Forbidden love: incest, generational conflict, and the erotics of power in Chinese BL fiction

Male‒male marriage in Sinophone and AnglophoneHarry Potter danmeiandslash

“…Chinese women of the One Child Policy shoulder particularly high family control and expectations associated with obligations to the extended family (Xu & Yang, 2013). Hence, social and familial approval of a marriage is highly important and a public wedding ceremony is a way of signalling this recognition.…”

“…More surprisingly perhaps, but in-line with our findings, Zheng notes the importance of family values even in Chinese queer cinema, but demonstrates also the way in which tensions between the patriarchal extended family and the Westernised nuclear family are explored in this work. Similarly, studying father-son incest stories, Xu and Yang (2013) suggest that danmei can critique the traditional authoritarian style of parenting arguing that they "showcase a feminine attempt to resolve the generational conflict and re-order the power structure in the family by means of eros and passion" (p.31).…”

“…Membership of danmei sites is staggeringly high and consists, predominately, of urban, educated, women aged between about 18-35 years old (Zheng, 2016). For example, Xu and Yang (2013) report that Jinjiang, founded in 2003 and from which we sourced material for our study, claims to be the largest female-oriented cyber-literature platform in the world with 93% of over 7 million registered users women.…”

“…The first danmei appeared in about 1998 (Xu & Yang, 2013) and, via Taiwan and Hong Kong, has been influenced particularly by Japanese ACG culture ('Anime, Comics, and Games'). Hence, although like slash, danmei takes a predominantly literary form it has such strong resonances with Japanese visual culture that it is readable through the lens of yaoi fandom.…”

“…While slash and yaoi have attracted much research interest, Xu and Yang (2013) argue that danmei deserve more academic scrutiny and Gong (2017) states that 'Western scholars have largely ignored the transnational influences of slash and Boy-Love communities in China' (p. 167). One of the few exceptions is Wei's (2014) exploration of how the North American icon Iron Man has been subject to re-interpretation in danmei.…”