Women's Studies in Communication

ISSN: 0749-1409 (Print) 2152-999X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uwsc20

Loving Boys Twice as Much: Chinese Women’s

Paradoxical Fandom of “Boys’ Love” Fiction

Chunyu Zhang

To cite this article: Chunyu Zhang (2016) Loving Boys Twice as Much: Chinese Women’s
Paradoxical Fandom of “Boys’ Love” Fiction, Women's Studies in Communication, 39:3, 249-267,
DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2016.1190806

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2016.1190806

Published online: 02 Aug 2016.

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 WOMEN'S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION
2016, VOL. 39, NO. 3, 249–267
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2016.1190806

ESSAY

Loving Boys Twice as Much: Chinese Women’s Paradoxical

Fandom of “Boys’ Love” Fiction
Chunyu Zhang
Department of Communication Studies, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This study examines how young female Chinese fans negotiate BL fiction; China; fandom;
gender, sexuality, and identity through their readings of Chinese boys’ female gaze; gay men;
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love (BL) fiction. BL fiction, or danmei in Chinese, is a romantic fiction voyeurism

genre featuring same-sex relationships between two men. I argue that
BL fandom facilitates a gendered politics of looking that empowers
female readers to turn a voyeuristic gaze upon men. This subversive
gaze allows fans to play with patriarchal gender constructions,
provides escapism, and creates aesthetics that offer an alternative to
clichéd heterosexual romantic storytelling. Because of their shared
interests and practices, a distinctive BL online subculture has formed.
Within this subculture, fans also demonstrate a diverse, fluid, and
individualistic identification with BL. BL fandom also shapes these
young women’s perceptions of same-sex love while disavowing their
heterosexual privileges. Indeed, fans seem to appropriate the
marginalized BL stories to express their own desires for idealized
heterosexual relationships.

Originating in the 1970s in Japan, boys’ love (BL) is an umbrella term for female-oriented
romances between two males, encompassing commercially published original manga,
novels, animation, video games, and fan-produced dōjinshi (self-published writings and
drawings) (Martin, 2012; McLelland & Yoo, 2007; Nagaike & Suganuma, 2013; Welker,
2006; Zanghellini, 2009). The narratives included in this genre usually portray an idealized
same-sex relationship between two male figures who are physically attractive; BL works
feature a range of depictions, from pure love1 to explicitly detailed sexual encounters
between two men and from fantastical to realistic settings. Pure love BL is a homoerotic
version of tanbi (the worship and pursuit of aesthetic beauty), while those including more
explicit sexual depictions are usually termed yaoi,2 an acronym for yamanashi, ochinashi,
iminashi (no climax, no punchline, no meaning). Yaoi often refers to amateur works that
are not widely commercialized (McLelland & Welker, 2015). Overall, BL is usually created
and read by young women, who have been called fujoshi (written 腐女子 in Japanese) or
the “rotten girls.”
Although BL was born and popularized in Japan, the Internet has facilitated its expan-
sion to other areas, especially neighboring countries like China. Global online and offline
communities have been created by international fans to publish, share, and discuss BL
works (Levi, 2010; Pagliassotti, Nagaike, & McHarry, 2013; Welker, 2015). In China, BL

CONTACT Chunyu Zhang cz067012@ohio.edu Department of Communication Studies, Ohio University,

Radio-Television Center 181, Athens, OH 45701, USA.
© 2016 The Organization for Research on Women and Communication
 250 C. ZHANG

is known as danmei (耽美), a term translated from Japanese tanbi, literally “obsessed with
beauty.”3 BL first emerged in the late 1970s with the importation of Japanese anime and
comics into Taiwan (Martin, 2012). By the late 1990s, BL became popular in Hong Kong
before expanding into mainland China (Liu, 2009). A few years later, BL became a major
genre of cyberliterature, coincident with the advent of associated popular literary websites,
online blogs, and forums. BL has since become a business in China, generating jobs for
young women who produce Chinese BL content and allowing fans to consume, discuss,
and download the work. Among these works, BL fiction is the most popular category,
although BL manga and video are occasionally circulated online as well (Wei, 2014). Xu
and Yang (2013) found that about 199,100 works of BL fiction have been published since
early 2012 on Jingjiang, the largest women’s cyberliterature website, out of which 145,600
were professional and the rest were amateur. However, most BL fictions are circulated
online and are prohibited from being published in mainland China. Nevertheless, some
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have appeared on the market either without legal ISBN numbers or with any explicit sexual
material removed (Liu, 2013; Xu, 2015).
The extreme popularity of BL fiction in China is due to a large group of readers, ranging
in age from 11 to 30 years old (Song & Wang, 2011). Similar to Japanese fans, Chinese fans
are also self-identified as fujoshi (fu nüˇ 腐女in Mandarin). However, Chinese fujoshi are
mostly readers, not writers, because only those fans with adequate leisure time have the
ability to write professionally (Xu, 2015; Wang, 2011). Due to the sensitivity of BL content
and the widely dispersed nature of its online communities, there is no official statistical
data regarding the size of the BL audience. Nevertheless, there has been a notable increase
in the number of young female fans, most of whom are heterosexual (Yi, 2013). My obser-
vations and interactions with fans suggest that college-aged women appear to be in the
majority, but the number of fans in junior and senior high schools seems to be increasing.
Growing concerns about the negative social effects of BL culture began to provoke anti-BL
activism in China by 2007 (Liu, 2009). For instance, 32 BL female writers were arrested in
Zhengzhou City and accused of creating and distributing homoerotic content (Yi, 2013).
These anti-BL actions emerged from fears that the genre’s elements of unrealistic love,
homosexuality, and depictions of sex would corrupt the values and morality of younger
generations. As a result, popular stereotypes and common misconceptions of BL fandom
have caused the BL fan community to become a marginalized subcultural group, albeit
one whose members enjoy heterosexual privileges.
The transnational prevalence of BL has also drawn attention in academic scholarship.
Recently, researchers have focused on fans’ reception and appropriation of BL, noting that
BL fandom has proven to be a “female gendered space” (Mizoguchi, 2003, p. 65), which has
broad implications for gender and sexuality politics as well as fan (sub)cultures (Pagliassotti
et al., 2013). Welker (2006) theorized that BL may offer a space for heteronormative female
fans to “experiment with marginalized gender and sexual practices and has played a role in
identity formation” (p. 843).
In this project, I expand the scope of such inquiries to the localization of BL fandom in
China. The research reported in this paper is an exploratory study, mainly considering how
Chinese female fans construct BL fandom based on their consumption of BL fiction. This
paper strives to shed light on how Chinese fans generate meanings from these texts, while
resisting the mediated stereotype of BL fandom as “deviant.” Given the taboo regarding
same-sex partnerships and the illegality of gay marriage in China (Wei, 2008), I am
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 251

