Socialist Sex: the Cultural Revolution Revisited Author(S): Emily Honig Source: Modern China, Vol

Home , Anchee Min, Ding Ling, Zhang Xinxin (writer)

Socialist Sex: The Cultural Revolution Revisited Author(s): Emily Honig Source: Modern China, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 143-175 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3181306 . Accessed: 02/06/2014 13:39

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EMILYHONIG Universityof California, Santa Cruz

The discussionof sex,Chinese and Western scholarship suggests, is emblematicof the seemingly absolute distinction between the Cul- turalRevolution (1966-1976) and the subsequent post-Mao/economic reformperiod. During the Maoist Cultural Revolution, when politics was incommand, to discuss any aspect of personal life, romantic relationships,or sex was considered bourgeois and hence taboo. Through- outthe more recent decades, however, sex-how todo it,with whom it is appropriate,atwhat age itis acceptable-hasexploded as oneof the majortopics of public debate and is featuredas thesubject of fiction, films,newspaper and magazine articles, and scholarlyresearch. Per- sonal testimoniesand memoirs,filled during the Maoist years with chroniclesof political consciousness and struggle, have become more reflectiveabout their authors' romantic and sexual histories. This shift has produced,ironically, a sexingof the CulturalRevolution-an insertionof sexualdiscussion, practice, and preoccupationinto the historyof a periodlong presumed to have been dominated by political concerns. CulturalRevolution memoirs of thepast decade (a minorcottage industryin theirown right) have startled readers by their often frank reflectionsabout sex and sexuality.Anchee Min's autobiographical accountRed Azalea, forexample, describes the residents of Red Fire Farmas beingfar more concerned with the pursuit of romanticand sexualpleasure than with political struggle (Min, 1994: 58-59).Rae

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wouldlike to thank Gail Hershatterand ElizabethPerry for their critical readingsof earlierversions of thisessay. I am particularlygrateful to Kay AnnJohnson for insightfulcomments on thegendered dimensions of sexuality during the Cultural Revolution. MODERNCHINA, Vol. 29 No.2, April 2003 143-175 DOI: 10.1177/0097700402250735 ? 2003Sage Publications

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Yang'sSpider Eaters, too, offers memories of an adolescencespent in theGreat Northern Wilderness, where the struggles of theCultural Revolutionwere interspersed with her emerging sense of herself and herclassmates as sexualbeings (R. Yang,1997). Likewise, Blood Red Sunset,Ma Bo's accountof life as a sent-downyouth in Inner Mongo- lia, is punctuatedby reflectionson his romanticliaisons and sexual fantasiesas well as theclandestine affairs of others (Ma Bo, 1996).' Notall memoirsare so positivein their reflections on CulturalRev- olutionsexuality. Report on Loveand Sexamong China's Sent-Down Youth,a three-volumework published in 1998,aims to documentthe moretragic dimensions of sexualityand to presentstories of severe sexualrepression. "We wererobbed of ouryouth, ideas, hopes, and love,"the editors lament. "In terms of love, people were criticized and struggledagainst, put in jail .... All books about love were labeled pornographic,all songsabout love labeled low-class. Men and women in love wereconsidered hoodlums" (Zhang Dening and Yue Jianyi, 1998a: 2). Even in detailinghorrific punishments inflicted on youth accusedof inappropriateromantic relationships, however, the hun- dred-oddmemoirs insert and implicitly insist on sexualpreoccupation as beingat thecenter of experiences of the Cultural Revolution. It is temptingto interpretthese reflections on CulturalRevolution sexualityas a rewritingof eventsas viewedthrough the lens of con- temporaryconcerns, as a projectiononto the past of the post-Mao pre- occupationwith sex, romanticism, and erotics.2 These memoirs, like all memoirliterature, surely do representthe past through the con- cernsof their authors' present, and it is hardlycoincidental that indi- vidualswriting during a timeof intense public discussion of sexuality wouldhighlight that part of their experience. However, to reducethe emphasison sexualityto a projectionof the present onto the past, or evento a writingof the past as skewedby the terms, language, and pas- sionsof the present, presumes a totaldisjuncture between the Cultural Revolutionand the post-Mao period: it takes for granted that what pre- vails now did notand couldnot have existed then-that just as fer- ventlyas sexualissues are discussed in the present, they were silenced in thepast. Economic,political, and evenmany social policiesof thereform era do radicallydepart from and in someways explicitly reject Cul- turalRevolution policies. But the currentdenunciation of Maoist

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/ SOCIALIST SEX 145 policiesmay obscure underlying social continuities. I do notmean to suggestthat there is statepolicy, on one hand, and social reality, on the other;the state made discussion of love and sex taboo,but in reality sex was discussedand performedin contextsnot sanctioned by the state.Nor am I suggestingthat discussions of sexuality during the Cul- turalRevolution and post-Mao era are identical. Rather, my point is to examinethe specific contexts in which sexuality became an issuedur- ingthe Cultural Revolution and to acknowledgethat the reflections aboutsexuality in contemporary memoirs may be morethan a projectionof the present onto the past. Thisarticle, then, aims to offer a preliminaryexploration of sexualityduring the Cultural Revolution. Despite the proliferation of new, revisioniststudies of theCultural Revolution by bothChinese and Westernscholars, the subject of sexuality-andpersonal life in gen- eral-has beencompletely ignored, an oversightthat replicates, per- hapsunwittingly, the presumed repression of personal life during the CulturalRevolution itself (Joseph, Wong, and Zweig, 1991; Perry and Li, 1997;Yan Jiaqiand Gao Gao, 1996).As materialsabout the Cul- turalRevolution increasingly become available-not just memoirs butalso archivalmaterials and collectionsof documents-theyare revealingthe variety of niches in which sexuality was part of the life of theCultural Revolution. They also suggestthe gendered dimensions of sexuality,the divergent ways in whichmen and women perceived sexualissues and experience.What emerges from these materials is nota simplestory of state silencing and popular submission or of state prohibitionand popular resistance. State "policy" about sex during the CulturalRevolution is farfrom clear, and popular attitudes and behav- iorare full of contradictions.

STATESILENCE AND THE SILENCING OF SEXUALDISCOURSE

The Maoiststate, it is commonlyassumed, actively silenced discussionof personal life in generaland of sexuality most particularly. "Whatoften got erased," Mayfair Yang asserts,

werenot only women's bodies and female gender but also sexual desire itself,through a combined process of repression and an emptying out

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ofpublic discourse on sex.... Therewas a dearthof both public and privatediscussion of sex duringthe Cultural Revolution. [M. Yang, 1999:44]

The historianHarriet Evans's studyof sexualityin post-1949China persuasivelychallenges this assumption by documentingthe far- rangingdiscussion of sexual issues that took place in official publica- tionsduring the 1950s and early 1960s (Evans, 1997: 2). Nevertheless, evenher study presents us withthe Cultural Revolution as thesingle periodwhen the Chinese governmentsuppressed this discussion. From1966 to 1976,Evans writes,

The slightestsuggestion of sexual interest was consideredso ideologi- callyunsound that gendered tastes in hairstyle and dress were coerced into a monotonousuniformity of shape and colour. A kind of androgyny,a sexual sameness, based on thedefeminization of female appearanceand itsapproximation to malestandards of dress, seemed to be thesocialist ideal. [Evans,1997: 2]

