THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008

Exploring the Possibility of Same-Sex Love in Late Ming China

Identity categories are constantly clusive sexual object choice; people being renegotiated. Over time, all were not forced to make a permanent things are bound to present themselves decision privileging one sex or the in unique and potentially contradic- other. !e Chinese believed that one’s tory forms. !e tradition of same-sex object choice could change in accor- love has emerged in di$erent places dance with the shifting preferences and times and refuses to manifest it- of an individual.1 !is is an important self uniformly across those spaces. Its distinction between many of the mod- practice has existed in China for more ern notions of same-sex love and that than two thousand years and the treat- of the dynastic Chinese. !e idea of ment of such performances has var- gay or homosexual that exists in mod- ied widely. Same-sex love in dynastic ern Western culture is not present in China is subject to many perspectives dynastic China and a di$erent under- and these views are mediated by legal, standing is necessary when approach- social, and literary forces. ing the topic of same-sex love in that period. !e language used to describe the DISCURSIVE CHOICES AND THE subject also needs clari"cation. Early CHINESE SEXUAL SUBJECT references to same-sex love in China Modern notions and words used are hard to clearly identify, as the ear- to describe instances of same-sex love liest forms of the Chinese language di$er across space and time and are contain a built-in inde"niteness and entirely inadequate to describe such are unmarked sexually, thereby com- relationships as they existed in past plicating the process of compiling re- contexts. Words that exist in one cul- liable references.2 Same-sex love ap- ture are not capable of accurately re- peared as early as the Zhou dynasty, %ecting the cultural nuances that are when the emperor could chose to be- inevitably di$erent across communi- stow “favor” upon any individual he ties. Unlike Western culture, the dy- deemed worthy. !e sex of the indi- nastic Chinese did not believe in ex- vidual did not factor into his selection.

KYLE SHERNUK is a 2008 graduate from the Department of East Asian Language and Cultures at the University of Kansas.

35 In fact, it is noted in the Records of the holding the descriptive nature inher- Grand Historian that men often be- ent to the Chinese language. came the sexual objects of their supe- riors in order to gain political favor: “... it was not women alone who can use THE CHINESE JUDICIAL WORLD their looks to attract the eyes of the Laws emerged as early as the Song ruler; courtiers and eunuchs can play dynasty regarding transgender issues at that game as well. Many were the and same-sex object choice. !e focus men of ancient times who gained favor of these laws, however, was not on the this way.”4 What is worth noting is that immorality of the activity but instead individuals were not de"ned by their on its relationship to an individual’s sexual object choice but rather by their status: relationship to another person, in this !e apparent purpose of Song lawmakers case the emperor. Same-sex love does was to #x boundaries: To prevent persons not create a primary identity but in- of commoner status (liang min) from being stead is an activity that is participated degraded by occupation to mean status (jian min—which included prostitutes) and in by an individual who is de"ned by to prevent males from being degraded by his/her social relationships. penetration or cross-dressing into females. 6 Another example of a reference to same-sex love resides in the term cut- !e problem with sodomy is not sleeve.5 Cut-sleeve was the term for a related to any sort of deviance asso- male who "lled the sexual and emo- ciated with the act itself; instead, law- tional needs of the emperor. !e name makers focused on preventing peo- has its roots in a story where the Em- ple from engaging in activities that peror Ai and his lover Dong Xian have would lower their social status. Even fallen asleep and Emperor Ai needs to here the law is concerned with how get up but Dong Xian is lying on his one relates to others and not about an sleeve. Rather than wake Dong, the identity or label they may ascribe to Emperor cuts o$ his own sleeve. !is the persecuted individual. !e con- term, then, does not represent a pri- cerns expressed in the above section mary identity for Dong Xian but rather concerning language choice are also is descriptive of his relationship to Em- espoused by Matthew Sommer. He peror Ai: he is one for whom the em- recognizes that words like homosex- peror will cut his sleeve. ual assume that one’s social identity !ere is a habit in the Chinese is built around his/her sexual object language of using modi"ers to de- choice, which is not the case in China. scribe a person who engages in same- In fact, “[i]n many societies, the sex of sex love as opposed to labeling him/ one’s object of desire has yielded in her with a singular, identity-forming priority to an hierarchical division be- noun. For the Chinese sexual subject, tween penetrant and penetrated.”7 !e same-sex love was something a person reason that penetration was the focus could do; one could play the role of of the Song and later dynasties’ legal the cut-sleeve, but one was not a cut- codes is not because it established sleeve. !e Western subject, however, some sort of homosexual identity, but takes same-sex love as a way of being. because it “profoundly destabilized !is paper will use the term “same-sex the gendered social hierarchy by treat- love” as its reference to the Chinese ing some men (the penetrated) like sexual subject who engages in sexual women.”8 !e Song law, therefore, was or emotional relationships with some- focused on legally regulating men into one of the same sex, as it best avoids activities that would not confuse their creating a primary identity while up- place in the social hierarchy. !e hier-

