Shih-Chen Chao. Porn Studies. Volume 3, Issue 1, 2016.
Introduction
Yaoi/Boys’ Love (BL) is a Manga and Anime fiction genre featuring love and sex between two men, originating in Japan. The Yaoi/BL genre, targeting female audiences and largely produced by female authors (Nagaike 2012,103), has attracted academic attention since the late 1990s (Schodt 1996; Suzuki 1998; Kinsella 2000; McLelland 2000, 2005; Shamoon 2004; Thorn 2004; Lunsing 2006; Welker 2006; McHarry 2007; Levi, McHarry, and Pagliassotti 2010; Nagaike 2012; Bauer 2013). When the internet was introduced into China in the 1990s, many female internet users found it a convenient platform to produce and consume works of fiction featuring love and sex between men. The genre is now commonly known as Danmei [Pure Aesthetics], a phrase directly imported from Japan’s Yaoi/BL to refer to male/male romance in Chinese cyberspace. In the same way that increasing academic attention has been drawn to the Yaoi/BL phenomenon, Danmei, the Chinese counterpart of BL, is still in an incipient stage of being researched (Berry 2007; Feng, 2009, 2013; Liu 2009; Jacobs 2012; Xu and Yang 2013).
This article will examine Danmei from the perspective of what I describe as ‘grotesque eroticism’. This refers to the element of violent, abusive and anti-social sexual behaviour between two male protagonists in Danmei narratives, produced and consumed by females. By using Luxifu Julebu [Lucifer’s Club] (LC) as a case study and examining the works of fiction published on LC, most of which are original creations, the article will argue that by producing texts of their own, female authors and readers create a context in which they are allowed to cast a queer gaze on male/male erotic romance.
The Danmei genre in China: a short history
When the internet was introduced into China, many Chinese female netizens began to experience the brand-new genre of Danmei written by and for females. LC, arguably the first Chinese online literary community which aimed to encourage Danmei production and consumption, was founded in 1999. Other similar portal websites featuring the Danmei genre were also established in the early 2000s.
Many pieces of Danmei work are, like Yaoi/BL, characterized by sexually explicit details. These pose an issue in China where internet censorship is heavily exercised. Works of fiction containing pornography and violence are censored and deleted. For example, Qidian Nusheng Wang [Qidian Female Net], one of the most commercially successful literary portal websites for works of romance, was used to accommodate works of the Danmei genre under a category known as Cunai Danmei [Pure Love and Aesthetics], but the category was removed in 2009. In contrast, Jinjiang Wenxue Cheng [Jinjiang Literary City] has not removed the whole literary category under the pressure of state censorship, but it censors the sexually explicit element in works published on its website, emphasizing emotional relationships and making the romance ‘clean’ from the contamination of eroticism in order to avoid further censorship. In 2011, Xinhua News reported that 32 Danmei authors had been apprehended by the local police force in Zhengzhou, Henan Province because they had published male/male erotic content online. These authors held writing contracts with a literary portal website which hosted Danmei works for profit. According to the source, the police were very shocked to discover that most of the Danmei authors were young women in their twenties, the youngest being 17 years old. The news report concluded with an interview with an academic expert who pointed out that reading works of fiction full of perverse, violent and pornographic descriptions between males would have a negative psychological impact on readers (‘Zhengzhou Wangjian Pohuo’ 2011).
With pervasive state censorship, many Danmei literary portal websites have been forced to keep a lower profile or to purge elements of eroticism. LC manages to resist state hegemony up to the point of writing, providing a space for female netizens who enjoy producing or consuming erotic elements in works of Danmei. For this reason, I chose LC as the main source for this article. I have selected works for close reading according to their popularity rankings. At the point of writing, there are roughly 72,200 pieces of work (including both finished and serialized works) in the database. Most of these are BL-oriented, with a fairly small proportion of Girl’s Love (GL)-oriented works and a smaller portion of Boy and Girl (BG)-oriented works. Unlike many literary portal websites in which commercial profit is generated directly by applying a reading fee to their members online, LC does not have any paid membership or reading fee scheme. LC offers a membership-only entry to its website to accommodate works which violate Chinese state censorship. The only way to become a member is to demonstrate an enthusiasm for and extensive knowledge about Danmei by providing correct answers to 10 difficult but trivial questions regarding well-known Danmei works of fiction. Once granted membership, users can start producing and consuming works of Danmei on LC.