Thestate, presumably, was responsible for this explicit and aggressive policingof sexuality. Anyanalysis of sexuality during the Cultural Revolution requires a closerlook at thestate and its role in governingsexual discourse and prescribingacceptable (and unacceptable)behavior. What emerges fromsuch an analysisis a statethat said remarkably little about sexu- alitywhile appearing to criticize,arrest, and punishindividuals for transgressingsexual norms. Issuesof sexuality were not placed high (if anywhere) on theCul- turalRevolution's agenda, and statepolicies and proclamationsdid notgenerally concern themselves with issues of sexuality.The state did,however, withdraw from its own earlier-albeit limited-partici- pationin a discussionof sexuality. So, forexample, government-sanc- tionedbooklets and manuals about female hygiene, marital relations, and sexualhealth, which had somecirculation during the 1950s and early1960s, were no longerpublished (Evans, 1997: 441-44).3 Perhapsmore noticeable to the reading public was theelimination of romanticrelationships from official reports and storiesand their transformationinto asexual comradelyassociations. Thus, in the modeloperas, the main characters were invariably single, or else their

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/ SOCIALISTSEX 147 maritalstatus remained unclear. When male and femalecharacters weretogether, they spoke only of work, the revolution, or class struggle, and theyreferred to each otheras "comrades"(Bai Ge, 1993: 227).4 Theauthor Dong Landi, a sixth-gradeprimary school student when theCultural Revolution began in 1966,recalls the first time she heard peopledescribe Jiang Qing as ChairmanMao's wife.Certain this was a rumorfabricated by the "uneducated masses," she searched all official publicationsfor evidence of a husband-wiferelationship between them.All she could findwas thefrequent statement that "Comrade JiangQing is theclose comrade-in-armsofthe great leader Chairman Mao" (YangJian, 1993: 325). In otherwords, it appears that the state silencedsexuality not by issuing laws prohibiting itbut by becoming silentitself. Thatthis was nota neutralsilence was madeclear by thepunish- mentof those who failed to honor it. Although there is noevidence of a law prohibitingthe publication of certain categories of texts, publish- ers understoodthat manuscripts about romantic or sexual themes couldnot be published.Authors, for the most part, did not write about loveor sex, except for those who wrote the unpublished "hand-copied volumes"(shou chaoben) that were widely circulated clandestinely. Butto write stories that touched on themes of love and sex, even under a pseudonym,was risky. For example, Zhang Yang, author of the well- knownhand-copied story "The Second Handshake," was arrestedand imprisonedin 1975 for"opposing Chairman Mao's revolutionary line." AlthoughZhang had strategicallyprefaced this storyof a romanticliaison between two intellectuals with a quotefrom Engels honoringthe long history of romantic relationships, Yao Wenyuan-a memberof theGang of Four-spearheadedan extensivesearch to identifyand arrestthis author guilty of propagatingthe "concept of bourgeoislove" (Liu Xiaomenget al., 1995:619-25;Yang Jian, 1993: 327). Evenif the state expressed little explicitly regarding issues of sexuality,local, popular constructions of statepolicy in generaland of the CulturalRevolution agenda more specifically did makesex a major issue. This concernis evidentfirst in thecontext of theRed Guard movement.One of theofficial goals ofthe early Cultural Revolution was theelimination of "the four olds": old thought,culture, customs,

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 148 MODERN CHINA/APRIL2003 andpractices. Although an attackon "old culture" might have targeted ideologiessuch as femalechastity, it insteadfocused on "bourgeois ideologyand culture." As Kay AnnJohnson points out, many of the idealsof the "original 'antifeudal' cultural revolution" associated with theMay Fourth Movement of the early twentieth century "became tar- getsof attackas manifestationsof 'bourgeoisideology' " (Johnson, 1987: 179). Hence,when Red Guardsat theNo. 2 MiddleSchool of Beijing postedtheir influential "Declaration of War on theOld World"on 19 August1966, theyconcentrated on eliminatingdecadent capitalist practices,particularly those associated with Hong Kong."We must eradicatethe warm bed and youngbuds of capitalism,"declared the RedGuards, whose text repeatedly called for the destruction ofporno- graphicliterature.

Wepropose to the revolutionary workers in such professions as barber- ing,tailoring, and photography not to do HongKong-style haircuts, not totailor Hong Kong-style clothing, not to shoot lurid photographs, and notto sell pornographicpublications.... We wantto, in theshortest timepossible, eliminate Hong Kong-style clothing, shave off strange- looking hair styles,and burnpornographic books and pictures. [Quotedin Yan Jiaqiand Gao Gao, 1996:65-66]

Likewise,Red Guardsat theBeijing No. 26 MiddleSchool, in their "One HundredItems for Destroying the Old and Establishingthe New,"commanded bookstores to "immediatelydestroy all porno- graphicchildren's books" and forbade the "telling of dirty jokes, utter- ing profanities,and doingvulgar things" (Schoenhals, 1996: 216, 220). Whateverthe ChineseCommunist Party (CCP) leadership's originalintent, then, the Red Guards'constructions ofthe campaign to destroythe "four olds" highlighted pornography as emblematic of the "decadentcapitalist culture" that must be destroyed. As theCultural Revolution developed and as class enemieswere identified,sexual immoralitybecame one of the mostcommonly invoked"errors" for which they were attacked. The ways in which the accusationof sexualimmorality (often signaled by theappellation "brokenshoe," or "whore")was invokedto legitimizebroader political attacks,usually against individual women, are described in some

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/SOCIALIST SEX 149 detailby Neil Diamant (2000:281-312) in Revolutionizing the Family. Attackson prominentwomen ranging from Wang Guangmei (Liu Shaoqi's wife)to Jiang Qing and Nie Yuanzi(the Party branch secre- taryof the Philosophy Department at Beijing University, whose char- acterposter launched the Cultural Revolution) all includedaccusa- tionsof inappropriate sexual liaisons and behaviors (Ling, 1972: 198- 214; Zhai, 1992: 126; Schoenhals,1996: 102-9;Yue and Wakeman, 1985: 207). At a popularlevel as well,political attacks on individualswere oftenframed by thecharge of sexualimmorality. Zhang Zhimei, for example,was accusedof havingbeen a spybecause she maintained relationshipswith people she knew in East Berlin, where she had been assignedin 1951as partof a tradedelegation. In theearliest criticism sessionsof the Cultural Revolution, however, she was firstaccused of sexualimmorality. "You're an immoral woman, a foxspirit!" a student yelledat her."How manymen have you had? Tell us everything! You'vecorrupted party cadres, and now you've got your hands on one ofthe revolutionary teachers." The studentsthen whipped her. One of herown former students led heraway from another criticism session butthen demanded, "Do youaccept that you are an immoral woman?" He thenbegan trying to kiss her(Zhang, 1992: 143-46).Although laterforced to confessto havinghad a romanceshortly after being divorced,she was gratefulto be sparedthe humiliationof being paradedthrough the streets with a stringof wornshoes aroundher neck(literally displaying a euphemismfor a "loose woman"),a pun- ishmentthat she saw inflictedon manywomen accused of extramarital sex (Zhang,1992: 162). The label whorebecame one of themost frequently used against women.In heraccount of the Red Guardmovement in Shanghai,Zi- pingLuo describesan attackon two"spinsters" and their 80-year-old mother:"They kicked and spat on thewomen whom they should have reveredas grandmothers.Instead, they shouted 'Whores!'" (Luo, 1990:27-28). Jin Yihong, recalling the activities of young Red Guards atthe famed Middle School for Girls in Beijing, related the frequency withwhich they captured young women "hoodlums," brought them to the school forbeatings, and hurledat themthe accusation"loose woman"or "whore."She describedas wellthe lengths to whichstu- dentswent to constructevidence that a particularteacher whom they