interested in how BL fandom informs Chinese women’s perceptions of and attitudes

toward gender and same-sex attraction. In addition, given the popularity of online BL
fandom groups, I am intrigued by the ways fans co-construct their individual and relational
BL identities at the convergence of both virtual and offline worlds.

Heteronormativity, gender hierarchy, and BL fandom

As many studies reveal, fandom often functions as a tool that empowers subordinate
groups to combat hegemony (King, 1997). Similarly, Welker (2006) considered BL fandom
to be a liberal sphere wherein female writers and readers can work with and against the
“heteronormative paradigm in the exploration of alternatives” (p. 841). Furthermore, many
female fans also find the manipulation of male characters in a sexual fantasy world empow-
ering (McLelland & Yoo, 2007; Mizoguchi, 2003; Nagaike, 2003), as they are able to chal-
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lenge both heteronormativity and hierarchal gender order through their reading.
The relationships between male characters in BL are often coded as a seme-uke dynamic,
with the seme as the dominant penetrator and the uke as the passive receiver. Uke charac-
ters usually resemble many physically and emotionally feminine stereotypes. Indeed, this
dynamic is criticized as a reproduction of the patriarchal gender hierarchy (Pagliassotti,
2010). On the other hand, readers are also able to engage with BL creators in various ways
to construct masculinity and femininity in accordance with their own desires. In so doing,
they may disrupt traditional gender orders. This is evident in alterations to the common
relationship between seme and uke emerging from transnational BL discourse.4 In Sino-
phone discourse, the seme-uke dichotomy tends to blur; fans are increasingly dissatisfied
with the over-feminizing of the uke and call for more equivalent characterization (Li,
2009). A so-called strong uke who is independent in both behavior and emotion is becom-
ing popular among Chinese readers (Wang, 2011). To a certain extent, fans’ interpretation
of the seme-uke dichotomy has become political, as it “deconstructs the idea that sexual
attraction must be based on essentialist notions of sexual difference” (Kee, 2010, p. 133).
In other words, the heteronormative paradigm is being challenged in BL reading.
BL is also described by fans as an outlet to explore female sexuality and pleasure. In posi-
tioning males as the objects of female desire, BL can be read as a means to appropriate the
male gaze for the enjoyment of female voyeurs (Hemmann, 2015; Kee, 2010; Noh, 2001;
Wang, 2011). The male gaze, as theorized by Mulvey (1975), is pervasive in films wherein
female figures are objectified to suit male desires. However, in BL, fans “enjoy the subvers-
ive thrill of watching males in a vulnerable, submissive position, not only sexually but
emotionally” (Kee, 2010, p. 140). Arguably, BL fans’ enjoyment is erotic, emotional, and
subversive.
Fans’ retreat from reality is also part of the pleasure this genre offers. Fujimoto (2015)
argued that BL emerged as a safe fantasy where fans can escape from the social realities of
gender inequality and avoid the sexualization of women. The pleasure of escape, as Fiske
(1989) noted, stems from “the loss of self and of the subjectivity that controls and governs
the self”—that is, the self that is constructed by dominant ideological production and
reproduction (p. 41). For this reason, evasion offers the pleasure of eluding conformity
of the self to ideological norms. As early as 1984, Radway argued in her seminal study that
women’s romance reading is compensatory in providing them with a fantasy whereby they
can withdraw from reality and fulfill their self-interests. In the case of BL reading, fans
 252 C. ZHANG

immerse themselves in a fantasy, a space that encompasses gender ambiguity and sexual
fluidity (Galbraith, 2011).
Although BL fandom is understood as political in its subversion of heterosexual gender
norms, fans simultaneously subscribe to these heteronormative values or carry them into
their fandom practices (Hori, 2013). In Wei’s (2008) argument, BL fans’ resistance to
the heterocentric paradigm mainly exists in the fantasy world of BL narratives, not
necessarily in reality. This critique of the politics of BL fans concurs with King’s (1997)
argument that fandom is paradoxical, “encompassing elements of compliance and
resistance simultaneously” (p. 342). For instance, King’s study of the consumption of
football revealed that, as working-class fans, young British men not only resisted the own-
ers of capital clubs and the masculine toughness the football players represented, but also
indicated a compliance with the “masculine desire for status and honor” stemming from
their loyal support of a team and that team’s success (p. 343). Accordingly, BL fandom
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may be paradoxical in the resistance and capitulation to heteronormativity.