36 archy was important for two reasons. ute used to create this new, parallel, First, it embodied the norm of the law-applied-by-analogy is also useful time; people had structured their lives in revealing societal sentiments that around Confucian values for hundreds surround penetration and help ex- of years and these values placed peo- plain why the law went to such lengths ple into a very speci"c social hierar- to prevent it. While the law is aware of chy. Challenging norms in any society the bodily rami"cations that may arise is destined to be met with resistance. It from penetration, those were far from was also important to the government its central concern. Sommer notes because the destabilization of the sys- that the idea of foul material “suggests tem that told people to be obedient to pollution and humiliation more than the government could prove threaten- physical danger.”11 !ere is also a di- ing to the ruling order. Safe-guarding rectionality associated with the origi- these societal roles was critical to the nal Ming statute that implied that the maintenance of the regime. sullying of the body was only incurred !e Song, however, is not the only by a single person: the penetrated into dynasty to attempt to regulate peo- whose mouth the foul material was ple’s behavior. “...[F]rom the Song dy- poured. Moreover, it seems to imply nasty through the Qing, judicial in- that the person who is actively pouring terest in male homosexual [same-sex] the foul material is not complicit with acts consistently focused on phallic the social humiliation; it is only the re- penetration of the anus, the division ceiver who is shamed. !e penetrated of sexual roles thereby implied, and su$ers because his masculinity had the stigma of the penetrated male.”9 been damaged, while the penetrant, !e social hierarchy they tried to pro- because he played the masculine role, tect was intimately tied to the notion of was free from stigma.12 From this law it penetration, as a man was supposed to is clear that there is no mark of being penetrate and a woman was supposed homosexual in the Western sense; if to be penetrated; to allow a man to there were a similar understanding be penetrated destroyed the coherent then both parties would be subjected fashion by which society was ordered. to the shame that, in this law, is only It was not until the Ming dynasty, dur- associated with being penetrated. ing the Jiajing reign (1522-1567), how- Same-sex love between women ever, that an actual law was established in dynastic legal codes also deserves that prohibited sexual intercourse be- attention for the very reason that it tween men. !e law was implemented is not mentioned in the codes them- via a supplementary code that applied selves. Sex between women was not statutes by analogy. !ese laws each perceived as threatening, most likely cited laws from the original Ming code because of the law’s "xation on pene- that, via similar situations, behav- tration. !e phallocentrism built-in to iors and contexts, were meant to help the law made women seem innocent guide rulings in a wider range of cases because no degradation of character brought before the courts. !is statute could be committed and a woman’s applied by analogy reads: “Whoever chastity was not in danger. !e pol- inserts his penis into another man’s lution of a woman’s chastity and the anus for lascivious play (jiang shenjing degradation of a man’s masculinity, fang ru ren fenmen nei yin xi) shall re- while functionally very di$erent, both ceive 100 blows of the heavy bamboo, threaten the gender hierarchy upon in application by analogy of the statue which society rests and are still subject on ‘pouring foul material into the to societal reevaluations in contempo- mouth of another person’...”10 !e stat- rary China.13

