{"id":11940,"date":"2025-11-16T12:25:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T04:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=11940"},"modified":"2025-11-16T12:25:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T04:25:32","slug":"chinas-crackdown-on-same-sex-love-stories-leaves-chinese-women-less-happy-without-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=11940","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s crackdown on same-sex love stories leaves Chinese women \u2018less happy without it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/1280x720\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2025\/11\/14\/8d6f55e2-07f1-457b-ac52-2f2eb306aff1_8c2b0601.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">For Cindy Zhong, like many young Chinese women, a relaxing night used to mean curling up with a steamy story about two men in love. Then her favourite authors, and their tales, started disappearing.<\/p>\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">Fans of the popular <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\"><em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">danmei<\/em> same-sex romance genre<\/span>, written and read mainly by straight women, say the Chinese government is carrying out the largest crackdown yet on it, effectively neutering the enjoyment.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In the vast world of fantasy, <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">danmei<\/em> is relatively straightforward: two men stand in for idealised relationships, from chaste to erotic. Some scholars believe the stories appeal to Chinese women as a way to sidestep the country\u2019s conservative gender values and imagine relationships on a more equal footing.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWomen turn to <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">danmei<\/em> for pure love, especially as they face pressure from families, peers and society to get married and have kids,\u201d said Aiqing Wang, a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, in England, who studies Chinese popular culture and internet literature.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The once-niche Chinese literary subculture has seen a boom in recent years, with novels adapted into blockbuster television series and translated into Western languages.<\/p>\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\"><em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Danmei<\/em> \u2013 also known as \u201cboys love\u201d in English \u2013 has also caught the eye of Chinese authorities. At least dozens of writers have been interrogated, <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">arrested and charged<\/span> with producing and selling obscene materials in China in the past year, according to media reports and witness accounts online.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/chinese-culture\/article\/3332773\/chinas-crackdown-same-sex-love-stories-leaves-chinese-women-less-happy-without-it?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Cindy Zhong, like many young Chinese women, a relaxing night used to mean curling up with a steamy story about two men in love&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[6292,107,9632,1231,744,772,9633,1726,274],"class_list":["post-11940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-chinas","tag-chinese","tag-crackdown","tag-happy","tag-leaves","tag-love","tag-samesex","tag-stories","tag-women","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}