BL fandom is also highly engaging (Blair, 2010); Martin (2012) described BL fandom in
Taiwan as “a participatory space created with immense imaginative energy and generative
of great pleasure and intellectual as well as affective engagement for its largely female part-
icipants” (p. 365). As Jenkins (2006a) argued, fans’ active engagements online would likely
formulate a new set of rules or shared knowledge that would serve as collective intelligence
for the community. However, fans’ BL practices manifest both consistency and variety
(Kamm, 2013). The onset of digital media and ever-increasing global consumerism has
facilitated fragmentation and instability of fan identity construction (Hodkinson, 2007;
Turkle, 1995). In the case of BL fandom, BL texts provide a focal point by which fans form
their communities and perspectives via online communication. Nevertheless, post-
subcultural theorists point out that there is internal diversity within subgroups, and some
participants might have multiple, fluid, and fragmented identities (Muggleton, 2000).
A myriad of studies have been conducted on transnational BL fandom and published in
English-language journals; however, due to language and other limitations, only a few of
those are related to China (see Feng, 2009; Martin, 2012; Liu, 2009; Wang, 2011; Wei,
2014; Xu & Yang, 2013; Yi, 2013). This paucity might be partly due to stereotyping of
gay male attraction and the status of BL fandom in China’s media (Wei, 2014; Yi, 2013;
Zhou, 2012) as well as the absence of legal protections for same-sex marriage in China.
These factors might affect Chinese scholars’ limited attention to the study of BL. Thus, this
study aims to provide preliminary insights into Chinese BL fiction fandom. Ideally, more
research would follow.

Research methodology
In-depth interviews were conducted to examine fans’ accounts of their fandom practices
and experiences. I interviewed 15 readers of BL fiction using QQ, an online Chinese instant
messaging service. Online interviews allowed me, based in the United States, to reach a
wide geographic area in China and also ensured that the interviews could take place at
the respondents’ convenience. Utilizing a snowball sampling technique, I recruited these
participants through recommendations from my friends who are also BL fans as well as
from my early participants. As Lindlof and Taylor (2011) suggest, snowball sampling is well
suited to studying subcultures, as it allows researchers to reach difficult-to-access or hidden
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 253

populations through participants’ referrals. All the participants were in their 20s; nine were
college students while the rest were career women. Most indicated that they are heterosex-
ual and/or have boyfriends in real life. Fourteen have been cultivating their BL interest for
at least 3 years. In order to protect the confidentiality of participants’ personal information,
I refer to them by pseudonyms.
I developed a preestablished list of questions, which primarily focused on the parti-
cipants’ reading behaviors, their accounts of BL narratives, their social interactions with
their peers, and their BL identification. Nonetheless, to accommodate the different contexts
of interviews, not all participants were asked the same questions in the same order; I also
posed additional probing questions to some participants in order to clarify my understand-
ing of their answers and to achieve additional depth. Each interview lasted an average of 1.7
hours and eventually yielded 117 pages of interview transcripts and notes.
During the process of data analysis, a constant comparison method was employed (Gla-
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ser & Strauss, 1967). By constantly comparing keywords, concepts, insights, meanings, and
experiences from the transcripts and notes, I categorized several codes that demonstrated
patterns of fans’ behavior and meanings. Furthermore, as Gubrium and Holstein (2002)
suggest, a theoretical perspective can help to organize, categorize, and interpret the patterns
and themes from qualitative data. Accordingly, various theories of fandom and gender stu-
dies were employed to conceptualize and interpret the patterns and themes that emerged
from the data. Ultimately, I identified four main themes using this approach.

Thematic analyses
Voyeurism and the female gaze
My participants revealed that BL opened a window for them to enjoy a sense of voyeurism
by virtue of its boy-centered content. From a psychiatric perspective, voyeurism is some-
times regarded as a pathological illness, characterized by an individual’s exaggerated inter-
est in (stealthily and erotically) viewing and observing people who are (preferably) naked or
engaging in sexual activities (Metzl, 2004a). However, in the mediated environment,
voyeurism is not just related to sexuality (Calvert, 2000). Voyeurism is also a political prac-
tice “imbued with power, gender, and other types of nonchemical imbalance” (Metzl,
2004b, p. 130).
For fans, BL narratives first fulfill their voyeuristic curiosity about male partnerships.
Ten participants attributed their first encounters with BL to curiosity. Within conservative
Chinese social culture, same-sex attraction is stigmatized and marginalized by society and
thus is unknown to a large number of people. Simei, a fan who started reading BL in high
school, described her earliest encounter with BL as a fresh experience from which she first
learned that romantic love could happen between two men rather than only between a man
and a woman.
Initiated by BL texts, these female readers appear to extend their voyeurism to gay men
in their daily lives. Several participants, such as Wang and Fan, disclosed a voyeuristic
behavior of following some gay men’s Weibo (a Twitter-like website in China) accounts,
blogs, or other social networking accounts. These participants described their observations
as stealthy, without serious interactions with gay people. However, according to my part-
icipants, there is a group of young fans that enjoy “cyberstalking” gay people on the
 254 C. ZHANG