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 150 MODERN CHINA/APRIL 2003 attackedhad been having an extramaritalaffair with a maleteacher at theschool (Jin Yihong, interview with author, Nanjing, 1996). In all of theseaccounts, Red Guardswere the ones who invoked sexual"errors" as partof broader political attacks on "classenemies." It is difficultto determinewhether they were respondingto state injunctionsor insteadplayed an independentrole in establishing codes of propersexual conduct. Neil Diamantargues that a concern withsexual purity, particularly the sexualmorality of women,has beena commonfeature of youth and nationalist movements, including the FrenchRevolution and the Nazi movementin Germany (Diamant,2000: 285). The invocationof sexualmorality to discredit opponentshas precedentsin thehistory of theChinese revolution as well: Nationalistsused thisapproach to assail Communistwomen leaderssuch as XiangJingyu, and later the CCP didthe same in attack- ing allegedrightists, such as Ding Ling (Gilmartin,1995: 211-12; Ding Ling,1989: 43). Butcomparative and historical precedents do notexplain the spe- cificcauses of theseparticular allegations. Any explanation of why theRed Guardsaccused women of sexual immorality has toconsider thebroader social and politicalcontext in whichthe charges were made. One mustwonder whether campaigns of the early 1960s againstbourgeois culture, as well as thespecific criticisms of "deca- dent"and "promiscuous" women in the film Early Spring in February (Zaochuneryue) screened in late 1965 and early1966, instilled in youngpeople the idea ofattacking women as "whores."5In addition, as the discussionbelow will illustrate,the accusationsof sexual immoralitydirected at female "class enemies" were articulated at pre- ciselythe same timethat "revolutionary" female Red Guards,free fromparental control and protectionand freeto travelthroughout China,on one hand,were able to engagein sexualexperimentation and,on theother hand, were vulnerable to extraordinary levels of sexual abuse.In otherwords, while some groups of women were subject to molestation,others were implicitlyheld responsiblefor sexual morality.Whether there is a connectionbetween these two phenomena requiresfurther research. Evenif a questby the Red Guardsfor sexual purity explains some ofthe attacks on allegedly immoral sexual liaisons, it does not account

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/SOCIALIST SEX 151 forthe full range of thosethat occurred during the Cultural Revolu- tion.Throughout these accounts, the line between popular codes of moralityand stateregulation is blurry:while little evidence exists of laws or policiesissued or imposedby thecentral government, there are myriadinstances of local governmentagents propagating their own,often informal, policies and arrestingor punishingthose who violatedthem. Forexample, cadres in urban work units frequently punished workers who engagedin nonmaritalromantic relationships. In one such case, a femalefactory worker who had been selected(based on her excellentjob performance)tobe trainedas a nurseat the local hospital befriendeda male medical student. The hospital leadership instructed herthat romance was forbiddenand eventually accused her of having an affair.The womanlost her chance to becomea nurseand was sent backto her original factory, where she was assigned the least desirable job. Fromthen on, only "hoodlum types" would talk to her (Li Yinhe, 1998: 30). At anotherurban factory, the Party secretary called an assemblyto criticize four young, unmarried people for romantic liaisons.They were not accused of havingviolated any specific regula- tions;rather, the cadre claimed that love wouldinterfere with their workand could undermine the state's policy of encouraging late marriage(Bai Ge, 1993: 277). Accountsof punishmentfor "inappropriate" romantic or sexual relationsmost frequently concern sent-down youth. They usually dis- playa combinationof "unwritten rules" prohibiting love and popular censureof those who did fall in love. One of the mostdetailed accountsfeatures the story of a youngwoman, Xiao Qing,sent to a statefarm in 1968.There she was verywell likedfor her hard work, warmth,and generosity,and she eventuallybecame the company's politicalinstructor. "At that time there was an unwrittenrule on the statefarm," she recalled. "Smoking was prohibitedand love was prohibited.At every meeting, large and small, the leadership reminded us ofthese prohibitions and warnedus." Nonetheless,she andthe com- panyleader, Xiao Gang,fell in love. DuringSpring Festival, when mostof the educated youth had returned to Shanghai,they got drunk and "letthings get out of control." A monthlater, Xiao Qingrealized she was pregnant.Her boyfriendwrote to his parentsin Shanghai,

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 152 MODERN CHINA/APRIL 2003 askingthem to help arrange for an abortionthere. Unfortunately, their response(marked "urgent") was openedand read by the local leadership,which issued "three points" for handling the situation: Xiao Qing wouldnot be permittedto havethe abortion in Shanghai, she and Xiao Gangwould be thefocus of a special"revolutionary criticism meeting,"and both would be removedfrom their positions and sent to labor in thefields to reformtheir thinking. On theday of her abortion, the state farm leadership stipulated that noone could accompany her, and the only way for her to get to the hospital-100 li fromthe state farm-was by riding in the back of a fully loadedtruck. When she returned she was allowedto rest for one week, butno one was permittedto bringher special foods.Another girl "couldn'tstand it any more" and brought Xiao Qingnoodles from the cafeteria.The girlwas thencriticized for "having sympathized with the'winds of bourgeois thought,' of not being able to distinguish right fromwrong, or to drawa clearline betweenherself and herclass- mate."A weekafter the abortion, the state farm organized a majorcrit- icism session:all themen gatheredin one groupto criticizeXiao Gang,while the women formed another group to criticize Xiao Qing. Theyfocused on thecouple's "corrupt bourgeois trend," their "bank- ruptmorality," their "hoodlum-like tendencies," and their"porno- graphicthinking." The twowere then sent to separatecompanies and notallowed to haveany contact with each other.Finally, when educatedyouth began to have opportunitiesto returnto thecity, their "error"made Xiao Qing and Xiao Gang ineligible(Jin Yonghua, 1995:77-79). Anotheraccount describes two educated youth who fellin love. The armyunit to which they had been assigned had an "unwrittenreg- ulation"that sexual relations between educated youth would be pun- ishedby the denial of a "familyvisit vacation." Xiao Wang,the young woman,became pregnant.Fearful of losing her only chance of remainingconnected to her family in the city, she desperately tried to concealthe pregnancy by engagingin physicallyarduous labor and tyinga piece ofcloth around her waist. Meanwhile, one ofher classmates,who was thework team's health worker, realized what was happeningand offeredto help Xiao Wanggive birth clandestinely. Ultimately,however, Xiao Wanggave birth by herself,wrapped the

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/ SOCIALIST SEX 153 newbornboy in greenarmy cloth, and placed the"package" in the river.When it was discovered by a localchild, Public Security officials cameto investigate. Xiao Wangand her boyfriend were both accused of murderingan infant(Jiang Renwen, 1991). In yetanother case, a youngwoman sent to theNortheast fell in love witha "handsome intellectual"from Shanghai. One evening,strolling by the river, they "embracedand had sex in the grass." She became pregnant, but he had meanwhilefallen in love with another sent-down youth and refused to getmarried. When the child was born,she gave it to a local peasant family.However, both she and theyoung man were "severely criticized" (Liu Yida, 1994-1995:69). None of theseaccounts contains any reference to laws or policies prohibitingromantic or sexual relationsamong sent-down youth. Instead,they all describe"informal" or "unwritten"rules and a local leadership-fromrural state farms to urbanfactories-that had the authoritytopunish individuals who engaged in such relationships. For manypeople, though, it was notpunishment by cadresfor romantic liaisonsthat was mostdamaging but rather the censure by colleagues, classmates,or friends.One youngwoman recalled receiving a love letterfrom a maleclassmate after she had returnedto middleschool fromseveral years in thecountryside. "I can neverforget your big eyes,"he wrote."I'll alwaysthink of you."Not realizingthere was anythingproblematic about these sentiments, she discussed them with a classmate.Almost immediately, it seemed, the entire school knew thecontents of theletter. "No one wouldpay attentionto me after that,"she recalled. "They would spit on mydesk, or write'big hoodlum' withchalk, and puncturemy bike tires" (Li Yinhe,1998: 31). Likewise,Jung Chang, in hermemoir Wild Swans, recalls a fifteen- year-oldclassmate who had becomepregnant while traveling with a groupof Red Guards at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. "She was beatenby her father, followed by the accusing eyes of the neighbors, and enthusiasticallygossiped about by her comrades.She hangedherself, leaving a notesaying she was 'too ashamedto live.'" Describingthe "militant puritans" of the Cultural Revolution, Chang also tellsof a femaleclassmate who receiveda love letterfrom a sixteen-year-oldboy. She wroteback, calling him a "traitorto the revolution":"How dareyou think about such shameless things when the

