Sexuality Research & Social Policy Journal of NSRC http://nsrc.sfsu.edu
September 2009 Vol. 6, No. 3
Intimate Practices, Conjugal Ideals: Affective Ties and Relationship Strategies Among Lala (Lesbian) Women in Contemporary Beijing
Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen
Abstract: This article explores a range of marital ideologies and relationship strategies in the lives of lala (lesbian) women in contemporary Beijing. Although new discourses on same-sex marriage rights and sexual equality are becoming popular in parts of Chinese lala communities, the traditional mar- riage ideal continues to appear desirable, and it structures same-sex life aspirations as well as social, romantic, and family relationships. The author offers ethnographic data to demonstrate why seemingly oppressive structures retain such significance and overall positive association in lala everyday life and ideology. Narratives of 3 complex relationship strategies demonstrate that marriage is at the core of negotiations that reconcile personal same-sex desires with normative social pressures. Compliant-like conjugal strategies enable subversive possibilities that subtly challenge the status quo while appear- ing normal. This observation requires a rethinking of notions and meanings of agency, power, and the approach to studying the current global diversity of nonnormative sexualities.
Key words: homosexuality; marriage; identity; globalization; China
The quest to legalize same-sex marriage has emerged Recent transnational sexualities studies (e.g., De- as a dominant civil rights agenda in current Western and cena, 2008; Engebretsen, 2008c; Manalansan, 2003; transnational LGBTQ1 discourse. In this article, I consider Wang, 2001) have critiqued the global applicability and the formalized and judicially recognized status of mar- absolute relevance of the aforementioned model. One riage to produce legitimacy, equality, and recognition, as way this critique has been accomplished is by taking se- well as eradicate exclusion and stigma. For same-sex mar- riously the fundamental relationship that exists between riage, such status requires an open, verbally expressed nonnormative sexuality and normative social ties that declaration of categorical sexual identity (coming out), bind personal desires to familial and national bonds of and puts forward an ideal of personal identity and sexu- citizenship. This approach enables the investigation of ality anchored in the skin-bound individual and sexual diverse and creative everyday life strategies that chal- desire according to a homo-hetero binary. That which is lenge, if not necessarily subvert or reject, normative ambiguous, not spelled out according to out-and-proud pressures toward hetero-conformity (Boellstorff, 2005; standards, is construed as abnormal, suspicious, back- Cho, 2006; Manalansan; Stella, 2007; Wekker, 2006). ward, and evidence of internalized homophobia (Bell & This line of work argues the subversive potential inher- Binnie, 2000; Warner, 2002). ent in sexual ambiguity and acknowledges that the West- ern model of identity politics and formal equality is not 1 LGBTQ is a conceptual shorthand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, universally desirable. Decena’s assertion, “What is tacit transgender, and queer. For a useful discussion on the logistics and problems associated with enumeration of non- is neither secret nor silent” (p. 340), is a powerful chal- normative sexual identity categories, see Boellstorff (2007). lenge to rethink and take seriously the global diversity
Address correspondence concerning this article to Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen, McGill Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, 3487 Peel Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1W7, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]
Sexuality Research & Social Policy: Journal of NSRC, Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp. 3–14, electronic ISSN 1553-6610. © 2009 by the National Sexuality Research Center. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permissions to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/ reprintInfo.asp 3