37 EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL AND forced the subject to use reason to LITERARY ATTITUDES regulate his/her feelings and desires. While the law makes clear its !e late Ming philosophical tradition, views about same-sex love, or more however, as treated by Wang Yang- particularly male love, these opinions ming, breaks from this distinction be- are rooted in a deeper ideology that tween spirit and matter, believing that permeated all of Chinese society. !e people had innate knowledge and that late Ming saw the rise of a new way they did not have to rationally deter- of looking at the world, one in which mine and police their behaviors. !is things were not required to be posi- erasure of boundaries allowed for the tioned in dichotomous opposition to emergence of new world views, ones one another but could be conveyed that were previously denied descrip- as hybrids, exhibiting characteristics tion and repressed due to their inabil- of multiple personae. !is new move- ity to "t neatly into predetermined ment, that created reality as an amal- categories. !is blurring of what were gam of perspectives, is referred to as once distinct categories fundamen- syncretism. Giovanni Vitiello is quick tally reoriented Chinese thought and to distinguish between the syncretism broke with the neo-Confucian tradi- of dynastic China and the kind associ- tion that had previously gained promi- ated with the Western tradition. While nence.16 the West’s view of this hybridity is char- !is disruption in traditional acterized by irrationality and as “ran- thought was not only what the law dom eclecticism,” the Chinese form was trying to prevent through the cre- was one of inclusivity, without requir- ation of "xed categories, but was also ing a reconciliation as is preferred by what gave rise to new forms of litera- the rational Western order.14 Vitiello ture. !is did not simply mean rework- best describes the e$ect of syncretism ing old categories in new ways, but on Chinese culture, saying: entirely breaking free from the con- ventions that had bound authors and ... syncretism may be viewed as the their writings. No longer was it neces- constructive counterpart of that erosion sary to write in strict classical Chinese, (if not erasure) of boundaries that many and people instead began to write in scholars (already in the Ming) have the vernacular, which made literature recognized as a mark of that culture. !e special density of processes of negotiation accessible to a wider range of read- and translation featured by the late ers. !is broadening in audience, from Ming culture corresponds to a blurring the literatus to include the commoner, of boundaries at a variety of levels—of also justi"ed writing in new styles philosophical and religious boundaries, and genres that appealed to the new- surely, but also social (most notably, between literati and merchants), and of literary found, wider readership. boundaries, both in terms of languages and As a result of the increased free- genre (classical and vernacular/elite and dom in writing, there was an increase popular literature). 15 in literature concerning same-sex is- sues. !is is not to say that same-sex !is philosophical move towards love was the primary topic of a vast hybrid spaces helped to collapse many number of works, but that it became of the social barriers that had existed an integral point of debate among the for centuries in the Chinese culture. writers of the time. Many people take !e founder of neo-Confucianism, this increase in writings about same- Zhu Xi, had created a world where the sex love to indicate an increasing tol- spiritual was separated from the ma- erance of homosexuality within late terial and created an ontology that Ming culture, but this argument is

38 problematic on several levels. First, What force allowed those men to this increase in discussion does not engage in same-sex relationships and directly correlate with an increase in reshape social boundaries is an im- the practice of same-sex activities but, portant aspect of late Ming and early rather, that debating about it had be- Qing writings. !e boundary-break- come popular at that time. !ere may ing activities the protagonists engage have been a vogue for male love as in are mediated by the power of qing. well, but that is not proven solely by While there is no appropriate transla- an increase in literary discussion. In tion for qing, it, at the very least, em- fact, “Michel Foucault famously con- bodies the emotional, sentimental and tended that the ‘steady proliferation of loving feelings and actions that two in- discourses concerned with sex’ in the dividuals can share. eighteenth century in Europe marked !e idea that qing could shatter the onset of a degree of repression pre- identity categories was not reserved viously unknown, so that speaking of for Hairpins alone and, in fact, the use the sexual had in fact become a way of qing in Hairpins was merely an ex- of policing it.”17 And while this was the tension of the use of qing from another case in Europe, there is nothing exclu- famous play by Tang Xianzu called sively European about the phenome- “Peony Pavilion.” In Xianzu’s “Peony non precluding its application to dy- Pavilion,” the female protagonists, Du nastic China. Secondly, the notion of Liniang, meets the love of her life in a tolerance is also problematic. Toler- dream and dies after she awakens due ance is a trait that re%ects a society that to her pining for him. When the man is centered around protecting diversity that was in her dreams "nds her grave and individual rights; this is a far cry she is resurrected and they are wed. from the collectivist politics and social In this work, the power of qing de"es mentality to which the majority of the death “and as such overrides distinc- Chinese population subscribed.18 It is tions between dream and reality or a very Western leap to assume that the youthful volition and parental author- end goal of all politics and theory is ity...”21 !e author of Hairpins simply based on securing an individual right expands this barrier-breaking notion to expression. of qing and applies it to the destruction of socially constructed gender roles. Hairpins contains four novellas THE POWER OF QING AND that each pair qing with one of its sup- LITERARY MANIFESTATIONS OF posed counterparts (chastity, chivalry, SAME-SEX LOVE self-sacri"ce and the supernatural) One extant work from the 17th in order to highlight the potential for century treats same-sex love directly, both to coexist.22 !e "rst of these no- as its protagonists are perceived as ex- vellas, “A Chronicle of True Love,” tells ceptional precisely because they are the story of a scholar who pretends to able to blur traditional gender and sex be a student in order to seduce a fellow boundaries.19 !is work, Bian er chai, classmate. After successfully sexually translated by Keith McMahon as Hair- engaging with the boy, the academi- pins Beneath His Cap, goes so far as to cian assuages the boys fears by pro- depict love between men and women pounding the following philosophy: as less than the love between two men. !e caveat being that love between If we go by the logic of Reason, then what we have done today is wrong; but if we use the two men is %eeting and that they must logic of Love, then we are right. For a man eventually separate to "ll their pre- can become a woman and a woman can scribed societal roles.20