There are several types of top-100 rankings of popularity on LC. The one which indicates an overall popularity is ‘zuiniu’ (which means ‘the most awesome’ or ‘the strongest’ in Mandarin Chinese, in this case meaning the most popular of all time on LC). Under the zuiniu category, there are several sub-categories such as ‘zuiniu dianji’ (the most ‘clicked’, which refers to works that receive the most clicks online), ‘zuiniu shoucang’ (the most ‘collected’—which refers to how often a work of fiction is ‘collected’ into someone’s virtual bookshelf) and ‘zuiniu dingding’ (the most ‘liked,’ similar to Facebook’s ‘like’ function used to show the preference of readers towards a particular Danmei work). In this article, I mainly use zuiniu shoucang rankings to examine popular works within the top 10 because this ranking best shows the extent to which readers are engaged with the serialization of a work of fiction and the consumption of the whole work, indicating that a reader is collecting the work rather than clicking around on LC randomly.
Danmei narratives: the formula and story patterns
The formula and story patterns of Danmei narratives are fundamentally romance based. The Association of Romance Writers of America offers clear guidelines on the genre: a work of romance should have the essential components of a hero and a heroine falling in love, struggling to make the relationship work, and being eventually rewarded by emotional justice and unconditional love. However, Danmei narratives re-configure the formula of romance narratives. It is not love, or any emotional feelings, but struggles between the protagonists that initiate a relationship. Struggles in a heterosexual romance are often linked to the emotional torture inflicted on both male and female protagonists. However, Danmei narratives not only emphasize struggle as the most important component to connect the male protagonists, they also contextualize this in the form of brutal and violent sexual practice and physical torture. This brutality is the reason why I describe the eroticism in Danmei as ‘grotesque eroticism’.
Danmei narratives also make use of the terms ‘Seime’ (the stem root of the Japanese verb semeru meaning ‘attack’ in a sexual relationship) and ‘Uke’ (the stem root of the Japanese verb ukeru meaning ‘receive’). Chinese Female netizens use these in the form ‘Xiaogong’ [Little Attacker] and ‘Xiaoshou’ [Little Receiver]. The most common story pattern of Danmei narratives is usually delineated as ‘Qianggong Ruoshou’ (a strong, dominant attacker and a weak, submissive receiver). Using the terms of attacker and receiver in Danmei narratives suggests sex positions and emotional relationships that work in a binary fashion—top and bottom, attacker and receiver, dominant and submissive, and penetrating and penetrated. In Danmei narratives, sex is only practised and pleasure can only be achieved in the form of the attacker penetrating the receiver, a reflection of patriarchal practice where the physically powerful subject takes the dominant role to control, conquer and penetrate the submissive.
The grotesque eroticism in Danmei narratives: you rape me so I love you
A large number of works of Danmei narratives on LC illustrate this grotesque eroticism. It is true that not every single work of fiction is engaged with excessive brutal sexual practices on the popularity chart. ‘Qinai de Baobei’ [My Dear Baby] (Bei, n.d.) is an exception. This story centres around an ambiguous relationship between a man (potential attacker) and his younger foster brother (potential receiver). They meet when they are both children and the man volunteers to be his foster brother’s guardian angel, protecting and watching over him. So far, there is no eroticism involved at all, only minor physical intimacy such as caressing and kissing and an emphasis on the emotional entanglement between the two brothers. The narrative plays with the theme of incest—a form of taboo love which many Danmei narratives feature. In Danmei’s jargon, this piece of work is very ‘light’ (many Danmei authors and readers use the flavour of food as a metaphor to suggest the extent to which a Danmei work is erotic). While ‘My Dear Baby’ seems to suggest that there can be taboo love without any physical element involved, other popular works in the top 10 show a preference for more ‘extreme tastes.
Other Danmei works introduce struggles in the form of violent sex as an initiator to building a relationship which usually develops later between a dominant attacker and a submissive receiver, with rape being the most common form of initiation. Any emotional attachment between the attacker and the receiver is absent when the intense, violent sexual encounter initially takes place. In ‘Mingmen Zhihou’ [Descendant of a Notable Family] (Binwan, n.d.), three parallel male/male relationships are described. Two of them are initiated by rape. The first relationship starts with an androgynous young man, who is a ‘virgin’, being ferociously raped by a strong, masculine guy. The rape scene is depicted in detail to show how the young man is highly sexually aroused while being brutally violated. The second relationship focuses on an elder brother (the attacker) bullying and raping his younger brother (the receiver). In the same fashion, the rape scene is presented in detail to show how much the perpetrator enjoys the dominance and how the victim cannot help enjoying the initiation. The author, in their synopsis of the story, states that this work of fiction is nothing but a piece of ‘rouwen’ (‘meat narrative’, a term used by Danmei authors/readers to refer to works which contain nothing but sex. Female netizens use ‘chirou’ [eat meat] as a euphemism to indicate ‘consuming a Danmei work full of graphic, juicy sexual details’). In ‘Hehuangong Jishi’ [Records of the Hehuan Palace] (Zuishi Yinian Mingdong Yue, n.d.), the attacker ‘owns’ the receiver, who was born a hermaphrodite, through a series of merciless rapes, violating both the receiver’s female and male identities. The violation is depicted graphically with much blood shedding and semen splattering.
