Hollister’s Reviews > Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics in Urban China > Status Update

Cooperative or beard marriages are extremely interesting. Very mercenary in China. Gay men and lalas will post on one anothers' websites, and if any are partnered, they'll meet with their partners present. It's fun to imagine the pairings. If A and B are lalas and C and D are gay men, how do they decide if it will be A&C and B&D or A&D or B&C? That's fertile ground for a modern queer love story.

This is much more interesting to me. She's talking about the information she's directly gotten from her informants. Apparently China heavily stigmatizes female celibacy. It definitely stigmatizes singleness (that is, being unmarried) for both men and women. Some of her informants are in beard marriages and have relationships outside of it. That's super uncommon in America, where singleness is not so stigmatized.