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 154 MODERN CHINA/APRIL2003 class enemiesare still rampant and people in thecapitalist world still livein an abyssof misery!" (Chang, 1991: 316-18). And a womansent to a tea plantationin Zhejiangrecalled how she and othereducated youthwould hang a brokenshoe fromthe bed of a womanin their dormroom who went out to have sex atnight (Yao Yongzheng,interviewwith author, Shanghai, 1999). Takentogether, all ofthese phenomena-the removal of romantic or sexualreferences from official publications; the imprisonment of individualauthors who clandestinelywrote about such subjects; the criticismsessions, punishments, and popular censure to which people who engagedin nonmaritalsexual relations were subjected; and the allegationof sexual"immorality" against "class enemies"-suggest thatthe CulturalRevolution was indeedan era of extremesexual repression.Yet this image must be qualifiedin severalways. First,insofar as thereis a storyof repression to be told,the role of thestate is notaltogether obvious. This was nota statethat issued dec- larationsprohibiting nonmarital romantic or sexual relationships; evenwhen the leaders of factories or state farms punished individuals, thepunishment was mostoften for the violation of "unwritten" rules. To theextent that the state played a rolein "silencingsexuality," itdid so throughits own silence, which must have spoken volumes to local leadersand ordinarycitizens. That silence certainly registered with theRed Guards,who from the outset of the Cultural Revolution made "immoralbehavior" one ofthe most significant crimes for which one couldbe attacked. The emphasison immoralityis related to the second way in which the image of the CulturalRevolution as a periodof severesexual repressionmust be revised.It would be moreappropriate to describe it as a periodcharacterized by a profoundconflation of political and sexual impurity.Finally, although accounts of individuals being punished forthe transgression of rigidsexual "norms" reinforce popular con- ceptionsof theCultural Revolution, they by no meansrepresent the entirehistory of sexualityduring the period. To furtherexplore that history,we mustmove away from a focuson thestate and sitesof repressionand look instead at how sexuality was woveninto the daily lifeof theCultural Revolution in waysthat were distinctive to and enmeshedin itspolitical and social movements.

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SOCIALISTSEX

Foryoung people in particular, the Cultural Revolution represented a timeof dislocation from parental control and protection, particularly withrespect to sexuality(Young, 1989: 239-40).During its earliest phases,Red Guardstraveled throughout China to "exchangerevolu- tionaryexperiences." Long traintrips, one womanrecalls, provided opportunitiesfor teenagers to experiencelove and sex in waysthat wouldpreviously have been inconceivable(Liu Bohong,interview withauthor, Santa Cruz, CA, 1997).As oneof the above accounts suggests,it was notunheard of for young women to return from their trav- els acrossChina pregnant after sexual encounters that were sometimes desiredand, presumably, sometimes not (Chang, 1991: 316-18). Forurban youth, however, it was theyears spent in the countryside thatrepresented the most important context for sexual encounters, experimentation,and abuse. No studiesof the sent-down youth move- mentfocus on issues of sexuality (or personal life more generally) (see Bernstein,1977). In Women,the Family, and PeasantRevolution in China,Kay Ann Johnsondescribes the experience of livingin the countrysideas beingsexually constraining and repressivefor urban youth,as the"traditionally conservative village morality of their peas- anthosts was coupledwith the stringent ultra-leftist outlook." The resultwas that"they were afraid to talk in public with members of the oppositesex unlesstheir work required it" (Johnson,1987: 183). Interviewsand personal memoirs provide a verydifferent view of howsent-down youth perceived and experienced "peasant morality." One accountdescribes a sixteen-year-oldgirl, Wang Yuanyuan, sent to InnerMongolia.

Onceafter work she was lagging behind and saw something by the side of theditch. She snuckup and noticedthat it was a manand woman "doingit." At that time the class strugglewas veryintense, so sheear- nestlyreported this affair to theproduction brigade leader. The old peasants,though, didn't treat it as anythingand just laughed.[Zhang Deningand Yue Jianyi,1998b: 95]

A numberof womencomplained about the difficulty adjusting to thediscussion and displayof sexualityamong their peasant hosts,

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 156 MODERN CHINA/APRIL 2003 whichwas farmore open than anything they had ever encountered in themore cautious and restrainedatmosphere of thecities. As Liu Liliang,a youngwoman sent from Nanjing to a workteam in Lishui (Jiangsu),recalled,

Some of thepeasants' customs were hard for us to getused to. For example,when it was hot,women wouldn't wear any clothes on top (exceptunmarried women wore a clothover their breasts). And men didn'twear any clothes at all-not evenpants. We couldn't stand it. We finallywent and talked to the brigade leader because it was hardfor us to workwith those men. The brigadeleader made the men wear some- thingaround their waists. At first they didn't like it, but because of us sent-downyouth, they had no choice.

Urbanyouth like herself,fearful of thesun, covered themselves in longpants, long-sleeved shirts, and hats (Liu Liliang,interview with author,Nanjing, 1997). JinYihong, who grewup in Beijing,told of a similarsituation in Hainandao,where she had been sent for seven years. On onehand, she describedhow horrifiedpeasants would be whenfemale educated youthappeared in bathingsuits to swim.To them,wearing a bathing suitwas equivalentto nudity. On theother hand, she recounted the dif- ficultysent-down youth experienced in adjustingto the local customs ofdress: women often wore no clothingabove their waist when working,and in some places peasant men did not wear any pants to work in therice fields.For entertainmentas theylabored, peasant women sometimesganged up to stripa particularman, while both men and womenbroke the monotony of work by telling "dirty jokes aboutsex all thetime"-practices that initially horrified sent-down youth (Jin Yihong,interview, 1996). One youngman, sent to thecountryside in northernJiangsu as an adolescent,recalls peasant women visiting his roomat night and offering to have sex with him. At first, having had no previoussex education, he wasperplexed by their invitations, but sev- eralmonths of listening to peasantsbanter and joke aboutsex helped himgradually understand. For a numberof urbanyouth, years spent in thecountryside pro- videdtheir first, albeit informal and haphazard,sex education.One accountdescribes several adolescent girls sent to the countryside who oneday saw two donkeys rolling around with each other and making a