Rape is the most common form of the physical subordination of the receiver, but other forms include sado-masochism, bondage, torture and gang-rape. ‘Yuwang Laolong’ [Cage of Desire] (GMY, n.d.) has the theme of a master and a slave. A young man (the receiver) has been sexually violated countless times by a masculine man (the attacker) to ensure his enslavement and transformation into a highly-skilled, profitable sex toy to serve affluent customers. Throughout the work a sense of supreme dominance is generated by the attacker in a master–slave relationship, and salacious, masochistic and orgy sex scenes are described in detail. The attacker addresses the receiver as a ‘lascivious bitch’, ‘shameless slut’ and ‘seductive whore’ once they find that the receiver is sexually aroused during a series of brutal violations. In ‘Descendant of a Notable Family’, the first relationship involves foreign objects forced into the receiver’s body by the attacker despite the pain felt by the receiver. In ‘Records of the Hehuan Palace’, not only does the attacker rape the receiver, he is determined to domesticate him, conducting a carefully planned taming scheme intended to force the receiver to surrender his body and soul. Bondage, drug-use, gang-rape, torture by whipping and using foreign objects are used to humiliate and domesticate the receiver who becomes an obedient sex slave and ends up bearing children for the attacker. In ‘Wuqi Qiulian’ [Endless Love in Prison] (Lingli Feng, n.d.), the story is set in an all-male prison where episodes of rape, gang-rape, torture and beating are frequent. The receiver, in order to survive, has to live with his new identity of ‘public sex slave’, enduring physical abuse from a multitude of muscular attackers. ‘Aishi SM Chulai di’ [Love is Generated from SM] (Shenran, n.d.) narrates the process during which a playboy who previously gained pleasure by torturing pretty boys is tamed by a more powerful attacker through a series of intensive ‘sex training’ sessions including sado-masochistic torture exerted on the receiver to break down his will.
Apart from sexual brutality, Danmei narratives challenge social taboos and biological limits. Incest is a popular topic in the narratives. In ‘My Dear Baby’, incest between two foster brothers is implied. In ‘Descendant of a Notable Family’, the rape of a boy by his elder brother leads to an incestuous physical relationship between them. In ‘Wo Zenme Zheme YD’ [Why am I so Promiscuous] (Meng Taijia, n.d.), the story unravels an incestuous relationship between a son/attacker and his intersexual father/receiver (who later turns out to be his biological mother at the end of the story). Their physical intimacy is initiated by the son raping his father/mother. Later, the biological father of the attacker appears in the story as the second attacker, competing with his own son for dominance over the receiver. In addition to incest, other social taboos and biological impossibilities are incorporated. In ‘Gouyin Nanren Gujian Zhiwu’ [Seduce the Thing between a Man’s Legs] (Wei Baimang, n.d.), the story centres around a promiscuous sexual relationship between a high-school teacher and three of his students who are minors. In ‘Youlanlu’ [A Hermaphrodite Concubine] (Xuanyuan Huazhi, n.d.), the focus is more on the ways in which the attacker enjoys intercourse with the receiver, who releases breast milk when he achieves orgasm. Their frequent intercourse leads to the receiver becoming pregnant with the attacker’s child. In ‘Fuhun’ [Entangled Soul] (Woyou Yigan Dabangbang, n.d.), the male protagonist’s body is invaded and partially controlled by a wandering soul. The means for this soul to have intercourse with the protagonist is through excessive masturbation, and there are scenes in which the male protagonist is violated by his own hand which is under the control of the wandering soul.
In terms of the physical tie, an attacker and his receiver are never equal. The position of dominant/submissive has to be firmly established from the beginning, and to establish the position three crucial circumstances are always needed. First, a receiver loses his virginity to his attacker, usually through rape, which ensures the position of conquering/conquered. Second, a receiver is penetrated by one masculine man, or sometimes a multitude of masculine men. There is no reversal by which a receiver is allowed to penetrate. Third, while an attacker enjoys sexual pleasure by forcibly penetrating the receiver, his receiver is usually described as feeling a mixed sensation of pain and pleasure. This suggests that the attacker succeeds in initiating the receiver. Playing the role of sex initiator, the attacker develops feelings for the receiver. As for the receiver, he grows emotionally attached to the attacker because his newly-initiated sexual needs, in the form of being penetrated, have to be satiated by the attacker.
