About the Book

This book presents a rich exploration of masculinities and homosexualities amongst Chinese gay men. It provides an historical account of sexuality and masculinity from ancient China onwards; reports the results of an extensive ethnographic survey of contemporary Chinese gay men in a wide range of different locations including mainland China, Hong Kong and the Chinese overseas community in London; shows how Chinese gay men live their everyday lives; relates homosexuality in China to the extensive social and cultural theories on gender, sexuality and the body, looking especially at the idea of "queer space" and how this is developed in China, and also to theories of postcolonialism and globalisation; and includes a textual analysis of queer culture. The book concludes that divergent and contradictory pictures of modern Chinese masculinities – such as "memba", "tongzhi" and "golden boy" - emerge in different locations, these being hybridized identities emerging from the coexistence of universalised rhetoric and styles and indigenous Chinese cultural and social traditions.