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/SOCIALISTSEX 157 lotof noise. Knowing nothing about mating, they were perplexed and immediatelyasked some olderpeasants to explainthis seemingly strangebehavior. The peasantsall laughedbut said nothing. The girls demandedan answer,until finally one elderlypeasant man said, "Theyhave fulfilledtheir marriage!" The peasantscould not stop laughing,until at last the girls figured it out (Wu Jiaoping, 1999: 278- 79). A finalsource of sexual knowledge for sent-down youth was liter- ary.Although no official publications discussed romance or sex, a pro- lificand widelycirculated underground literature developed during theCultural Revolution, consisting largely of hand-copiedvolumes. These stories,literally copied by handinto notebooks and surrepti- tiouslypassed amongfriends, were extremely popular among sent- downyouth-the most popular being stories that focused precisely on themesof love,romance, and sex. Some hand-copiedvolumes were actuallyversions of pre-1949 publications that had been banned after Liberation.Tali de niiren(Woman in the tower), for example, had been writtenin 1944 and was thenbanned in theearly 1950s. During the CulturalRevolution, groups of sent-down youth, fearful that the book wouldbecome "extinct," copied it into notebooks for circulation. One youngwoman reportedly organized twelve young people in her fiancee's attic and divided theminto groupsto copy the book (Wumingshi,1984: 1-6;Yang Jian, 1993: 334). Moreoften, hand-copied volumes contained stories written during theCultural Revolution. One of themost widely read, "A Maiden's Heart"("Shaonii de xin"),chronicled the love between a sixteen-year- old beautyand herstrong, handsome cousin, describing their rather wildsexual frolicking in vividdetail. After many scenes in whichthe youngwoman is overwhelmedby the "pure pleasure of the act," the storyfinally ends with a homilyabout the bliss and harmlessness of premaritalsex (hardlya themeone associateswith Cultural Revolu- tionliterature). In anotherhand-copied story, "Sister Xia" ("A Xia"), a youngwoman, upon learning that her boyfriend has beenunfaithful, decidesthat women, too, should be entitledto multiplelovers. She proceedsto have an affairwith the Party secretary of her factory, who she learnshas been sleepingwith all theattractive women workers. She thenharbors the fantasy of becoming a Partysecretary herself, so thatshe could seduce any of the handsome male workers she desired

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(Link,1989: 17-36).According to somereports, a sizablenumber of sent-downyouth, after reading these and otherhand-copied stories, "mademistakes" (i.e., had sex). One tellsthe story of a youngwoman who,after reading "A Maiden'sHeart," had sex witha boybut was horriblydisappointed that it was nowherenear as pleasurableas the storyhad portrayed (Yang Jian, 1993: 326-36). For manysent-down youth, life in thecountryside provided not onlytheir first knowledge of sex but opportunities for their first sexual experiencesas well. Undoubtedly,there were instances or locales, suchas thosecited above, where sent-down youth felt that any expres- sion of romanticor sexual interestbetween unmarried men and womenwas prohibited,repressed, or likely to be punished.But there werealso manyinstances in which life on a productionbrigade or state farm-wheretens to hundreds of young men and women in their teens or earlytwenties lived collectively, away from their families-pro- videdunusually favorable conditions for sexual encounters outside the contextof marriage.And even whencadres triedto prohibit romanticrelationships, they were not always successful. At one state farm,where the leader was describedas a "feudalbureaucrat" who spiedon boysand girlsgathered near the bridge at night,sent-down youthinvented a secretpath, referred to as the"Ho Chi-minhtrail," whereromantic couples could secure privacy (Zhang Dening and Yue Jianyi,1998c: 90). Foreducated youth, life in the countryside was punctuated by flirta- tionand sex.From the perspective of young men, negotiations about sex andromance were crucial to enlivening an otherwisedreary exis- tence.A youngman assigned to a productionbrigade of Xilong Com- munein Sichuan recalled that educated youth commonly sat on a table nearthe commune store, where they smoked and discussedwomen: theycracked jokes about peasant women and evaluated the features of all thegirls on theproduction brigade, assigning each pointsfor her respectivemerits (He Shiping,1992: 4-5). Youthassigned to the army corpscould not alwayscount on the presenceof women.As the authorsof a historyof the People's Liberation Army-sponsored "pro- ductionand construction corps" note, "Life was dull,work was ardu- ous,and people needed some spiritual spark. 'When boys and girls are together,working is like liftinga feather'(nanni dapei, hanhuo bulei)."They point out thatthe leaderof a Heilongjiangregiment

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/ SOCIALIST SEX 159 reportedthat the sent-down youth complained about the absence of a femalebrigade. "If a teamof womencould be transferredhere," the youngmen pleaded, "we could toleratebeing here the rest of our lives."The sympatheticleader subsequently arranged to have a group offemale educated youth sent to this single-sex brigade. "The impact of thegirls was immeasurable,"the leader reported. "From the time the girlsarrived there was muchless gamblingand drinking,less swearing;more careful dressing; more time spent crafting love letters. Guyswho had hardlybathed now began to use fragrantsoap; guys who neverread now began studyingvocabulary from books" (Shi Weiminand He Gang,1996: 270-71). Storiesby girls sent to the countryside correspond to this portrait of male youthwho made a sportof seekingfemale companionship. A girlborn in Beijing and sent to the countryside atthe age offifteen, for example,described how as soon as she arrived,boys who had been sentthe previous year "began to chaseafter me."

Thoseolder school-leavers were good to me. When I wenthome to see myfamily, they helped me buy the ticket, got a seatfor me, carried my luggage....They did everything. Why? Just so that they could see a bit moreof me. They liked to get a seatbeside me so thatwhen the bus wentover a bumpthey'd be ableto lean against me.

Vyingfor her attention, these "older boys" often brought her chicken ordog meat that they stole from peasants and then cooked. Eventually, shebecame attached to one boyin particular.He hadbroken his foot whiletheir team was tryingto "remouldthe commune's land" as part of themovement to "learnfrom Dazhai." Feelingsorry for him, she wouldtake him food and chat with him.

I can'tsay how it happened. I don't know how he had the face. But any- way,he asked, and I gavemyself. I was sixteen years old. I usedto think thatit would be something very important-when ithappened, I found thatit was nothingat all. I was a girlbeforehand, and when I gotup I was stillthe same girl. I hadn'tturned into a grownwoman. But all the feelingI'd hadfor that boy disappeared after that. There was nothing left.I waitedanxiously for my period because I was afraidI mightbe pregnant.I didn't feel very pleased with myself but I didn'tfeel guilty either.I hadn't really liked the boy, it was just curiosity and confusion. I

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couldn'thelp it. I neverthought that we wouldget married. [Zhang Xinxinand Sang Yue, 1987: 317-18]

Somewomen not only had their first sexual encounters but also co- habitedwith young men, a practicethat would have been unimagin- ablein the cities and that apparently was often ignored by cadres in the countryside.A daughter of Beijing intellectuals tells the story of fall- ingin love with a sent-downyouth from Shanghai during the time she wasin the countryside. He wasrelatively weak, and as teamleader, she oftenhelped him. Furthermore,he remindedher of her younger brother.During the time he returnedto Shanghaifor a one-month "familyvisit," she realizedshe was in love withhim. When he returned,she rushed to embracehim and then "gave him her virginity." Fromthen on, they lived together. "Up totoday, I have no regrets about this,"she said. She becamepregnant, and despiteher efforts to inducea miscar- riage,the baby was born."Luckily," she recalled,"it was relatively commonfor unmarried people on the state farm to give birth. We both endureddisciplinary action within the team, but then our relationship was moreopen." Sent-down youth who cohabited or hadbabies pre- ferrednot to marry, she explained, for once married they sacrificed the possibilityof ever returning tothe city. When she was given the oppor- tunityto return, three years after her daughter's birth, she was issueda permitonly for herself. She thenrealized the impossibility of the situation:"With no residencepermit, my daughter would have no legal status.If I tookher back to Beijingshe would never have a legitimate life."She, like manyothers in hersituation, gave herdaughter to a localpeasant family to raise. "I wentback to Beijing alone. As soonas I gotoff the train I burst out crying and couldn't stop. But I knew,ratio- nally,that I hadto severmyself from that phase of my life and begin anew"(Deng Xian,1992: 106). Like thiswoman, others emphasized how commonit was for unmarriedmale and female sent-down youth to live together and how commonit was as well forunmarried women to becomepregnant. Anotherwoman described sleeping with a fellowsent-down youth andthen living with him without getting married. "That's what lots of peopledid," she recalled. She, too, became pregnant and gave birth to a girl.When her daughter was 22, thewoman had the opportunity to