39 become a man. It is possible to go from life to timate desire. Here, qing demonstrates death as well as from death to life. !ose who its transformative power. In a situa- are bound by the di"erences between man tion that should have required the life and woman or life and death don’t know what real love is about. I have often said, of the o$ender, the expression of true ‘!e sea may become dry, the mountains love denied Reason’s natural response. may erode, but Love alone cannot surrender Zhang Ji even concedes that Zhong is a to Reason!’ 23 more true romantic “and declares, al- though a man, he will be his woman.”25 !e academician embodies the Zhang Ji’s concession continues to use new Ming mentality of syncretism heterosexual terminologies to refer to wherein arti"cial distinctions, such as his same-sex relationship thereby de- man and woman or life and death, no stabilizing the idea of normalcy and longer have any reality. He also indi- also makes his new world view quite cates that the power of love is some- clear: he no longer feels constrained thing that is beyond the ability of Rea- by the social barriers that had previ- son to understand and regulate and, ously bounded his existence. therefore, those so-called reasonable While the novella could have categories that the boy is accustomed ended at this point and still have com- to living his life by can legitimately be municated its message, the author forsaken in the name of love. proceeds to resolve the story of two !e second story of Hairpins, educated women warriors that Zhang “Chronicle of Chivalric Love,” con- Ji met earlier in the storyline. In soci- cerns the man Zhang Ji. !e protag- ety at that time, a woman of such a na- onist, Zhang Ji, has proven himself a ture would be considered, for all prac- complete talent as a Confucian-ed- tical societal purposes, a man. He ends ucated man and is now confronted up marrying the two daughters he had with the love of a man, Zhong Tunan met earlier who are trained in the (whose name can be read as “Intensely ways of the military and literary arts; Desiring the South” or with the play on typically those traits are considered words which it conceals, as “Desiring/ too masculine for women. His wives Pursuing Men”). Zhong Tunan drugs are gender hybrids and adopt male Zhang Ji and penetrates Zhang Ji in his personae that make them appealing. sleep. Despite the expected reaction Zhang Ji’s consummation of the mar- to the event, Zhang Ji actually enjoys riage makes clear his heteroerotic de- himself: sires and reinforces the fact that sex- ual object choice was not static and ‘In his drunken dream state Zhang felt he exclusive but could change with the was no longer in control of his body. Inside dynamic desires of the subject. At the it felt as if some insect were trying to bore out of his anus. It felt like a sting but didn’t end of the novella, Zhang Ji sacri"ces sting. He wanted to take it into himself but his heteroerotic relationship in favor wasn’t able... So buried in sleep he was that of his relationship with Zhong Tunan; he didn’t seem to know whether his body was this sends a strong message: the same- a man’s or a woman’s.’” 24 sex bond is more desirable than the heteroerotic one.26 When Zhang Ji awakens to realize Of the third novella, “Chronicle of what has happened he moves to be- Sacri"cing Love,” very little remains. head the o$ender (Zhong Tunan) but McMahon pieces together what re- refrains when confronted with Zhong mains of the story to determine that Tunan’s complete lack of fear in the a theater boy becomes a concubine face of death; Zhong Tunan was will- for a man named Yun Han. “At one ing to sacri"ce his life to achieve his ul- point Yun Han has the boy dress as a