Internet. These “cyberstalkers” are very active online; they enjoy commenting on gay peo-
ples’ posts, making a show of supporting them on social networking accounts, or even try-
ing to couple two males together without considering their actual sexual orientation.
Through BL fiction and the development of the Internet, heterosexual fans are able to
access a different sexual orientation that is considered taboo in society. Arguably, BL read-
ers “stalking” gay men on social media may represent a new form of heterosexual privilege
that appropriates and exploits marginalized identities and experiences for personal curi-
osity. On the other hand, fan engagement with gay people in reality may also help to
enhance their personal support for gay groups.
In addition, the voyeuristic appeal of BL also implies female inquisitiveness about sex.
As they get more into BL texts, same-sex encounters become more salient for some readers.
To make the “same-sex love” more natural and authentic, my interviewees believed that a
certain degree of sexual description is necessary in BL fiction. For instance, Simei claimed
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that good sexual descriptions could make a BL story more attractive. She declared, “It [sex]
is natural as the relationship develops. Sex is just as normal as eating. BL satisfies girls’ sex-
ual desire.” Yu, a graduate student, indicated that she sometimes reads BL from Xianwang.
com, a website that contains erotic BL content. Some fans like Yu, who search for more
sexual descriptions, are criticized by gay people in Japan for perpetuating a stereotypical
oversexualization of same-sex relationships (Hori, 2013). Nonetheless, my interviewees
claimed that embracing sexual descriptions is by no means accepting pornography nor
overly sexualizing same-sex relationships. For them, depicting sex as a natural expression
of love is acceptable.
The erotic descriptions in BL, no matter how much and to what degree, have opened up
possibilities for female fans to “play with sex(uality)” (Fujimoto, 2015, p. 87). Sex has been
associated with lasciviousness and immorality in traditional Chinese culture, and any
descriptions of sexual acts are traditionally depicted as obscene and taboo. Even with
the influx of diverse sexual representations from Western culture, such as the American
television program Sex and the City (Wang, 2011), sexual puritanism still dominates social
norms and values in contemporary China. Because of taboos and the lack of sex education
in China, same-sex erotic narratives are an appealing means for young women to learn
about sexuality (Zhang, 2011). As Valenti (2005) contended, “women enjoy yaoi because
it is a way for them to be entertained by sex in [a] non-threatening way, without the
anxieties and problems associated with being female, such as pregnancy and misogyny”
(p. 123). This interpretation implies that BL functions as a space where women can fulfill
their desire for sex without anxieties and shame.
Through fans’ voyeuristic enjoyment, the power of a female gaze emerges. In this
subversion of the male gaze, women become the agents of spectatorship, redirecting the
gaze toward male protagonists. In so doing, BL fans invert Mulvey’s (1975) concept of
the male-gendered gaze. According to Mulvey, women exist on the film screen merely
as objects or spectacles, subject to the determining surveillance of male protagonists. As
spectators, female audiences would be either “affected by a female character occupying
the center of the narrative arena” (p. 29) or identify with male protagonists’ and viewers’
masculine views. The male gaze not only exists in movies but also prevails in other formats,
such as television, advertisements, and fictional texts.
Reading BL fiction invites women to become the subject, rather than object, of a voyeur-
istic gaze, as male figures are actually being cast as sexual objects for readers of this genre.
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 255

When asked why she reads BL instead of girls’ love (romance between two women), Leng,
an undergraduate student, explained:
In the girls’ love, it would be easy to cultivate a strong sense of identification with the heroines.
Somehow I can’t accept it. I am even okay with the incestuous setting of father-to-son in BL,
because I am not a man, and thus there is not a sense of identification …

Because there is no sense of identification with male protagonists, female readers appear
to be emancipated from the determining male gaze and empowered to objectify male fig-
ures to cater to female desires for men. Different from the traditional texts that lead female
audiences to internalize the masculine gaze, BL empowers female readers to control the
way they interpret and make meaning of the story. Readers feel empowered to occupy a
“precipice” to objectify men, which counters what Mulvey suggested is the dominant set-
ting of the male gaze. However, Leng’s statement demonstrates why this emancipation
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from the traditional male gaze is problematic: It allows a certain degree of overeroticization
or even dehumanization of same-sex partnerships through BL narratives.
At the same time, BL texts also satisfy these young women’s desires for idealized hetero-
sexual partnerships. Being fascinated with BL does not necessarily mean that female fans
identify as gay. In fact, many of my participants identified themselves as heterosexual. They
claimed that they enjoy BL because of their affection for males. For example, Kim, a media
employer, voiced, “I am a fan of BL, but I still like men. Maybe this is because I like men
that I turn to read the stories which concentrate on men.” Feng, an undergraduate student,
stated, “I won’t become gay. My affection for BL demonstrates that I love boys twice as
much.” As Su, an advertising designer, noted, “Reading BL, by nature, is a kind of appreci-
ation and pursuit of boys.” BL allows “young female fans [to] feel more able to imagine and
depict idealized strong free characters if [those characters] are male” (Kinsella, 1998, p.
302).
The female gaze is also evident in the lack of female figures in BL and the readers’ lack of
identification with women characters. As my participants noted, most female characters in
BL play either the role of the third wheel to a homoerotic relationship or the mother of a
gay protagonist who fiercely opposes her son’s gayness. For the purpose of highlighting the
faithfulness and loyalty of the boys’ love, these female characters are typically depicted as
villains. Because female characters are frequently depicted negatively, Blair (2010) found
that English-language BL manga readers often reacted negatively to them. On the contrary,
in reading Chinese BL fiction, my participants did not seem to feel uncomfortable with the
negative representations of women nor did they feel compelled to identify with these vil-
lains because they were women. As Yu explained, “A female figure in BL is villain first and
then woman second. Because she is designed as a villain for plot development purposes, she
is being distorted by the authors.” Echo, a graduate student, also pointed out: “Only a few
women are misrepresented in BL because the authors are all women; therefore, they won’t
treat women harshly.” In this respect, the absence or limited representation of women
appears to help these fans to justify their right to gaze at men.

Resistance and compliance

Plenty of fandom studies have revealed that various modes of resistance arise from its cul-
tural practices. As Fiske (1992) argued, fandom is often related to “the cultural tastes of
 256 C. ZHANG

subordinated formations of the people, particularly with those disempowered by any com-
bination of gender, age, class, and race” (p. 30). Jenkins (1992) also contended that “fans
operate from a position of cultural marginality and social weakness” (p. 26). Nonetheless,
as King (1997) stated, a theory of resistance often “focuses on subversion and opposition”
(p. 330), turning a blind eye to “the potentially shared interests between dominant and sub-
ordinate groups” (p. 342). In other words, fandom could be characterized as a paradoxical
subculture that involves fans’ resistance and compliance simultaneously.
Indeed, a dichotomy of resistance and compliance appears in the case of BL fandom.
Fans’ resistance often derives from their negotiation of same-sex male attraction, gender
hierarchy, and parental authority. A threefold power struggle can be envisioned: heterosex-
ual fans versus gay content, patriarchal versus equal gender order, and youth versus
parents.
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Same-sex attraction
BL fans’ resistance first manifests in their negotiation with same-sex attraction. Similar to
Kee’s (2010) finding that some fans enjoy BL because it “etches out a space where homo-
sexuality is accepted and happy endings abound” (p. 132), my participants expressed a con-
sensus of support for gay rights and personal autonomy—a challenge to heteronormative
Chinese society. I found that a significant attitude change toward same-sex male attraction
occurred among my participants. As Feng stated, “A good BL work can help [me] learn
more about the thoughts of gay people, which range from their dreams to their daily life.
It is good to reduce prejudice.” Besides supporting male same-sex partnerships, BL encour-
aged Echo to think further:
To put it simply, BL encouraged me to think about serious issues, including the history and
social status of gay people, the possibility of legalized gay marriage in China, sexual perversion,
and bisexuality. Right now I already have my own personal judgment, which I believe is an
important part in my value system.

