Gaymi: Emergent masculinities and straight women’s friendships with gay male best friends in Jinan, China

Abstract

China’s economic liberalization in 1978 created new gendered and sexual subjectivities. This essay examines a new internet meme gaymi (“gay confidante”) and its discursive construction of gay men as genteel embodiments of a women-friendly “emergent masculinity” ( Inhorn and Wentzell, 2011 ). We argue that firstly, the gaymi discourse actually centers on the women who desire gay male companionship, because it ironically articulates the desires of these women and not those of the men. Secondly, strong links possibly exist between the rise of the gaymi and the popularity of the Korean Wave in China. Hence, the gaymi gestures at intra-Asian cultural globalization.

“Protecting our female gaze rights”: Chinese Female Gamers’ and Game Producers’ Negotiations with Government Restrictions on Erotic Material

“…Ironically, the precarity of the gamers’ negotiation with the party-state's censorship makes them the most theoretically productive in a conversation with existing research criticizing cultural products that aim at capitalizing on the “female gaze” (Li, 2020; Liang, 2022; G. Song, 2022a; Wang et al, 2019; Yang, 2020). This criticism is particularly focused on pointing out that the neoliberal consumerist culture in contemporary China has constructed a regime centering on women's consumptive capacity rather than promoting the cause of gender equality.…”

From Homeland-Mother to Azhong-Brother: a qualitative study of nation anthropomorphism among Chinese youths

“…As a prevalent term in current fandom across East Asia, the word ‘(older) brother’ is associated with male idols who are warm, sensitive, and female-friendly, such as xiaoxianrou (‘little fresh meat’) in China, bishōnen (‘beautiful youth’) in Japan and kkonminam (‘flower boys’) in South Korea (Murell, 2019). Such emergent soft masculinity embedded in the idol image of ‘Azhong-Brother’ has become a popular trend in the depictions of both heterosexual and homosexual men in recent years (Wang et al, 2019), and challenges the soldier image of Azhong-Brother with the normative and traditional hegemonic masculinity in China (e.g. ‘yanggangzhiqi’ or ‘wu’ attribute; Louie, 2002) that emphasizes physical power and assertiveness (Hu, 2018; Louie, 2012).…”