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in expressions of nonnormative sexuality and relative marriages are legalized. Given their tacit, private, and le- compliance with socio-familial conformity. gally invalid status, same-sex marriages have few actual This article builds on these insights by discussing implications for everyday lives and strategies, especially the strategic negotiations of intimate same-sex relation- ships, conventional marital norms, and family ties in the Despite this recent surge in social and activist pos- lives of women who participate in lala (lesbian) commu- sibilities, homosexuality retains a highly ambiguous posi- nities in Beijing.2 tion in China. The dominant attitude is one of prevailing To be sure, same-sex marriage (tongxing hunyin) stigma and negative stereotypes that attach homosexual- is becoming a popular topic of conversation, if not prac- tice, among many Chinese lalas, gays, and the social ac- Discrimination and ignorance about homosexuality is tivist groups that operate on the margins of mainstream considerable, and activist networks such as Tongyu have small followings compared with the emergent popular- (Common Language), a Beijing-based lala network ity of informal, semiprivate leisure spaces such as bars, founded in 2005, organized public outreach activities on Internet chat rooms, and local groups that promote and Valentine’s Day in downtown Beijing in 2007 and 2008, support community. Older women in my study who were adults or had come of age in the 1970s or 1980s spoke with the following message: “Love has no boundaries.… about their then complete ignorance or deep-seated fear We are homosexuals (tongxinglian), and we want a life of the homosexuality discourse disseminated by au- together with our loved one…please support all kinds of thorities to instill conformity (see Dikötter, 1995; Evans, partnerships and all kinds of love. Please support same- 1997; Wu, 2003).3 sex marriage” (Gardner, 2007, 2008). Against the backdrop of the emergent popularity of In spring 2008, coinciding with the government’s same-sex marriage and identity discourse, the conven- National People’s Congress, grassroots groups in a tional heteronormative marriage model structures most number of Chinese cities launched the monthlong Ten- women’s everyday lives and life trajectories in Beijing. Thousand-Signature Campaign (wanren jianming) to This article takes seriously the desire for conventional legalize same-sex marriage and advocate greater accept- marital and relationship strategies expressed by so many ance of homosexuality (Xian, 2008). Renowned sociolo- of the women I worked with. I ask why women desire to gist Li Yinhe has repeatedly appealed to the National be part of social institutions that seem to negate the pos- People’s Congress to amend the existing Marriage Act to replace the term fuqi (husband and wife) with pei’ou I will argue that the strategic appropriation of hetero- (spouse), and with xingbie buyin (gender neutral) as marital models and women’s emphasis on tacit ambigu- ity and unspoken, open secrets should not be taken as some couples do perform symbolic wedding ceremo- evidence of internalized homophobia, lack of agency, or nies or plan to immigrate to countries where same-sex being silenced and in the closet. For the women in my study, the appearance of convention allowed for tacit manipulation of the very norms they appeared to comply 2 I have appropriated the contemporary Chinese term lala to denote women who love women in contemporary with, to include same-sex lives and relationships. These Beijing. For greater readability, I will use the term lalas to strategies illustrate the importance of “the three no’s” denote the plural form even though it is not grammatically (san bu): no approval, no disapproval, no promotion (bu correct. The word lala was introduced to mainland China from Taiwan through feminist and LGBTQ networking via zhichi, bu fandui, bu tichang), a Chinese version of “Don’t the Internet in the late 1990s. In its current use, lala is not ask, don’t tell.” But what is at stake in sustaining these equivalent to the categorical sexual identity homosexual, ambiguous standards and the seeming contradiction be- lesbian, or the gender-neutral tongzhi (comrade); the word is better conceptualized as a collective umbrella term that tween surface appearance and everyday practice? incorporates same-sex sexual subjectivity but is not neces- What I term the marital terrain—an intensely polit- icized heteronormative site for claiming rights and soci- vernacular styles, if not convention at the time of research (2004–2006), I use the term gay etal inclusion that assigns status, inclusion, and equality same-sex subjectivity, although many other terms are based on legitimate relationships and the gendered popular too, including (nan) tongzhi ([male] comrade), an older term, perhaps more popular as an informal identity term in the 1990s, mostly among men. The terms tongzhi 3 For extensive discussions on the position of homosexual- and tongxinglian often appear in activist and academic ity in early modern and imperial Chinese society, see, for literature, compared with the vernacular lala and gay example, Hinsch (1990), Ruan (1991), Sang (2003), Som- (Engebretsen, 2008c; Wang, 2004). mer (1997, 2000), Wu (2003).