Nevertheless, fans’ supportive attitudes toward same-sex partnerships are paradoxical.

My participants showed an appreciation of BL especially relative to their gay friends in real
life, when BL is depicted as being based on true love and loyalty to each other, regardless of
difficulties posed by the outside world. Kim noted:
My gay friend and his partner have a commitment to each other, and their life is pretty good.
Their life is as normal as ours, and they are not as promiscuous as others. So nothing is special.
That is their life. It’s acceptable and I can totally understand it.

Surprisingly, with regard to other gay people, seven participants maintained a stereoty-
pical perception that they attributed to the reinforcement of mainstream stereotypes in the
media or on the Internet. Simei stated frankly:
My love of BL is limited to danmei, because the real situation, especially gay people in China,
really disappoints me and even makes me feel disgusted. I found from the Internet that some
gay people have serious issues with promiscuity and hook-ups or else conceal their sexual
orientation for the purpose of marrying a straight woman.

My participants’ paradoxical feelings were also demonstrated in their responses to the

possibility of a family member coming out as gay. They identified support for their gay
friends, but expressed that they would be more hesitant to accept same-sex love within
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 257

their own families. They justified this contradiction as a consideration for not hurting
elderly parents’ feelings. For example, Fan, a graduate student, explained:
If it happens to my family, I might not totally reject it, but I might still reject it at some point.
If my younger brother or little sister5 comes out, I would express my understanding, and listen
to their voices, and not reject them. But I would also think of the feelings of my uncle6 and his
wife. Because we are a family after all, so if it happens, I may feel sad about that, and reject it
from my heart.

While BL indeed promoted fans’ support for same-sex love, there was an underlying
implication of compliance with heterosexual norms throughout my participants’ accounts.
As Su commented, “Ultimately, a good man should marry a good woman, constructing a
happy family together, raising their own baby, and thus getting approval from people.”
Although my participants seemed to appreciate the courage of gay people who are striv-
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ing for true love, when it comes to reality, fans I interviewed preferred the kind of true love
depicted in BL but within a heterosexual relationship. As Wang (2010) concluded, Chinese
female fans’ support for same-sex relationships is based on (and perhaps even limited to)
their imagination of same-sex relationships.

Gender order
In addition to negotiating same-sex attraction and relationships, fans appear to create sub-
versive meanings that respond to the patriarchal order by appropriating the idea of true
love from BL fiction. The true love portrayed in BL through my participants’ descriptions
highlights the ideas of equality, independence, mutual understanding, and support. Differ-
ent from a traditional patriarchal dynamic of the strong hero and inferior heroine in a het-
erosexual romance, relationships in BL embody a sense of equality and independence,
which resonates with a young female generation’s desire for a new gender order. As Fan
explained:
Female figures in BG [an abbreviation of Boys and Girls, referring to the traditional hetero-
sexual romance genre] are somehow idiotic and weak. But in BL, even as uke, he is also very
strong and has the capability to handle many things without seme. Anyway, he doesn’t have to
depend on seme, because he himself is strong enough.

Arguably, these young female fans’ pursuit of true love is significant in terms of gender,
especially given China’s conservative patriarchal culture.
Chinese women have been “highly dependent as daughter, wife, and mother on men
within a highly structured and hierarchical patriarchy” for thousands of years (Eng,
2004, p. 5). Even after the economic reform in the 1980s when Chinese women began to
achieve greater social and economic recognition (Wang, 2011), the ideology of hierarchical
patriarchy is still ingrained in mainstream social discourse. Bound by the traditional male-
centered gender order, the young female generation, like BL fans, seeks an outlet to voice
their desires for freedom, equality, and independence. This quest also resonates with par-
ents’ high expectations for their children, especially since most women today are the only
children in their immediate family due to China’s one-child policy. Young Chinese women
often carry their parents’ hopes that they will become “a phoenix,” a symbol of power,
strength, and success in China. As a result, BL’s depictions of true love in homoerotic
relationships serve as a therapeutic compensation for female readers seeking a mutual,
harmonious, and equal gender order (Xu & Yang, 2013).
 258 C. ZHANG

Paradoxically, fans also acknowledged their compliance with traditional patriarchal

norms, partly because of the difficulties involved in changing present-day reality. Leng
admitted:
I am quite traditional. I believe women should be independent and should have their own
career and life. Yet, I would somehow like to see my man much stronger than me. He can give
me suggestions or help me when I come across some problems. Both of us are equal to each
other, but I can count on him sometimes.

Such admissions support Hemmann’s (2015) claim that BL fans appropriate BL fantasy
to satisfy their own heteronormative desires. This problematic practice may, in turn,
reinforce the hegemony of heteronormativity in reality.

Youth resistance
BL fans’ resistance is also evident in their defiance of parental authority. First, young fans,
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especially those who are students, reported resisting parental authority by spending time
reading BL instead of studying. From traditional Chinese parents’ perspectives, success
is largely associated with academic achievement. Spending time reading romance (and
not studying) can be seen as a deviation from parental expectations. Thus, most parti-
cipants, like Yiyi, a graduate student, acknowledged being afraid to tell their parents about
their interest in BL. Yiyi admitted to this fear even while speculating: “My parents won’t
stop me from reading BL—only if this interest would influence my studies or normal life.”
Participants’ reluctance to discuss BL with their parents also resulted from distinctive per-
spectives concerning same-sex partnerships and the generation gap. Lu, an undergraduate
student, stated:
My parents oppose homosexuality. They thought kids who grew up in a healthy family should
become heterosexual. I think it is wasting time to explain it to them. They can’t change my
mind, and I don’t want to change theirs, either.