40 !e Way of the Academicians From Hua Ying Chin Chen (Variegated Positions of the Flower Battle) China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

!ese are two men engaging in same-sex behavior. It can be stated with con#dence that the person on top is a man because his bare foot can be seen. A woman at this time would have her feet bound and even without her shoes on one would not be able to see her bare foot because it would be deformed.

woman, makes love to him, and then brid person, where the man physically says: ‘!ere might be women as beau- is transformed into a woman by hav- tiful as you, but none could be as pas- ing his feet bound. When disaster be- sionate or as talented or as sensuous.”27 falls the family, Li %ees with Kuang’s !is shows how the emotional bond son and raises him, living the rest of that was supposedly reserved for men his life as a nun. and women could actually be felt be- Something that makes this rela- tween two men; it proves, as well, that tionship even more ground-break- their attraction goes beyond the phys- ing than the others is that it is explic- ical. At another juncture in the story, itly noted that, the "rst time they have the boy, Wen Yun, must convince sexual contact, “the sexual encounter Yun Han to get married. Yun Han was between him [Youxian] and Kuang is going to reject a marriage proposal in described as one of mutual pleasure.”29 order to stay faithful to the boy. Just as Pleasure, as seen by Shen, Xie and oth- in a heterosexual relationship, the idea ers, was only to be had by the pene- exists that both partners need to re- trant. !is seems to indicate that both main loyal to each other. !is creates a men participated in the penetration greater air of legitimacy around same- of the other in order to avoid a power sex love because it begins to be repre- di$erential between them and fully sented more in terms that re%ect what express their love for one another. It is considered to be part of so-called erases the power di$erential because, normal relationships. legally, both men are guilty of hav- !e "nal novella, “Chronicle of ing “foul material poured into one’s Strange Love,” concerns a boy from a mouth,” while socially both mens’ male brothel, Li Youxian, and the man masculinity is equally tarnished and who buys him out of that life, Kuang elevated by being penetrated and by Shi. Kuang brings Li into his house by participating in the act of penetration. disguising him as a female concubine Li, while a man, "lls all the social and even “softens his feet by means of roles appropriated for a woman and a special liquid which allows perfect also undergoes the binding of his feet bound feet within a month.”28 !is di- to physically resemble a woman. !is rectly re%ects the desire to create a hy- is a case of a man wanting to become

41 a woman, and as such embodies an image. In this way, “[m]ale love is the early account of what might now be frontier, the boundary that de"nes the labeled as a transsexual and/or trans- center. But it is also immanent within gendered existence. He is willing to the center.”32 Same-sex love is pushed forsake the privileges given to men to the periphery, from the center of so- by society and is willing to accept the ciety, allowing the center to exist with- su$ering that is associated with living out it. As a result of having originated the life of a woman. !is is not without in the center and been pushed aside, purpose, however, as “...the one who is same-sex love, however distorted, willing to forego [sic] both the better contains traits that are inherent to the lot of being a man and the comforts of center itself. heaven is the one who enjoys the most Qing, in the same fashion, is typ- pleasure, su$ers the most pain, and, in ically described in opposition to se, doing so, live the most valuable life.”30 which occurs when a qing-style at- By being willing to live under all con- traction is based too much on physi- ditions that life has to o$er Li has the cal attraction. Volpp contends to the most valuable life possible. Li’s hybrid contrary, that rather than being in op- existence, therefore, is superior to that position, these two forces are inter- of either a man’s or a woman’s. twined, with se emerging from qing. !e heroes of Hairpins are men Se is immanent within Qing, for Volpp, and women who actively synthesize because se is a variation of the ulti- characteristics of both genders and mate attraction and feeling between sexes and attempt to articulate new two individuals. ways of living their lives beyond their !e organization of Anatomy has prescribed social roles. “!e protago- a number of implications for same-sex nists of the novellas are constructed love. It appears to take the level of qing through a transplanting of gendered possessed by each chapter as its orga- moral values; they are moral hybrids nizing principle, placing male love as whose romantic originality is pro- the 22nd of 24 chapters, after degen- duced by setting, like a gemstone, the erate and ghost qing but before qing ultimate female virtue in an equally with animals. !e title of the chapter virtuous male body and intelligence.”31 on male love, qingwai, also presumes Hairpins’’stories of moral negotiations that there is a quality of male love that are mediated by the power of qing and is outside of normal qing, separating its ability to allow for play with the sta- those who experience same-sex love ble categories that society and Reason from the rest of society. Comparison of try to maintain. that chapter’s internal structure to that Another work that pays atten- of the meta-level structure also cre- tion to same-sex love is !e Anatomy ates male love as a miniature replica of Passion. !is work embodies the of heteroerotic qing. !e chapter on emerging literary tradition of the time same-sex love begins with chaste love and uses heterosexual terminologies and ends with male love with ghosts; to refer to events of same-sex love. !e the "rst chapter of Anatomy is hetero- contexts in which same-sex love occur, sexual chastity, and heterosexual love however, are described as a deviant with ghosts precedes the chapter on variant of the norm that, due to its bi- same-sex love in the overall structure zarre nature, recreates a desire for the of Anatomy. !e internal structure is normal. !e “Way of Male Love” is like analogous to the larger structure (read: an image from a mirror in a fun-house, universe) with one exception: it does it is so distorted that it creates a desire not contain heterosexual love. !is in- for the normal or so-called original dicates that same-sex qing exists only