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sexuality realized through marriage—infuses and shapes possibilities of tacit identity, as well as relationship man- the life trajectories of women and men, as well as same- third discusses the case of a lala-gay contract marriage. ways. I suggest that lala marital conformity should be Apart from the focus on conjugal logics in diverse forms, understood as a desirable duty. On the one hand, many the narratives also illustrate the ways in which individual women express a personal desire to please, conform, circumstances beyond the domain of sexuality—espe- and adhere to convention; on the other, many simulta- cially markers of socioeconomic class, age group, urban neously experience society’s (and their family’s) marital status, and gender identity—structure and shape the lala expectations as extremely problematic and, therefore, as category and intimate relationships between women. a constraining, derided duty. Marital Logics and Same-Sex Sexuality The importance of marriage is grounded in the fact in Post-Socialist China5 that it is considered to be the principal rite of passage to hetero-gendered adulthood and is therefore endowed with substantial social privilege and status. Dissidence— of Chinese culture, politics, history, and social organi- sexual and other—comes at oftentimes extremely high level of social life, from the intimacy of two lovers to The principle of marriage is further structured by paren- state government. Its opposites—chaos and disorder— xiao), that remain enormously important in China—despite the fact that statements in feudal-imperial, nationalist, socialist, and the contents and meanings of these responsibilities are slowly changing, in tune with socioeconomic transfor- mation, modernization, and considerable demographic geographical regions. Both ancient and modern Chinese change due to China’s One Child Policy4 (Fong, 2007). cosmology, based predominantly on Confucian, Taoist, One 29-year-old woman I spoke with, who felt the mar- and Buddhist moral philosophy and religious spiritual- riage pressure intensely, said: “[My mother] would be ity, emphasize the cycles of complementary, the opposi- devastated if I were to remain unmarried.…You know, tional forces (yin-yang) that structure life—earthly and she is also pressured by her environment: neighbors, spiritual; current, future, and past—and the need to keep other, and older family members, and so on. I should these cycles and forces in balance in order to achieve understand her.” A year later, this woman decided to harmony (hexie) and stability (see, for example, Chou, marry a gay man in a contract marriage in an attempt (a 2000; Dikötter, 1995; Wan, 2001). successful one) to solve this impasse. Others agreed that In modern, socialist China (post-1949), these values and norms merged with political philosophy and propa- unnecessary. Many posited a Chinese social logic against ganda, developing to concern sexuality, family life, the a Western one, whereby managing one’s sexuality and Party state, and their interrelationship in a language dif- same-sex intimate relationships according to standards ferent from previous eras. However, homosexuality, in of harmony (hexie), normality (zhengchang), and stabil- the form of sodomy (usually in the context of male rape ity (wending) express recognized Chinese social identity and prostitution) emerged as a legal concern in late im- and culture. Political advocacy and coming out are con- perial China and in early modern Republican China (af- sidered as Western and, thus, inappropriate in a Chinese context (see Chou, 2000; Liu & Ding, 2005). scholarship and literature took hold among radical intel- I examine this lived ambiguity in three detailed eth- lectuals concerned with establishing a modern, power- ful China against the backdrop of the imploded Empire the constraints that marriage imposes on the possibili- (Dikötter, 1995; Hinsch, 1990; Sommer, 2000). The ties for lasting intimacy in the lives of two women whose category of the homosexual (tongxinglianzhe) or homo- circumstances allow them few resources for strategizing sexuality (tongxinglian) emerged in binary opposition or for challenging familial pressure, including instances of domestic and state violence; the second considers a 5 Drawing on Xudong Zhang’s (2008) work, I adopt the long-term couple’s negotiations, highlighting the positive term post-socialist to mean the period from the 1990s - zation and developmentalist ideology, including the “cir- 4 This policy was established by the government in the late 1970s to curb the country’s population growth, limiting freedom, private ownership and rights, social mobility, couples to having only one child. moral and value plurality, and cultural diversity” (p. 2).
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