My other participants explained that if they assured their parents BL would not lead
them to become gay, their parents would not intervene. Arguably, BL fandom might
suggest a departure from the mainstream authoritative norms that are reinforced by their
parents’ generation.
Despite associated implications of resistance, BL fandom is devalued by mainstream cul-
ture to a large extent. The Internet has pushed BL culture toward the foreground, forcing
digital media to consider its commercial potential. Consequently, BL texts are becoming a
cultural commodity that fans can consume online. However, as Echo argued, the commer-
cialization of BL is mostly limited to the Internet. Given the sensitivity to homoerotic con-
tent and strict censorship in China, it is difficult to publish or disseminate BL content
through official media and publications.
Notably, the commercialization of BL on the Internet exerts a counterproductive effect
on countercultural content dissemination. As Fan pointed out, in order to cater to young
female desires for “pretty boys” and therefore enhance the genre’s commercial potential,
some BL authors highlight the “girly masculinity” of male characters in their writing, which
serves to reinforce gay stereotypes. Furthermore, to fulfill some young female readers’ curi-
osity and voyeurism, a subgenre of H BL emerges. H stands for the Japanese word hentai,
which refers to perverted sexual desire. This is a sensitive and underground BL subcategory
containing numerous pornographic elements, such as detailed descriptions of sexual
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 259

organs and explicit depictions of intercourse. Not surprisingly, some participants in this
research expressed disapproval of teenage girls’ reading BL due to the erotic descriptions.
For instance, Feng worried that her younger sister was too young to cultivate mature per-
ceptions of love, sex, and other moral values when reading BL. The involvement of por-
nography in BL, in this sense, not only faces criticism for overeroticization of gay
partnerships but may also inspire more anti-BL activism. Such opposition overlooks fan
resistance to heteronormativity, instead charging female readers with moral corruption
resulting from consuming porn.
However, even if the commercialization of BL did facilitate the development of BL cul-
ture and create potential social openness toward same-sex attractions and partnerships,
that would not necessarily mean that dominant heterosexual norms could be toppled. In
fact, as Wang, an undergraduate student, admitted, “BL fans just occupy a small part of
the total population, so it can’t help the acceptance of homosexuality by the whole society.”
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Moreover, BL fandom is paradoxical, including elements of resistance and compliance sim-

ultaneously. On the one hand, through appropriating BL texts, fans resist the patriarchal
heteronormative paradigm. On the other hand, these fans acknowledge the hegemonies
of heterocentric norms and patriarchal gender order during the process of seeking “true
love” or “ideal love” in heterosexual relationships. Arguably, BL fandom does carry
politically resistant meanings but in a paradoxical way.

Escape and aesthetics

For my participants, BL provides a fantasy through which they evade the tensions involved
with their normal tasks as students or career women. The advantages of the Internet and
smartphones enhance the proliferation and variety of online resources, enabling fans to
consume BL ritually. For example, as a career woman, Faust mentioned that she read
BL every day via her phone, sometimes on the way to work or during her free time. As
a student, Lu regularly spent half an hour every day searching for BL on the Internet, even
though she was busy with her studies. For these fans, BL serves as a “spice of life” enter-
tainment vehicle.
While providing a sense of escape, BL also offers fans an aesthetic feast. Consistent with
the definition of tanbi—the worship and pursuit of aesthetic beauty, as Meyer (2010)
noted—BL serves as “a medium that fetishizes and objectifies male characters as beautiful
boys” (p. 236). My participants, including Echo, Fan, and Feng, all disclosed that they were
first attracted by the aesthetic beauty emerging from two males’ courage in striving for
true love regardless of tremendous social stigmatization and pressure. In addition, fans
are also attracted to the description of pretty men in BL, who are regarded by Weiyi, a
graduate student, as eye-candy. As Leng confessed, “I am much more appearance-
oriented. After getting used to pretty boys in BL, sometimes I even imagined two hand-
some guys coupling when I saw them walking on the street.” BL fans’ appreciation of
pretty boys seems to be coincident with the popularity of South Korean and Japanese cel-
ebrity culture. As Louie (2002) observed, influenced by the influx of Korean and Japanese
“pretty boy” musical bands, girlish looks and demeanors have changed the way that young
women today perceive desirable masculinity in China and other Asian countries. The
transformation of masculinity will probably continue as BL culture grows (McLelland &
Welker, 2015).
 260 C. ZHANG

The aesthetic enjoyment of BL functions as motivation for fans to escape from the
present. BL represents an “asymmetrical” desire “deliberately separated from everyday life”
(Tamaki, 2007, p. 245; also see Galbraith, 2011, p. 213). According to Radway (1984), read-
ing to escape the present is not a new behavior; rather, it is a normal motive for women
who read romance fiction. By immersing themselves in a BL story, fans are able to free
themselves from their daily duties and fulfill their desire for beautified love in the fictional
world. Wang, one of my participants, explained:
Male protagonists and the same-sex love in BL are being beautified. The actual looks of gays in
reality usually did not match up with fans’ expectations. Many people think that boys’ love is
true love, whereas many gay relationships in real life are based on sex and booty calls. This is
the distinction of ideal world and reality. Because we can’t make it in real life, people turn to
look for it from the fiction. Many things portrayed in the BL fiction are not possible in reality.
Since it is not possible, fans look for the possibility in a fictional world.
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Arguably, some fans seem to simultaneously idolize gay fictional love while concurring
with the mainstream stereotypes of gay people in reality.
Fans’ pleasure also comes from the narratives of BL fiction. Consistent with Jenkins’s
(1992) finding that female fans are more likely to focus on the elaboration of paradigmatic
relationships, character psychology, and motivations, Lu commended some BL authors for
their sophisticated ways of featuring conflicts and characters’ emotional changes, which she
believed increased her empathy for the difficulties that gay people confront. As some fans
claimed, this kind of reading experience was fresh and rarely found in cliché heterosexual
romance. Yiyi compared BL and traditional heterosexual romance in this way:
Many romantic novels nowadays are idiotic, and their plots or story writing are not as good as
BL. I found it is easier to identify with the characters in the romance, and sometimes it is a
little bit Mary Sue.7

Interestingly, Yiyi’s inclination to identify with the characters in heterosexual romance

contrasts Leng’s statement that she did not mind eroticizing victims of incest because she
did not feel compelled to identity with male characters in BL. Overall, BL seems to offer a
pleasurable female fantasy, similar to other “female texts,” in which women can safely
engage (Brown, 1994; Darling-Wolf, 2003; Radway, 1984) and escape the present to enjoy
alternative aesthetics and storytelling. Gradually, through this collective engagement, fans
begin to develop a special BL fan culture.