42 in a heteroerotic universe and not the has Zheng and Zheng’s parents move other way around. !is problemati- into his own home. It was in this way cally places same-sex qing at the cen- that Zheng is able to ful"ll his "lial du- ter of heteroeroticism (due to its place ties as a son and also maintain his rela- in the meta-structure) and outside of it tionship with Wan. “!e narrative im- by not including it with in the chapter plies that if "lial piety is the primary proper.33 !is placement of same-sex expression of male love, no one will love as both inside and outside normal question same-sex unions.”35 !e ob- boundaries parallels the tension and ject of one’s desires, therefore, did not confusion that are expressed in both o$end society but it was the neglect- late Ming literature and society. ing of "lial duties that is often associ- !e language within the chapter ated with same-sex object choice that also omits the positive categories of leads to controversy. Wan and Zheng qing included in the other chapters of were able to circumvent this obstacle the anthology, instead replacing them by moving Zheng’s family into Wan’s with negative categories, highlighting home. the cautionary nature that surrounds For the great amount of discus- the discussion of same-sex love. In- sion same-sex love is given within terestingly though, despite the binary Anatomy, it is odd that the chapter that qing and se are supposed to cre- directly concerning same-sex love is ate, the terms are used interchange- not to be found in the index. With- ably throughout the chapter giving out reading the book one would never credence to the argument that per- know that the chapter existed. More haps qing and se are more related than importantly, even if one were to open "rst thought. !e commentator on the the book to the chapter pertaining to chapter, however, tries to reestablish same-sex love he/she would not ac- this clear boundary between the two tually be able to describe the author’s by stating that qing between men is actual feelings towards same-sex love. not possible, and that what is taken as To just read that chapter would lead qing is, in fact, a debased form of qing the reader to believe that the author comparable to se. !e reasoning be- had a negative image of same-sex love, hind this argument, according to the whereas the positive descriptions it is commentator, was that qing between given earlier in the anthology would men can only re%ect a physical attrac- be necessary to temper those nega- tion, not emotional, and that is se by tive conclusions. !e mixed opinions de"nition.34 expressed in Anatomy are yet another !e 14th chapter of Anatomy expression of the syncretism that char- comes to the rescue of Volpp’s argu- acterized late Ming culture.36 ment though, as it presents a situation !e erotic discourse that de- in which two men experience qing in veloped in the late Ming culture did the absence of physical attraction. In more than give rise to works like Hair- this chapter, a man, Wan, nurses back pins and Anatomy, as that language to health an actor, Zheng, who has lost of erotic description allowed for the his looks and, consequently, his se ap- invention of an entirely new genre, peal. !is demonstrates that qing can pornography. And while pornogra- exist in same-sex relationships inde- phy’s era was short-lived, the number pendent of se and not be debased by of works produced were many.37 Por- carnal desires. Se, therefore, exists as nography often meets with disdain in a manifestation of qing and is inher- modern culture, but it actually repre- ently a part of qing. Wan later arranges sents a critical component for the his- a marriage for the actor, Zheng, and tory of sexuality, as well as gender roles,

