Welcome to Francis Academic Press

Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 2020, 3(9); doi: 10.25236/AJHSS.2020.030916.

The reasons for the popularity of "Boys love" culture in China

Author(s)

Tong Shen

Corresponding Author:
Tong Shen
Affiliation(s)

The University of Sheffield

Abstract

Boys' Love (BL), or Danmei, is a genre of male-male romance created by and for women and sexual minorities, which have many formats such as novels, manga, anime, songs and audio drama. Danmei originated in Japan. The literary work of BL was brought into China, which arouses the popularity of BL culture in 1970s. This paper explored the reasons for the BL culture's popularity in China from two perspectives. On the one hand, the export of Japanese culture and the development of the Chinese Internet are considered as the objective reasons, on the other hand, the lack of sexual culture has led to sexual repressions for thousands of years in China, which is one of the reasons for the widespread of BL works with pornographic descriptions in China.

Keywords

social media, BL culture, Boys' Love, manga, gender culture

Cite This Paper

Tong Shen. The reasons for the popularity of "Boys love" culture in China. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2020) Vol. 3, Issue 9: 142-148. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2020.030916.

References

[1] Baidu Post Bar., (2018). Baidu Post Bar. [Viewed 25 December 28, 2018]. Available from: https://tieba.baidu.com/f?ie=utf-8&kw=耽美&fr=search [Viewed 23 December 2018].
[2] Chao, S.-C. (2016) ‘Grotesque eroticism in the Danmei genre: the case of Lucifer’s Club in Chinese cyberspace’, Porn Studies. Routledge, 3 (1), pp. 65–76. doi: 10.1080/23268743.2015.1119991 [Viewed 22 December 2018].
[3] Chou, D. (2010) Exploring the Meaning of Yaoi in Taiwan for Female Readers: From the Perspective of Gender, Intercultural Communication Studies XIX. Chou. Available at: https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/06DienfangChou.pdf [Viewed 22 December 2018].
[4] Feng, J., 2009. "Addicted to Beauty": Consuming and Producing Web-based Chinese" Danmei" Fiction at Jinjiang. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 21(2), pp.1-41. [Viewed 22 December 2018]
[5] Li, Y., Parrish-Sprowl, J. and Goering, E. M. (2009) Japanese Boy-Love manga and the global fandom: a case study of Chinese female readers. Available at: https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/1936/THESIS_of_Yannan_LI.pdf?sequence=2 [Viewed 22 December 2018].
[6] Louie, A. (2012) ‘Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China’, Citation The Journal of Asian Studies, 4, pp. 929–943. doi: 10.1017/S0021911812001234. [Viewed 24 December 2018]
[7] Marcuse, H., 2012.Eros and civilization. Routledge [Viewed 25 December 2018].
[8] Min, C. (2017) ‘The Influence of Social Media on Contemporary Subcultural Groups in China: The Case of BL Fandom *’, 14(1), pp. 25–29. doi: 10.17265/1539-8072/2017.01.004 [Viewed 25 December 2018].
[9] O’Brien, a. a. (2008) ‘Boys’ Love and Female Friendships: The Subculture of Yaoi as a Social Bond between Women’, Anthropology Theses. Available at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/anthro_theses/28 [Viewed 20 December 2018].
[10] Wu, YY., (2003). Qingdshaonianliuxingwenhuaxianxiangchanshengdedongyin [The reasons for the phenomenon of the popular culture in adolescent]. China: China Youth study. [Viewed 21 December 2018]
[11] Wang, PL., Dian, Z.,(2008). Tongrennvxianxiangdefenxiyusikao [An analysis and discussion of the phenomenon in the Female BL fans]. China: Youth Studies. [Viewed 24 December 2018]
[12] Wu, YM,.(2008). Qiantanribendewenhuawaijiao [A brief discussion of the Japanese Cultural Diplomacy]. China: Japanese Studies. [Viewed 24 December 2018]
[13] Wang. Z,.(2008). Tongrendeshijie: Duiyizhongwangluoxiaozhongwenhuadeyanjiu [An analysis of the online subculture]. China: Xinhua Publishing House. [Viewed 25 December 2018]
[14] Xu, Y. and Yang, L. (2013a) ‘Forbidden love: incest, generational conflict, and the erotics of power in Chinese BL fiction’, Journal of Graphic Novels & Comics.  Routledge , 4(1), pp. 30–43. doi: 10.1080/21504857.2013.771378. [Viewed 25 December 2018]
[15] Xu, Y. and Yang, L. (2013b) ‘Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics Forbidden love: incest, generational conflict, and the erotics of power in Chinese BL fiction’, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 4(1), pp. 30–43. doi: 10.1080/21504857.2013.771378. [Viewed 26 December 2018]
[16] Yang,Y,.(2006). “Danmei”wenhuaxianxiangbeihou [Behind the phenomenon of “Danmei cultural” ]. China: China Youth study. [Viewed 22 December 2018]
[17] Yu, S. (2015) ‘Japanese anime and women’s gender-role changing’. Available at: https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/45695 [Viewed 23 December 2018].
[18] Zanghellini, A. (2009a) ‘“Boys love’’ in anime and manga : Japanese subcultural production and its end users”’, Continuum. Taylor & Francis Group , 23 (3), pp. 279–294. doi: 10.1080/10304310902822886. [Viewed 26 December 2018]
[19] Zanghellini, A. (2009b) ‘Underage sex and romance in japanese homoerotic manga and anime’, Social and Legal Studies, 18 (2), pp. 159–177. doi: 10.1177/ 0964663909103623. [Viewed 20 December 2018]
[20] Zhang, C. (2014) ‘My double love of boys’: Chinese women’s fascination with ‘Boy’s Love’ fiction. Available at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=4758&context=etd [Viewed 22 December 2018].
[21] Zhang, C. (2016) ‘Loving Boys Twice as Much: Chinese Women’s Paradoxical Fandom of “Boys’ Love” Fiction’, Women’s Studies in Communication. Routledge, 39 (3), pp. 249–267. doi: 10.1080/07491409.2016.1190806 [Viewed 19 December 2018].
[22] Zhao, J. J., Yang, L. and Lavin, M. (2017) Boys’ love, cosplay, and androgynous idols : queer fan cultures in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Project Muse. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl= en&lr=&id=WLQ5DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=danmei+manga&ots=I0KyvP0YLD&sig=h6w3jIGSrBeIgZryltRcCmFXcg8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=danmei manga&f=false [Viewed 20 December 2018].
[23] Zsila, Á. et al. (2018) ‘Loving the love of boys: Motives for consuming yaoi media.’ PloS one. Public Library of Science, 13 (6), p. e0198895. doi: 10.1371/ journal. pone.0198895. [Viewed 23 December 2018]