Following a series of non-consensual sexual encounters, an emotional bond is gradually established between an attacker and his receiver. The more sex they have, the stronger the emotional bond becomes. Once the emotional bond is firmly established, the attacker and the receiver are rewarded with unconditional love at the end of the story. In ‘Cage of Desire’, the story concludes with the attacker, despite an understanding that the receiver is to be treated as a profitable sex toy, falling for him and promising him his heart. They both leave the sex profession to seek a place of their own. In ‘Love is Generated from SM’, the attacker and receiver fall for each other, being rewarded by mutual, unconditional love. In ‘Entangled Soul’, the wandering soul is, for some mysterious reason, incarnated into a tall, handsome guy, sex between the attacker and the receiver escalates, and so does love. They live happily ever after. In ‘Endless Love in Prison’, the receiver, despite being a low-life public sex slave in the prison, gradually attracts the attacker’s attention and the attacker eventually falls for him and swears to protect him from other brutal prisoners. In return, the receiver expresses a strong emotional attachment to the attacker.
Female spectators, male bodies: deconstructed context, queered gaze
Over the past several decades, a number of media scholars have elaborated on the topic of the gaze and its association with gender identity and identification. The gaze is conventionally associated with the dichotomy of active/passive, subject/object, dominance/submission and male/female. The fundamental element of the gaze is not merely to look; it is to exercise the power of the owner of the look, declaring mastery over the object being looked at and associating the object with sexual desire. De Beauvoir (1974) raised the notion of a male gaze as the viewing of women as sex objects in a patriarchal society. Mulvey (1975) applied a Lacanian framework to the gaze, arguing that the gaze of the camera and male characters at the female characters in narrative films objectified women. She argued that male spectators identify with a gaze fixated on female characters. It is through this objectification and identification dichotomy that women are trapped in a cycle of being gazed at and being objectified in order to provide visual pleasure for male spectators.
Contemplating the pervasiveness of the male gaze, other scholars have proposed a different approach. Doane (1982) argued that women are capable of ‘masquerading’, whereby ‘womanliness’ works like a mask which can be put on and taken off at different moments during their experiences as spectators in order to identify with different genders. Gamman and Marshment (1988) suggested that there is room for a female gaze in popular culture to the point that patriarchal discourse is, to a certain extent, interrupted. Bower (1990, 218) argued that female eros asserts the life force in women, but that this has been constantly assaulted and suppressed by the male gaze. Bower suggested that ‘[t]he antidote to the male gaze, and one avenue to women claiming their own sexuality, is the female gaze [ … ]’ (1990, 218). The female gaze, according to some scholars, is possible when male bodies become the focus of sexual desire for female spectators in popular culture (Dyer 1982; Tasker 1993; Evans and Gamman 1995, 31–33). Schauer (2005, 62), in her study of women’s online porn, argued that porn targeted at heterosexual women could result in ‘the interpellation of a heterosexual female viewer in objectifying men for sexual enjoyment’. The female gaze was argued to be achievable by reversing the position of the looker and the looked-at.
While some female spectators appear to enjoy a female gaze to eroticize and objectify males in certain heterosexual cultural contexts, such as going to a gigolo show or watching a movie in which sexy male bodies are the constant focus of the camera, other female spectators seem to prefer a homoerotic context in which male characters are emphasized and female characters are marginalized. I argue that, instead of casting a distinctively gendered gaze in a heteronormative position of male/female binary, these female spectators deconstruct the male/female binary to a certain extent, finding themselves a homoerotic context to exercise a queer, cross-gender gaze. Without an obvious category of ‘female’ to identify with, these female spectators practise a fluidity of gender identification and identity in a male/male homoerotic context. Furthermore, female spectators in the context of viewing male characters in a patriarchal romance narrative full of violent sex may experience a moment of ‘ephemeralness’ to freely project various sexual fantasies without feeling the patriarchal constraint of being a good, chaste girl. As Butler has suggested, gender is not internalized but is performative. Initially drawing an analogy from a theatrical setting, Butler (1988) described gender as being constituted through a series of repetitions, much like an act to be performed by actors/actresses according to a script. She argued that gender ‘proves to be performative—that is, constituting the identity is purposed to be. In this sense, gender ‘is always a doing [ … ]’ (Butler 1999, 33). Although not suggesting that gender is freely chosen/performed, Butler pointed out that gender can be subverted within a heteronormative matrix to a certain extent. In entering a context where female characters are largely excluded and male characters are sexually displayed in a setting characterized by grotesque erotic elements, I argue, female spectators have the chance to subvert the heteronormative power of the matrix, to seek an ephemeral moment in releasing themselves from the gender norms of everyday life and to project their sexual desire, regardless of how unusual that desire is. In a context based on a conventional romance narrative but replete with androgynous boys and handsome men, female spectators gaze at male characters in a queer light. They may identify with the androgynous boys or the handsome men—or with neither, simply exercising an omnipotent gaze over the male/male eroticism. Not only may female spectators avoid falling into identification with the female character in a heterosexual romance narrative, they may also enjoy the ephemeral subversion of heteronormativity and the requirement to be a ‘decent woman’. This is a virtual space where female spectators can also safely exercise various sexual fantasies which they will not necessarily experience (or want to experience) in real life.