43 across the empire. !e government pleasure. !e story is rooted in Bud- was quick to begin censoring pornog- dhist traditions that focus on liberation raphy as it was perceived as a threat from desire, and the protagonist, Niu to the normal function of literature, Jun, is confronted by the “unrestrain- and any breakdown in the traditional able resurgence of desire itself... In this structure of society was perceived as a sense, it is the story of a revelation that threat to the government’s legitimacy. must be seen as double: the revelation It also for this reason that references to of desire is as crucial as the revelation pornographic works are not contained of desire’s vacuity.”40 !e vehicle used within many governmental works ex- to help Niu Jun achieve these revela- cept in the form of reprimand and crit- tions is the dream, a common choice icism. Because of this, Li Yu notes in of Daoists and Buddhists who wished the sixth story of his Silent Operas that to help the non-enlightened "nd the “the homoerotic [same-sex] case he is Way. !e di$erence between dream about to report is one that ‘o#cial his- sequences of traditional literature and tory doesn’t need to record, but that those of the 17th century, was that uno#cial history cannot fail to record.’ dreams were now used to delve into a Sexuality, we are told, deserves its his- person’s unconscious and carry out a tory, and it is thus the charge of "ction, personal interrogation of that individ- as ‘uno#cial history,’ to record it.”38 ual’s desires as opposed to having a re- !is is why, with a determined body ligious "gure reveal things external to of literati working to record same-sex that person.41 love, the body of works produced was Niu Jun’s dream-journey occurs proli"c, even if the age of pornogra- after his classmates at school have phy was not long-lived. Master Moon- excluded him from learning about Heart, the author of Hairpins, also au- the rites of spring, the equivalent of thored another work entitled Fragrant a Chinese sex education, because he Essences of Spring. !e work opens is too ugly. He returns home, begins with a poem by which the focus of the to dream, and is taken into another work can be determined: world where he is wildly attractive and experiences sex of all kinds. He enters ... If in the world there were no passion, a kingdom of all men (!e Kingdom of I would want it to exist; but, if the whole All-Sons), where half of the men cross- world sank into passion, then I would be anxious about dissipation because when dress as women, and he has sex with passion reaches dissipation, it is a harm for the king and falls in love. He is then the world. Dissipation belongs to passion shifted to a world of all women (!e and at the same time is what harms it. 39 Kingdom of Holy-Yin) where he im- pregnates the queen with her magic !e work thus focuses on the dan- dildo and is forced to %ee to the origi- gers inherent in passion becoming the nal all-male kingdom. He returns and, singular focus of one’s existence while as happens with all great loves and simultaneously praising its necessity last rulers of China, the king becomes for human happiness. Passion was overly infatuated with Niu Jun and the something to be performed in moder- people separate the king and his queen ation because the destructive force of (Niu Jun), who is left alone. He is then dissipation exists only in cases of over- confronted by a monk who asks him to indulgence in passion. repent. While in the process of cleans- !e last story contained in Fra- ing his body he is awakened by his ser- grant Essences is called Niu Jun, “A vant bringing him tea, only to "nd he Dreamy Ugly Boy,” and represents pas- has become handsome in reality as sion in both its forms, destruction and well. After having been the constant