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/SOCIALIST SEX 161 returnto Chongqing. Realizing that her daughter would have no legal statusin the city, she decided to give her to a localfamily, who actually paid200 yuanas a "birthfee" for the young girl (Deng, 1992: 106-7). WangXiaoling, raised in Nanjing,recalls that when she was in Inner Mongolia,an educatedyouth had an affairwith a localman and bore a babygirl. Although the young woman soon returned to Nanjing,the man'sfamily happily kept the baby, for to them it was veryglorious to have a "Nanjingbaby" (Wang Xiaoling,interview with author, Nanjing,1997). Scatteredstatistics suggest the frequency of cohabitation and pregnancy:a 1973 investigationof the Yunnan Production and Construc- tionArmy Corps showed that in one regimentalone, there were 114 casesof "male-female relations," 26 pregnancies,18 abortions, and 20 babiesborn. In anotherregiment, 162 youngwomen had gone to the hospitalfor abortions in just one six-month period. In a thirdregiment, 32 babieswere born (Shi Weiminand He Gang,1996: 278). The frequencywith which unmarried sent-down youth cohabited andbecame pregnant is also attestedto by the number of babies aban- donedwhen, in themid-1970s, massive numbers of educatedyouth wereallowed to return to the cities. In onecase, a youngtypist recalled cleaningup thewaiting room of theKunming train station after the departureof a largegroup of sent-down youth and discovering a package undera rowof benches. Puzzled that it had no nameor address, shewas aboutto put it in the lost and found. When she picked it up, she feltthe contents move, opened it, and found a babyinside. Along with 100yuan was a notesaying, "Kindhearted person: if you will keep this childwe willbe forevergrateful to you.Signed, a pairof bitter-fated sent-downyouth" (Deng, 1992: 107-8).According to one report,in Kunmingalone, in 1979(when educated youth were still returning to cities),close to a hundredabandoned babies were sent to orphanages (Deng, 1992: 108).6 It wouldbe misleadingto suggestthat sex was alwaysvoluntary or desirablefor sent-down youth. The prevalenceof rapeof sent-down youth,an issuethat figures prominently inpost-Mao Chinese writing aboutthe Cultural Revolution, is beyondthe scope of this article. But itis importantto highlightthe contexts in which young women sent to thecountryside experienced sex not as an opportunityfor pleasure but

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 162 MODERN CHINA/APRIL 2003 ratheras somethingforced on them,or as oneof the few commodities theyhad to exchangefor privilege. Post-Maoera accounts of the Cultural Revolution dwell on the rape ofeducated youth in part as a metaphor-bothliterary and political- forthe abuse of power by local officialsduring the Cultural Revolu- tion.They are, therefore, highly melodramatic in theirportrayal of womenas thepathetic victims of "perverts" or "sex wolves" who sub- vertedthe rustification movement. From one such report, we learnthat a 30-year-oldcadre from Guizhou raped, sexually harassed, and be- havedobscenely toward some 115 educatedyouth at a statefarm in Yunnan;moreover, there were some 365 cases ofrape reported at an armyunit in Heilongjiangand 247 cases at a unitin InnerMongolia. Male sent-downyouth were vulnerable as well,as thesame report citesthe commander of a troopin Yunnan, "a husbandand father, who useddeceit, seduction, and force to sodomizemore than twenty male educatedyouth" (Deng, 1992: 44). Anotherself-consciously melo- dramaticaccount emphasizes the extent to which young women "used theirflesh in exchangefor permission to leavethe countryside."

A femalesent-down youth apathetically opened the door of the produc- tionteam leader's door. One stepat a timeshe slowly enters the room. Thereis foodon thetable, and the paperwork bearing permission for herto return to the city for work. The girlstands there, her eyes spirit- less,like a lambsent to the sacrificial altar. The production team leader doesn'teven close thedoor or turn off the flickering oil lamp.He just laughscoarsely, rips open the girl's shirt, and shamelesslyfondles her barelydeveloped breasts. Then he throwsher on his sweat-covered woodenbed. The girldoesn't cry out, for fear that someone will hear. As soonas shegets up fromthe bed andputs on herclothes, the team leaderaffixes his red seal on thepapers. [Ba Shan,1992: 58]

So common was it for women to trade sex forprivilege that young women who returnedto thecity either to workor attenduniversity or who had obtainedParty membership were assumed to have lost their virginityin the countryside.It became particularlydifficult for these womento marry.In one case, a womanworker in Shanghaiwas beaten by her husband and thrownout of the house on theirwedding night whenhe discoveredshe had lost hervirginity to theParty secretary of her formerproduction team (Ba Shan, 1992: 58).

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Althoughthese exposes are part of a broaderpost-Mao condemna- tionof the Cultural Revolution, one in whichthe rape of women was deployedto symbolizethe suffering of all Chinesepeople, the sexual abuseof women cannot be reducedto a retrospectiveallegorical phe- nomenon:many accounts of rape and sexual abuse were written duringthe Cultural Revolution itself. For example, a 1973diary entry of a youngwoman from Beijing sent to Inner Mongolia described her ini- tial horrorat theextent to whichthe nomads with whom she lived engagedin illicitsexual relations. "But now I have seen thatsome highercadres are just as awful,"she wrote. "Some even surpass them in evil,but are not as publicabout it. Furthermore, people underneath don'tdare criticize them." She thendescribed the head of an armyunit in InnerMongolia who had sex withmore than 30 femalesent-down youth(Shi Weimin,1996a: 218). Likewise,in a letterto a friendwrit- tenin March 1972, a youngwoman describes girls who were the victimsof cadres and political instructors who sexually abused them and warnsher friend to "be careful"(Shi Weimin,1996b: 159). In somecases, it was stateofficials who reported on sexualabuse of womenin the countryside. The Partysecretary of one company of the InnerMongolian Production and ConstructionArmy Corps wrote a lettercomplaining that "there are some cadres who use theirpower to rapeand damage female youth. In ourregiment, 7 percent of the cad- reshave done this." His letterwas distributedata 1973meeting to dis- cussproblems of sent-down youth in Inner Mongolia, where abuse of femalesent-down youth had become a majorconcern of parents (Shi Weimin,1996b: 321-22). Duringthe Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government itself was worriedabout the sexual abuse of sent-down youth and devoted many reportsand meetingsto investigatingthis problem (Liu Xiaomeng, 1996). In May 1970,a nationalmeeting to discussthe situation of sent-downyouth produced "Document 26," the first policy concern- ingsent-down youth promulgated by the Central Committee since the beginningof the CulturalRevolution. Document 26, amongother things,stated that "anyone who is guiltyof raping female sent-down youthshall be punishedaccording to the law. Those who force female sent-downyouth into marriage shall be subjectto criticism and struggle" (Liu Xiaomeng,1998: 263-64).7

