homosexuality in china!

[vivian]

hey everyone! let us talk something about the homosexuality in china, becaue i am now doing a research about this topic. what interest me a lot is that homosexual marriage is illegal in most of country,even in america, the so called freedom country. and in china, chinese law doesn't mention this issue at all, it seems that there is no homosexuality at all.

for me, i know some gays or lesbines are inborn, it's their nature. in that case, their marriage should be legal. and i don't think there will effect on our society, they exist any way, what do you think.

[studentyoung]

Dear Ms. Vivian

As I know that some famous Chinese sociologists have done this kind of research in 1990s. Please check the names such as Mr. Wang, xiao bo (王小波先生) and Ms. Li, yin he (李银河女士).These two are a couple and they are really the leaders in the field of homesexual study.

About 20 years ago, Chinese really seldem mentioned homesexuality and they considered it as evil or abnormity. Yet nowadays, Chinese people seem open a lot on it. They can accept homesexuality and the homesexual people bit by bit, especially the young people in big cities.

I do agree with you that the homesexual people don't hurt the soiety in any way, because they will not be the major part of the society.

Thanks for your attention!

[chengdude]

A small collection of news and other information about homosexuality in China:

http://www.floatinglotus.com/news/cnews.html

A couple of gay lifestyle/forum sites for Asia:

http://www.utopia-asia.com/tipschin.htm (China page)

http://www.fridae.com/ (Main page)

and, if you weed out the bandwidth-chewing pontificating/silliness, there's a few interesting viewpoints/insights in this long thread on, of all places, Dave's ESL Cafe:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=5324

[Sima Old Bandit]

Historically, gay marriage existed in China.  Homosexuality was part and parcel of chinese culture till homophobia gradually crept in during the Qing era.  Even as Kangxi crafted new laws to curb gay sex / rape and prostitution and he proudly proclaimed he was not into it, his grandson had a male favourite in the form of Heshen.

 

We can tell that like previous dynasties, official laws didn't have a great effect.  But the traumatic defeat of the Ming Dynasty by the Qing and then our defeat by the west certainly switched things up.

 

Prior to that many emperors had male and female favourites in their harem. The first 10 han dynasty emperors had them and the 10th was likely exclusively homosexual instead of bisexual.  He even passed his throne on to his lover as he had no heir.

 

America is free in some ways but change is never easy in such a large society.  Especially if it pertains to sex and the bible has something to say about it.  Elections can be won and lost over social issues, their puritanical roots never left them.  That said, what they do have is a system to allow issues to be dealt with within the system. Since your post, 17 states now have gay marriage in the US and plenty more court victories are in the system.  Public opinion hardened at first when it seemed like over-reaction from a Hawaii court case might legalize gay marriage and many states enacted bans in their constitution.  But public opinion has accelerated and from zero states we now have 17 in a decade.  Looking at past battles for equality, gay marriage has won and the opposition is now in its death throes although it is still sizeable.

 

Attitudes in modern China have shifted dramatically. From labour camps and mental illness they have now adopted a neutral policy over it.  That is probably ahead of societal views, so for a conservative and authoritarian regime that is remarkable.  Especially when we look at what is happening in Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa.  We might not be at the forefront but we are practical.

[DavidL706]

I can't say much about the mainland, but here in Taiwan people acknowledge it exists, but don't seem to talk about it that much.

 

It seems that China has been liberalizing their attitudes towards this over the last few years.  They are taking the middle road between the ultra-liberal countries like Sweden and more traditional countries in the Middle East.