Chinese society has been going through a major transformation from a ‘sex for reproduction’ to a ‘sex for pleasure’ phase. This change only took place after the one-child policy was implemented (Pan 2006). During the transformation, sex appeal became a norm. The term ‘career line’ has been coined to describe a woman’s cleavage, which implies that the bigger a woman’s breasts are, the better it is for her career (Chow and de Kloet 2013, 156). The Chinese porn market is dominated by Japanese porn products (Jacobs 2012, 38) in which the male-dominating/female-submissive pattern is the norm—sex is to be enjoyed by men, not women. Women, in much Japanese porn, are presented as merely the object for men to achieve sexual pleasure. Whereas some scholars argue that Chinese women have been liberated and their position greatly improved since 1949 (Zhao 2013), others point out that gender inequality is still largely present in today’s China (Evans 1997; Hewitt 2008; Chou 2011; X. Zhang 2011). Female sexuality and desire is still defined by male-dominated discourse in a capitalistic/patriarchal setting in which women are expected to ‘perform’ their gender accordingly in everyday life.
The Danmei genre may be an attempt to escape the power of the heteronormative matrix. It cannot be claimed that all female netizens in China are attracted to the Danmei genre. Nonetheless, those who are presented with the chance to become part of the ‘Danmei discourse’ jump at the possibility of daring to challenge the existing heteronormative sexual norm. By ‘re-doing’ gender in a Danmei narrative, they temporarily disrupt heteronormative sexuality to cast a queer gaze at beautiful boys, handsome men and brutal sex scenes. A queer gaze enables them to enjoy an ephemeral moment of a floating identity. Gazing at brutal sexual acts sweeps away the hegemony of male-dominated porn narratives. Sex is allowed to precede a romantic relationship and is performed in a brutal ‘non-feminine’ fashion. Circumscribing a domain of ‘Danmei discourse’ full of detailed descriptions of elements of grotesque eroticism offers female netizens an ephemeral moment of casting a queer gaze.
Conclusion
It cannot be denied that Danmei works are associated with a notion of romance narratives. In spite of the pervasive sex, Danmei works always return to an emotional attachment between attackers and receivers at the end. Heterosexual women have been identified as the primary user group for the genre of romance. Modleski (2008), in her pioneering work on romance fiction, reckoned that romance offers a source of narrative pleasure for women. One explanation of how narrative pleasure is produced is based on the interaction between the heroine and the hero in a typical romance narrative. The heroine resists the hero. Her rebellion and resistance against the hero exert emotional torment on him, bringing him to his knees. Aware of her importance to him, the hero psychologically surrenders to the heroine. This surrender brings forth a symbolic revenge as the heroine obtains the power to make the hero yield to her. The symbolic revenge brings about narrative pleasure. Nonetheless, despite this sweet revenge, a woman still tends to ‘[ … ] insert herself into the narrative of heterosexual romance as the object of male desire, becoming a good subject by becoming a good object’ (Tyler 2003, 75). Tyler argues that romances often substitute sex for marriage, but sex ‘continues to be defined within masculine parameters as heterosexual orgasm’ where ‘the desirable woman is one who is satisfied by the penis’. Rather than being confined within a patriarchal male/female romance narrative, Chinese female netizens who engage with Danmei narratives are able to exercise a queer gaze in a context where sex between men overflows. Playing with and subverting the notion of a masculine parameter in a patriarchal institution, Danmei narratives become queer texts in which men become the desirable objects craved by other men, offering female spectators the opportunity to play freely with sexuality.