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Theregulation was immediatelypublicized on the front page of the People's Daily, and governmentorganizations at everylevel were instructedto carefullylook into the problems in their locale as wellas toorganize meetings to determine punishments (Liu Xiaomeng,1998: 165). In Jilinprovince, for example, between June 1970 and June 1972,2,080 cases ofharm against sent-down youth were revealed. Of them,1,839 were "managed"; 22 peoplewere executed, and 508 were sentencedto jail. The vastmajority of these cases involvedthe rape of femalesent-down youth, and mostof theoffenders turned out to be low-levelrural cadres. These "local lords,"the report stated, believed thatthe "maidens from the city were their personal playthings" (Liu Xiaomeng,1998: 267). A 1973report on sent-downyouth estimated thatsince 1969, there had been some 16,000 cases ofrape. The report presenteddetailed accounts of several cases, including a discussionof theproblems encountered in investigating the incidents and collecting evidence(Liu Xiaomeng,1998: 304). To be sure,Document 26 hadsome unintended consequences. Any sexualencounter between a manand woman might be interpretedas rape.For example, one woman who had had an affairwith a localman becamepregnant and, just at the time that Document 26 was promulgated,was discoveredreturning to Beijingto havean abortion.The manwith whom she hadhad sex was arrestedand put in jail (Zhang Dening and Yue Jianyi,1998b: 100). Anothersent-down youth recalledthat "when the Central Committee's Document Number 26 was issued,any local personwho had a relationshipwith a sent-down youthwas arrestedand sentencedto 10 to 15 yearsin jail" (Zhang Deningand Yue Jianyi,1998c: 125-27). It wouldalso be misleadingto assumethat sex was invariablyhet- erosexual.Little has been writtenabout homosexual relationships duringthe Cultural Revolution, with few exceptions-Anchee Min's (1994) fictionalautobiography Red Azalea beingthe most glaring. In thisaccount, Anchee, sent to the countryside during the Cultural Rev- olution,describes the relationship developed with her superior, Com- manderYan, with whom she casually began to share a bunkat night.

She coveredus withblankets. We breathedeach other'sbreath. She pulledmy hands to touch her chest. She caressed me, trembling herself. She murmuredthat she wished she could tell me how happy I madeher

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feel.... I movedmy hands slowly through her shirt. She pulledmy fin- gersto unbutton her bra.... The momentI touched her breasts, I felta sweetshock. My heart beat disorderly. A wildhorse broke off its reins. She whisperedsomething I could not hear. She was meltingsnow. I did not knowwhat role I was playinganymore: her imaginedman or myself.I was drawnto her... I was spellboundby desire. I wantedto be touched.Her hands skimmed my breasts. My mindmaddened.... I beggedher to hold me tight.... As I hesitated,she caught my lips and kissedme fervently.[Min, 1994: 128-29]

One couldargue that the sensational nature of this account was in partintended to satisfythe imagined interests of an English-speaking audience,to celebratea site of resistanceto Maoist dogma,or, as WendyLarson suggests (1999), to sexualizethe spirit of therevolution.And yet, a self-identifiedChinese lesbian passionately defended thebook to me,applauding it as thesingle account suggestive of her ownsexual experiences with women during the time she spentin the Hebeicountryside. One ofthe women interviewed by the sociologist Li Yinheabout her sexual history explained that her first knowledge of lesbianscame from her time on a statefarm, where two female sent- downyouth were in love."One was verydelicate, like a girl,"she recalled,"and theother very coarse, like a boy."Other girls gossiped abouthow "those two have mated," how they insisted on sleepingto- getherunder a singlemosquito net, and how they would watch each otherbathe (Li Yinhe,1998:218). And in his account of being part of a groupof 100 male youthsent to theSino-Soviet border in 1972,a youngman described how because they were not allowed to leave un- tilthey were age 30, somehad homosexualrelationships (others, he said,committed suicide) (Zhang Dening and Yue Jianyi,1998b: 7). In otherinstances, the sexual nature of an encounterbetween two women(or men) may not have been clear. For instance, one friend recalledthat when she was inthe Anhui countryside, itwas common for teenagegirls from the city to sleepin couples,a practicecriticized by theircadres (presumably because it was "abnormal")but one that they defendedby arguingthat they had leftthe protection and comfort of theirfamilies and therefore needed to comfort each other. Likewise, in hermemoir of the Cultural Revolution, Nanchu describes an instance when,on the Heilongjiang Military Farm, another girl offered to share herwarmer quilts.

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At nightSu came and slippedunder the smallmountain of covers. Inside,she tookoff her undershirt and helped me to takeoff mine. It was warmerwearing no clotheswhen sleeping, she said. Our faces wereso close thatwe felteach other'sbreath. In herwarm eyes, I saw compassionand friendship. I put my hand on herbosom and felther heartjumping.... I felta strongurge to hugher tightly, I so much wantedphysical intimacy with another human being. ... I was sur- prisedto findthat my feelings, like a clearspring running smoothly in thedeep valley, came directly from the very bottom of my heart. It must be thatthe party'spropaganda machines had forgottenthis plot of primitiveland. It was likea wildflowerin secret bloom, pure and exoti- callyfragrant, unpolluted. The senseof puritygenerated by physical closenesswith another young girl was bewitching.[Nanchu, 2001: 148-49]

We mustnot assume that the sexual encounters of sent-downyouth werenecessarily or onlyheterosexual. For sent-downyouth, then, years in the countrysideincluded a rangeof sexual experiences. Some had brief sexual encounters with a boyfriendor girlfriend, while others actually cohabited for long peri- odsof time. Some, knowing nothing about sex, were lured into satisfy- ingthe sexual desires of local cadres;some were forced to havesex withcadres; and someeither offered sex or consentedto it so thata local officialwould approve their request to return to the city to work or attenduniversity. Some experimentedwith same-sex sex. To be sure,in somecases, sent-down youth were criticized or punished for pursuingromantic or sexual relations, but the story of such repression is onlyone part of the broader history of Cultural Revolution sexuality.

SEX AND THE URBANLANDSCAPE

Whilestudies of theCultural Revolution tend to treatsent-down youthas representingthe experience of all youngpeople, a discussion ofthe specific contexts in which sexuality was partof Cultural Revo- lutionlife must also considerthe experience of China's urban popula- tion.This included factory workers, students belonging to the genera- tionjust youngerthan those sent to thecountryside, and individuals permittedto remainhome because their siblings had alreadygone to thecountryside. We knowfar less aboutthe sexual experiences of

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/SOCIALISTSEX 167 urbandwellers, in largepart because they have been far less prolific thansent-down youth in theproduction of memoirs. From some of the above accountsof individualscriticized for "inappropriate"sexual liaisons, we knowthat it was notaltogether uncommonfor urban workers to engage in nonmarital affairs and that sex becamea centralissue in politicaldiscussions. Ken Ling,in his memoirof life as a Red Guard,describes his experiences at the Amoy TextileMill in Fujian.Women workers there, he complained,"had becomeso friendlywith the troops stationed in the Amoy area that the factoryhad becomea sortof campprostitution house." He was so angrythat he devotedhis seventeenth birthday to an attemptto rectify thissituation. He immediatelyordered the construction of a barbed- wirefence to blocksoldiers' access to thegirls. "The flamesof [his] angershot ten thousand feet high" when he discoveredthat the male studentsstationed at the factory had decorated their dorm room walls withphotographs of the younggirl workers."When one student offeredto introduce a few girls to me," he remembers, "I pulled off my glove and slappedhim. I detestedmost seducing girl workers." He thencalled an assemblyof the girl workers, at whichhe admonished themto "maintainthe honorand reputationof theircountry," to "remainpure" (Ling, 1972: 268-71). Scatteredsurveys of factory workers conducted during the Cultural Revolutionconfirm these anecdotes. For example,a surveyof stu- dentsassigned to factories in Shanghaiin the early 1970s reports that "randommale-female relationships" (along with raping and humiliat- ingwomen, living a "degenerate"lifestyle, and picking pockets and stealing)was one of the major problems("Shanghai laodong ju baogao,"1975). Yet noneof thisseems specific to theCultural Revolution; such problemswere reported throughout the early 1960s. For example,a 1964report from the Shanghai Textile Bureau complained that at the Number15 CottonMill, workersfrequently talked about "obscene matters,"especially before and after meetings; in the bathroom, show- ers,and dressing rooms; and during the night shift. "Most of what they talkabout are dirty things between men and women.... Someworkers notonly talk about these things, but perform them as well.Once, duringthe middle shift, several women workers suddenly pulled the pants offof a male worker."One womanworker was describedas having