BL identification: Collective and individualistic

The Internet plays a significant role in readers’ becoming and being BL fans. As Jenkins
(2006a) noted, in today’s convergence culture, a participatory fandom will likely develop
as a collective intelligence that is built on the “ability of virtual communities to leverage
the combined expertise of their members” (p. 27). Given the emergence of online message
boards and forums, fans are especially well equipped to collect and organize their own
knowledge and intelligence about a particular text within a knowledge community.
Similarly, fans’ recognition and sharing of BL texts along with their creative appropri-
ation and transformation of meanings play a crucial role “in the formation, maintenance,
and development of [BL fans’] ‘imagined community’” (Aoyama, 2013, p. 64). My parti-
cipants explained their commitment to certain BL online communities as resulting from
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 261

similar interests in certain types of BL texts and convenient methods of access. Many of
them have devoted years to BL online communities, including bulletin board systems,
Baidu post bars,8 and other kinds of online forums for exchanging texts, sharing opinions
about certain plots or stories, or discussing related topics with other group members. For
example, Xin, an undergraduate student, described her daily routine on BL-related websites
this way:

[I usually] browse some BL authors’ Weibo posts, search for some BL novels, glance through
some funny things that authors or other fans posted online, and sometimes discuss with other
fans about story plots or recommend books to each other.

Compared to those media texts firmly protected by copyright, the Internet allows read-
ers to reach and circulate BL texts at lower costs. Fans reported a huge black market online
where they can consume, exchange, and download BL texts for free.
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Even though some literature websites and columns in which BL stories were first serial-
ized charge readers for a subscription, many other forums or websites provide free texts
that readers can consume. Leng explained:

When I searched for BL fiction, I usually went to the Baidu post bars. This is because they
often updated the newest chapters immediately [after the chapters were published on the orig-
inal websites]. On Baidu post bars, they are free to read. I am the person who prefers a pirated
edition.

This availability of black market publications allows more and more fans to engage with
BL narratives.
Over time, BL fans have collectively created a new set of rules and shared knowledge. As
Galbraith (2011) put it, terms generated through social media exchanges became shared
vocabulary for the fan community. Many unique terms, such as “攻 (gong)” (also known
as seme) and “受 (shou)” (uke), were produced from BL texts and are widely utilized in
fans’ social conversations. Borrowing from Chinese gay discourse, fans sometimes use
“1” and “0” to replace seme and uke. They can also be described based on their age differ-
ence, such as “年上 (nian shang)” (older seme) and “年下 (nian xia)” (younger uke). The
couple pairing of seme and uke can be abbreviated as “CP.” When “CP” is coded as “A*B,”
it represents that A is seme and B is uke. When “CP” is represented as “ABA” or “BAB,” it
means that both male characters could be either seme or uke. To avoid discussing homo-
erotic intercourse explicitly in public and potentially provoking outsider aversion, fans
refer to “penis” as “cucumber (黄瓜, huang gua)” and replace “anus” with “chrysanthemum
(菊花, ju hua).” Another widely used term is “基情 (ji qiang),” which refers to a gay
relationship. “基 (ji)” is derived from a homophone of a Cantonese word, which translates
“gay” as “基.” These creative terms and knowledge not only produce a sense of community
for fans “but also protect them from unwanted attention and censure from society” (Feng,
2009, p. 11).
Due to its controversial content, fans were hesitant to share their BL knowledge with
outsiders. When asked to what extent they would introduce BL to friends or acquaintances,
most participants were wary. As Xin reasoned, “BL is controversial after all, and some
people who are not mature enough might have improper perceptions after touching
BL.” Other fans, like Kim and Xiao, cited personal autonomy as the reason for their unwill-
ingness to share BL with outsiders. For instance, Kim asserted, “It is not so good to force
 262 C. ZHANG

someone to cultivate the same hobby with me. People have their own interests and prefer-
ences. We cannot force them.” By separating themselves from non-BL adherents, fans
reinforce their in-group bond (Yi, 2013).
Admittedly, BL fans build their own communities based on their selection of texts,
mutual interests, and shared knowledge. Yet, they described diverse, fluid, and individual-
istic identifications with BL. As Tulloch and Jenkins (1995) argued, “the relationship
between readers, institutions, and texts is not fixed but fluid” (p. 265). Especially in today’s
convergence culture, fans are able to transfer from one group to another as their emotional
or intellectual needs change and reaffirm and enrich their knowledge in new communities
(Jenkins, 2006b). Likewise, my participants’ devotion to BL varies. For example, Faust sug-
gested that she was obsessed with different subgenres at different periods, sometimes favor-
ing light comedy and other times pursuing unexpected plots.
The level of engagement and degree of group commitment differed among individuals
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as well. When asked whether they actively cultivated online interactions, most participants
confessed that they barely participated in the discussions on BL online forums with other
unknown fans and did not even mention offline interactions, unless there was something
by which they were extremely intrigued. They used the word “diving” to describe this inac-
tivity. Some of them, like Lu, attributed “diving” to their introverted personalities. Fans’
shallow engagements with their peers online, in Galbraith’s (2011) words, are “playful
surface interaction” (p. 214).
The participants’ engagement with BL authors was also diverse. Nine participants
implied a direct social interaction with authors via social networking, but they also
admitted that the authors rarely reply to their comments. The rest showed indifference
to engagement with BL authors. Feng, a participant, noted, “Distance produces beauty.”
Even with friends in real life who share their interest in BL fiction, fans stressed their
individualistic freedom. Notably, four of my participants indicated that they were
introduced to BL by their friends, and most participants acknowledged they have had
BL conversations with their fan friends. However, they also claimed that these conversa-
tions were neither frequent nor deep. Faust thought it was good to enjoy reading BL alone,
because the genres she and her friends are reading are different. Overall, as Nagaike and
Suganuma (2013) noted, “the ways of being and becoming BL fans” are always multifaceted
and fluid (para. 1), and so are Chinese fans. On the one hand, similar to Aoyama’s (2013)
observation regarding Japanese BL fan groups, the Chinese BL fan community has its
boundaries, conventions, and collective commitments; on the other, individualistic BL
identity is not fixed, but constantly changing.