44 object of desire in this dream world he All three works, Hairpins, Anat- immediately pursues his religious cul- omy, and Fragrant Essences challenge tivation to avoid further struggle with contemporary Ming ideas about gen- desire and passion.42 der, sex and sexuality. While Hairpins Same-sex overtones are present focuses on the potential for mixing throughout Niu Jun’s entire journey. and matching the gendered charac- One of the most obvious examples is teristics of the sexes, Anatomy socially his falling in love with only one per- contextualizes the environment in son, a man, the King of All-Sons. In the which same-sex love is being written Kingdom of All-Sons, reproduction about and Fragrant Essences imagines occurs by praying at a temple. Niu Jun a world in which the norm is not even went to pray for his King to have a son a possibility. Whether in%uenced by and at the temple, in a dream-within-a- the power of qing to reshape the world dream, Niu Jun fails to become aroused or motivated by a need to police sexual by the sight of the temple’s female god- conduct by making it visible, the dis- dess and a special device is neces- cursive explosion over same-sex love sary to complete the sexual encoun- in the late Ming produced a wealth of ter. While in the Kingdom of Holy-Yin, literature critical to the reconstruction the King (a woman) is thrilled at actu- of the late Ming mentality. ally getting the chance to experience sex with a man (as opposed to using her magic dildo) but is disappointed CONCLUSION to "nd that “Queen Niu” is, yet again, Instances of same-sex love have unable to become aroused by her and existed across cultures and time but she thus decides to sodomize him in- have manifested themselves in ways stead.43 !ese experiences openly dis- that may not be recognizable by mod- play same-sex love and make it the ern standards and categories. It is im- most desirable outcome, running portant, therefore, to contextualize counter to traditional behaviors of the one’s investigation into the existence of late Ming. Not only, however, did Niu any same-sex tradition and to be open Jun choose to have a same-sex rela- to ways of thinking that are seem dif- tionship, but he was entirely unable ferent or strange. !e same-sex tradi- to have a heterosexual encounter. His tion in late Ming China de"es conclu- inability to participate in a heterosex- sion and perhaps that is the point. !e ual relationship further demonstrates syncretism that informed the thought literature’s ability to create scenarios of the time prevents one from mak- that the then-modern mind would not ing a broad-sweeping statement with have imagined to exist, thus giving vis- which to summarize the period, and ibility to previously unrecognized and in that state of inde"niteness is how it ignored members of society. should remain.

45 END NOTES 1. Volpp, Sophie. “Classifying Lust: !e Seventeenth-Century Vogue for Male Love.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Vol. 61, No. 1. (Jun., 2001), 91-92. 2. Hinsch, Bret. Passions of the Cut Sleeve: !e Male Homosexual Tradition in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, 4. 3. Hinsch, pp. 20-21. 4. Hinsch, p. 36. 5. Hinsch, p. 53. 6. Sommer, Matthew H. “!e Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma.” Modern China. Vol. 23, No. 2. (Apr., 1997) p. 144. 7. Sommer, 1997, 142. 8. Sommer, 1997, 140. 9. Sommer, 1997, 143. 10. Sommer, 1997, 144. 11. Sommer, 1997, 145 12. Sommer, 1997, 171. 13. Sommer, 1997, 172. 14. Vitiello, Giovanni. “Exemplary Sodomites: Chivalry and Love in Late Ming Culture.” Nan Nü 2.2 (2000) p. 209. 15. Vitiello, 2002. pp. 210-211. 16. Vitiello, Giovanni. “!e Fantastic Journey of an Ugly Boy: Homosexuality and Salvation in Late Ming Pornography.” Positions. 4:2 (1996) p. 296 17. Volpp, 2001, 79-80. 18. Volpp, 2001, 84-85. 19. Vitiello, 2000, 211. 20. McMahon, Keith. “Eroticism in Late Ming, Early Qing Fiction: the Beauteous Realm and the Sexual Battle#eld.” T’oung Pao. LXXIII (1987) p. 229. 21. McMahon, 1987, 230. 22. Vitiello, 2000, 228. 23. McMahon, 1987, 230. 24. McMahon, 1987, 231-232. 25. Vitiello, 2000, 232. 26. Vitiello, 2000, 234. 27. McMahon, 1987, 232-233. 28. McMahon, 1987, 233.

46 29. Vitiello, 2000, 235. 30. McMahon, 1987, 233-234. 31. Vitiello, 1996, 295 32. Volpp, 2001, 102-103. 33. Volpp, 2001, 103-104. 34. Volpp, 2001, 105-106. 35. Volpp, 2001, 106-107. 36. Vitiello, 1996, 305-306. 37. Vitiello, 1996, 295. 38. Vitiello, 1996, 297-298. 39. Vitiello, 1996, 300. 40. Vitiello, 1996, 301. 41. Vitiello, 1996, 301. 42. Vitiello, 1996, 305-306. 43. Vitiello, 1996, 308-309.

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