but with a vital qualifier-it occurs only when the
social hierarchy is not challenged.
This author is really contradictory. And he repeats himself.

The notion of homophobia is thus inappropriate to describe traditional
Chinese attitudes toward same-sex eroticism, since the condernnation was
not a categorical rejection of same-sex conduct per se, but the betraya1 of
farnily and social roles. So? That was often no different in the West.

Chinese culture has not supported or accepted homosexuality. The farnily-
kinship system and the pressure to get married pose a lirniting boundary to
and pressure on same-sex erotic practices. People may gossip but rarely
take action against it. Homosexuality is not treated as intrinsically evil and
sinful. The first sentence is correct, but the rest is garbage.

refuses marriage may be disowned by his parents and the
entire culture. The hostility is not targeted at same-sex sexuality itself, but at
the idea of having a lifestyle that denies the cultural imperative to get
married.
Then what about monks and hermits? Why aren't they ostracized then?

lnstead, her relaxed and
positive comments about their sexual relationship indicate the rather re-
laxed attitude of the time, though in the patriarchal society a woman has to
accept her husband having sex with other men, which, after all, does not
threaten her status as a wife
There is so much projection in his statement here.

Most important, all thcsc tcrms referring to same-
sex activities do not denote a fixed or generic personality. I disagree here, there are common features in literature etc. of those going regularly to boy prostitutes and have certain personality features in common. Also, he seems to use "severe social stigma" instead of just "social stigma" which suggests that there is stigma.

In other words, homosexuality is seen not
as a sexual essence monopolized by a minority group, hut as a social
practice that everyone can experience in specific classist and sexist rela-
tions. Why do I get the feeling that this will feature mostly coercion and rape in this book?

someone who has an exclusively homosexual lifestyle is culturally incon-
ceivable and definitely intolerable, a nonbeing in society. In other words,
nobody can be primarily a lesbian, bisexual, or gay man.
And this isn't homophobic, why exactly? And he writes One becomes, rather than being born as, a wife or husband, a daughter or son. What? Is he insinuating that in the West one is born a wife?