Conclusions and implications

In this study, I advance a theoretical explanation to explore both the globalization and the
localization of BL fan and community cultures in China. I consider BL fandom as a cultural
arena within which Chinese women can create unique meanings through their engage-
ments with female-centered texts and with their peers (although the engagements vary
individually). BL fandom empowers female readers to turn a subversive, voyeuristic gaze
upon men, which comes with the pleasure of escaping from both “ugly” reality and clichéd
heterosexual romantic storytelling through alternative aesthetics and plotlines. In so doing,
it helps to fulfill young women’s curiosity about men, same-sex partnerships, and sex;
 WOMEN’S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION 263

further, it provides a new contestable forum for fans to negotiate hegemonic norms of
sexuality, gender, and love. Over time, with the benefits of numerous online resources, fans
are grouping together to create a new set of rules and shared knowledge for their own BL
community within which they practice their fandom fluidly and differently. On the one
hand, BL fandom is built on fans’ similar interests in BL stories and the meanings derived
from their readings and social interactions. On the other hand, it is also important to note
that individual fans still hold different perspectives about BL and construct their BL iden-
tities in various ways. In this sense, BL fandom is compatible with Hills’ (2002) idea of two
modes of fandom: Fans are neither purely passive nor absolutely active and critical but flow
fluidly between these two poles.
Fan reaction to heteronormativity is symbolically limited and paradoxical, which simul-
taneously contains a certain degree of compliance. I contend that some BL fans are appro-
priating marginalized BL stories as a way to voice their desire for idealized heterosexual
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relationships, or they “love boys twice as much.” This problematic practice might promote
fetishizing gay sex while disavowing fan readers’ own heterosexual privileges. Objectifying
gay men as a sexual spectacle would also likely result in reinforcing mainstream stereotypes
of gay community members.
Despite BL readers’ perceptions of same-sex love seeming paradoxical, it is still possible
for fans to create positive and informative meanings for future realities. As Kee (2010)
argued, BL fiction functions as “an alternative discourse in opposition to social discourses
that seek to restrain and channel female sexuality into patriarchal institutions” (p. 148).
Although there is no direct implication that fans’ resistance to dominant ideologies of sexu-
ality and gender could promote profound social changes at present, the fantasy is, as Butler
(1990) contended, “not equated with what is not real, but rather what is not yet real, what is
possible or futural” (p. 105). Minimally, BL fans are making unique and progressive mean-
ings by enhancing a young female generation’s awareness of sexuality and gender. As Yi
(2013) proclaimed, BL culture could contribute to an open attitude in discussing homo-
sexuality and topics related to sex. This is evident in the 2012 CCTV Spring Festival Gala,
the most watched television show on Chinese New Year’s Eve.
In the 2012 show, the hosts made jokes multiple times by purposely pairing two male
performers together. Immediately, the coupling of these two performers became the most
popular topic discussed on social media. Such discussions of same-sex-related topics in the
public discourse suggest that BL culture could likely facilitate a “female-influenced shift”
(Darling-Wolf, 2003, p. 83) in the social construction of sexuality and gender in a future
China. Moreover, the reading itself is an attempt to challenge the prevalent male gaze
and then to offer an alternative spectatorship on popular texts. The deconstruction of
the male subject will likely empower female readers to constitute a social subject “across
a multiplicity of differences in discursive and material heterogeneity” (De Lauretis, 1987,
p. 24) in and out of BL fiction. Taken together, I propose that BL fandom might open
up a fluid space for young generations in China to discuss, negotiate, and redefine the
complexity of gender and sexuality.
Given the limited scope of this study, opportunities exist for additional research and the-
orizing. Future work can recruit a larger and more diverse sample to better understand the
broad demographics of BL fans as well as provide more insights into how young women
interpret and negotiate with particular BL texts. Notably, fan readers represent only part
of BL fandom. The intentions of the authors of BL might vary from the interpretations
 264 C. ZHANG

of readers. For this reason, the practices of BL authors and their social interactions with
readers also merit further investigation. Last, as this paper sheds light on the potential
of a subversive female gaze, future feminist communication scholars can further examine
the paradoxes and promises of this new mode of spectatorship.

Notes
1. Pure love is a subgenre of BL, which mainly features strictly romantic stories.
2. For some scholars, BL and yaoi are interchangeable, although they might vary depending on the
contexts.
3. There are two subgenres of BL work in China: original BL works are termed “danmei (耽美)” in
Chinese, and fan-produced BL works are called “danmei tongren (耽美同人).”
4. For examples, see Hemmann’s (2005) discussion of Japanese fan comics, Kamm’s (2013) study of
BL fandom in Japan and Germany, or Kee’s (2010) analysis of English-Language yaoi (fandom).
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5. Fan used “brother” and “sister” to refer to her younger nephew and niece, respectively.
6. Fan used “uncle” to refer to her mother’s younger brother.
7. A type of over-idealized female character created by authors or imagined readers that
demonstrates perfect grace, heart, and mind (Byrd, 1978).
8. Baidu post bar is a type of popular online forum in China, provided by the search engine
Baidu Company.

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