I was working at Timeout Shanghai when I first interviewed Katrien Jacobs following the completion of her book, People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet (2012). In laying out the article with images from Jacobs’ book, after much internal debate, a small white censor bar — more of a pastie, really — was added over a tiny exposed female nipple in an accompanying photo by artists Xu Long and Yu Na (pictured above).
The article came out without any further censorship, but the publisher later warned us to be more careful. The issue wasn’t the partly exposed breast but a photograph of Ai Weiwei’s wife, Lu Qing, lifting her skirt to reveal her panties in front of the Forbidden City. In China, political dissent is much more taboo than any part of human anatomy.
Jacobs has just finished her follow-up to People’s Pornography, The Afterglow of Women’s Pornography in Post-Digital China, and it’s sure to raise eyebrows (if not skirts), not because the content is particularly titillating but because it argues that Chinese society, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in particular, are increasingly circumscribing opportunities for Chinese women, driving them to explore (comparatively) radical new identities.
Leftover Women
Leta Hong-Fincher, author of Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, argues that as China rises its female population is increasingly being knocked down. State-endorsed rhetoric including the concept of the ‘leftover woman’ (剩女) — when China actually has a large excess of males — hastens women to marry and reproduce before age 27 despite marriage offering not only limited financial protection but limited physical protection.
Female employment has fallen sharply in the past two decades, marital real estate now tends to revert to the husband after divorce, and there are still no meaningful laws protecting women from domestic violence or recognising rape within marriage. While the US gay marriage ruling was celebrated here, five feminist activists were detained for over a month in the lead up to the State-sanctioned Women’s Day holiday.
“I think [the idea of leftover women] is another desperate attempt at creating social harmony, based on the idea that domesticated women who breed children will help stabilise the nation-state,” Jacobs says. “Or, as Hong-Fincher writes, there is also a touch of patriotic desire to engineer a Chinese super-race. In actuality indeed we are talking about an educated class of women and men who would be tempted to try out ‘foreign’ life-styles, or leave China altogether. But is this still an attractive enough package to keep them in China?”
The Queer Art of Failure
Jacobs says a wide range of people — including female graduate students in their early 20s, divorcees seeking more satisfying relationships, and LGBTQ Chinese — are embracing what Jack Halberstam calls the “queer art of failure”, opting out of a patriarchal, hetero-normative, fiercely capitalist society by experimenting with marginal, anti-capitalist, non-reproductive identities and activities.
“The government ideals in China are so reactionary right now that indeed it is hard to take them seriously,” Jacobs says. “There is already a crack in the reactionary system of control, and sexuality cannot be engineered so easily. I think there is a feminist or feminine rebellion brewing right underneath the surface of official public culture and this is not covered by state media.”
Though it’s not a single, cohesive community, women who reject the status quo are increasingly finding each other through social media, Jacobs says, “where women can express their sexual desires and their frustrations abundantly and even by means of creative ambitions.”
Social Media and Boy Love Comics
“It’s so much easier to pursue base curiosities and hidden adventures or fantasies on social media,” Jacobs says. “Just look at the effects of the Uniqlo sex video, which is not an advanced erotica product of any kind, but it spurs people’s curiosity … despite government incentives towards dullness and marriage.”
One manifestation of this curiosity is Boy Love (BL) comics in which two men, one of whom is usually injured, unattractive or sexually dysfunctional (creating a plot centred on emotional intimacy), fall in love and have sex. Because explicit Boy Love comic books can’t be bought or sold in China, their consumption requires an alternative model to regular, regulated commerce. Instead, such materials are shared online, collected on hard drives, and even reimagined by fans, who refer to themselves as rotten women (腐女).
Jacobs says Chinese BL fans are being introduced to “new internet-based economies and histories of ‘sharism’. Most women download or check out products or stories feverishly despite the fact that it is a double-infringement — a breach in copyright and illegal access to sexually explicit materials. They are hidden owners of erotic commodities and they are immersed in it like citizens of ‘post-capitalism’— an alternative economy of daily inspiration, status, friendship, artistry and bonding that is not directly market-driven but is very addictive.”
Losers and Their Leftover Parents
In some surveys, more than half of Chinese people interviewed identified themselves as diaosi (屌丝), or losers – people lacking some combination of a house, car, savings, partner, or beneficial social networks. Given that they’re in the majority, essentially “a unique consumer group”, according to The Atlantic, it would seem that the market could find ways to cater to outcasts.
Yet Jacobs says, in fact, “since the market is going through its rumbles there is more effort to construct patriarchal values and ‘stability’ for the nation-state. If you look at Chinese dating sites, they crudely favour people with connections, or people with access to money. In other countries you can get away with networking your beauty, age, fetish, food taste, personality, sex appeal, but the Chinese singles seem to be so one-sidedly digging for gold.”
Jacobs also found that the famous People’s Square marriage market, in which older Chinese seek to make matches for their adult children, is essentially materialist. The implicit goal is to secure a spot in the middle class by obtaining an apartment, a secondary income or a Shanghai hukou, or regional ID, which grants access to public services. Fudan University’s Sun Peidon says this is partly a reaction to the older generation’s trauma of sudden downward mobility as the CCP seized property and sent educated people to the country.
“There was an unhinged quality just underneath the surface of the dating market,” Jacobs says. “I think it was caused by this huge materialistic fantasy projection that parents impose upon their offspring. Perhaps it is a bit like burning wads of money for the ancestors. Indeed these parents and dating agents are a left-over class too and they do not have a lot of social capital. They are totally overbearing but sexually ‘out of it’ and I wish they would initiate and invest in a sense of romance.”
Given their children’s disinterest in the dates their parents arrange, this activity may also be viewed as a byproduct of the older generation’s social marginalisation, as they themselves have been rendered economically and romantically redundant. A recent New York Times article reported that Chinese parents whose children face long commutes into Beijing are holding places in the queue for buses from as early as 5.30am just to let their children get a little more sleep before work.
“There’s not much I can contribute to the family anymore,” said Mr Liu, 62, as he waved goodbye to his son. “He is exhausted every day, so if I can help him get a bit more rest, I’ll do it.”
A Treacherous Move
Embracing the identity of a leftover woman, rotten woman or loser can be powerful and dangerous in several ways. It’s a rejection of state-defined success. It’s a critique of the availability of that success to many (maybe most) Chinese people. It’s an expression of pessimism in a state whose legitimacy is contingent on popular optimism.
“Jack Halberstam herself has stated that defending failure can be a treacherous move and I would say that this is especially so in China where harmony, optimism and success are fabricated by state-media systems and easily favoured by citizens and ‘uniquely Chinese’ creative industries,” Jacobs says. “The queer art of failure means that you turn your stigma of social exclusion into a positive goal, a manageable life-style, an art form or micro-identity. Halberstam values the role of sexual minorities and activists in concocting new strategies of protest, of survival. This is of course happening in China too but it’s currently a highly risky endeavour.”
State media have already come out against people identifying as diaosi, and Xi Jinping continues to emphasise the importance of “positive energy”.
UPDATE: Beauty and cosmetic brand SK-II released an ad supporting leftover women in April 2016, which went viral
This article was originally posted on Flamingo’s online magazine Lens