Sex with Chinese Characteristics? The Politics of Sexuality in China

 About the Talk

This talk is based on collaborative work with Professor Petula Sik Ying Ho (HKU), specifically on an article we published in the Journal of Sex Research (2018) and a new book we are writing. The immense social changes that have occurred in China over the last four decades have not only transformed it into a global economic and political power, but have also affected the most intimate aspects of daily life. Sexuality may seem a marginal issue in relation to many other aspects of Chinese society, not least the attacks on human rights under the Xi regime, but, as we argue, sexuality is a political issue in China. It is central to the governance of the population, the representation of China as possessing its own unique and superior ‘socialist spiritual civilization’, to its business ethics and to its political economy more generally. Sexuality is also implicated in the maintenance of social inequality and injustice in China, not only in gender relations and its highly heteronormative social order, but also, and in intersection with, class inequality, the urban-rural divide and Han hegemony over minority minzu. China’s sexual landscape is, however, diverse. Sexual life in China is complex, multi-faceted and gives rise to multiple tensions and contradictions between law and official morality on the one hand and everyday practices on the other. There are also contradictions arising from party state governance and unintended consequences of policy shifts. In attending to these complexities we locate them within wider economic, social and political changes in China to explore the interface between personal practices of sexuality and intimacy and the public world of state regulation, social institutions and the market.