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 168 MODERN CHINA/APRIL 2003 had affairswith at leastfive men; another woman had had so many affairsthat when she had a baby,even she did not know who was the father;the unionhead allegedlyhad morethan 100 pornographic booksat home, which he would lend to neighbors and to women work- ersin the factory, and had raped the female servant next door ("Shang- hai fangzhiju baogao,"1964). Another1964 reportdescribed a 23- year-oldwoman worker guilty of "improper"relations with at least elevenmen (Shanghai zhijinju tuanwei, 1964b). Yet another lamented thenumber of young workers engaged in improper male-female relations,some of whom had borne children out of wedlock. Even more serious,according to the report, was the number of older workers who werealready married and had children, yet were pursuing extramarital affairswith women at work(Shanghai zhijin ju tuanwei,1964a). Morespecific to the context of the Cultural Revolution was theex- perienceof urban youth who remained in the city, often with no parental supervision.Bai Ge, authorof a Chinesestudy of "ordinarypeople's" livesduring the Cultural Revolution, stresses the importance of recallingthose who weremiddle school studentsat thattime. "To speakof the average," he writes,

theywere not "good children."In fact,one could actuallydescribe themas "littlehoodlums" (xiao liumang),or "youth who lost their foot- ing."Early love was therule among them, and because of it they would steal,destroy classrooms, and wreckpublic property. In class they wouldsend notes to femaleclassmates and then intercept them on the wayhome. [Bai Ge, 1993: 280]

A younggirl who entered middle school in 1969recalls the extent towhich relationships between male and female classmates shattered theasexual comradely stereotype. "Obviously by the time we wereat middleschool, we weren'tcompletely innocent about sex," she recalls,

butwe didn'tknow all thatmuch either. I was awarethat several of the boysfancied me. I couldn'thelp knowing. They were always trying to please me and showingoff. How didthey do this?Well, for example, wheneverI had a period,I was sureto find a bigbar of chocolate in my desk.You see, whenI had a periodI didn'tdo morningexercises....

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Thatmeant the boys could work it out. I stilldon't know who used to leaveit for me. [Zhang Xinxin and Sang Yue, 1987: 316]

Anotherwoman remembers that among young people remaining in thecity, "making boyfriends" was a majoroccupation-so muchso thatwhen she raninto one of herchildhood friends years later, the friendasked her how many boys she had sleptwith during that time (i.e., theCultural Revolution) (Zhang Xinxin and Sang Yue, 1987: 65). In additionto middleschool students, urban neighborhoods were populatedby numerous street gangs that emerged during the Cultural Revolution.They are frequentlyreferred to in memoirs,which describethe pursuit of love and sexual exploits-alongwith petty theft-asthe major occupation of gang members. For example, Liang Heng,author of Son ofthe Revolution, recalls his own participation in a neighborhoodstreet gang in Changsha in 1968,a timewhen his par- entshad been sent to cadre schools, his sisters were gone, and he was homealone (Liang and Shapiro1983). He describesthe variety of gangsthat proliferated during those years, including pre-Liberation professionalgangs that reappeared, newly formed gangs of young peoplewho had no schoolobligations, and gangs (such as theone he joined) composedof children of high-ranking officials. After swear- ingblood brotherhood before a pictureof Chairman Mao, he andfel- lowmembers spent their days learning to fight, drinking, smoking cig- arettes,and pursuinggirlfriends. Liang describeshis friendin the gang,Cheng Guang, whom he helpedcraft letters to a girlfriend. When a rival gang knockedCheng's girlfriendoff her bike and insultedher, Cheng and Liang's ganginstantly prepared to fightin revenge(Liang and Shapiro,1983: 148-53). JungChang (1991), inher memoir Wild Swans, recalls her twelve- year-oldbrother's participation in a Chengdustreet gang during the earlyyears of the Cultural Revolution.

Xiao-hei'sbrothers [i.e., members ofhis gang] were also obsessed with chasinggirls. The twelve- and thirteen-year-olds likeXiao-hei were oftentoo shy to go aftergirls themselves, so they became the older boys'messengers, delivering their error-riddled love letters. Xiao-hei wouldknock on a door,praying that it would be opened by the girl her- selfand not her father or brother, who was sure to slap him across the

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head.Sometimes, when fear got the upper hand, he would slip the letter underthe door. Whena girlrejected a proposal,Xiao-hei and otheryounger boys becamethe tool of revenge of the spumed lover, making noises outside herhouse and firing catapults at herwindow. When the girl came out, theyspat at her,swore at her,shook their middle fingers at her,and yelleddirty words which they did notfully understand. Abusive Chi- neseterms for women are rather graphic: "shuttle" (for the shape of her genitals),"horse saddle" (for the image of being mounted), "overspill- ingoil lamp"("too frequent" discharge), and "worn-out shoes" (much "used"). [Chang,1991: 371]

Some girls,according to Chang,"tried to findprotectors in the gangs,and the more capable ones became helmswomen themselves. The girlswho became involved in thismale world sported their own picturesquesobriquets, such as 'Dewy Black Peony,''Broken Wine Vessel,'and 'SnakeEnchantress' " (Chang,1991: 371). Neighborhoodgangs preoccupied with pursuing women were so commonthat one provincial government issued a reportcomplaining aboutyouth gangs harassing young women, attributing the problem to the"influence of bourgeois ideology" (Schoenhals, 1996: 178).

As theabove account demonstrates, there are two almost opposite storiesof sexualityduring the Cultural Revolution: one, morefre- quentlytold in thepast, emphasizes the punishment of peoplewho transgressedsexual norms, engaged in premaritalsex, or had extra- maritalaffairs; a secondstory emphasizes the extent to whichpeople didprecisely those things. The former highlights the silencing of public discussionof sexuality;the latterstresses widespread popular engagementwith issues of sexuality. My pointis notto resolve these twocontradictory versions by arguing that one is more"true," "more accurate,"or "moretypical." The contradictoryimages can be partly attributedto differencesin whenparticular accounts were written (e.g., thoseproduced in thelate 1970s-a timeof widespreadcon- demnationof the Cultural Revolution-are far more likely to empha- size sexualrepression than those that appeared in the 1990s,when publicdiscussion of sexualityhad becomemuch more prominent). Theymight also be partlyexplained by institutional context, as state farms,production and constructioncorps, army units, and village

This content downloaded from 128.95.232.208 on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:39:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Honig/SOCIALISTSEX 171 productionbrigades had vastlydifferent "sexual climates"(village productionbrigades being far less subjectto controlthan were state farmsand themilitary production and constructioncorps). It is also possiblethat the two "stories" are intimately related: perhaps it was preciselybecause of theuncontrolled opportunities for sexual liaisons thatlocal officialsattempted to assertcontrol. Likewise, perhaps it was because some Red Guardswere sexuallyexploiting womenthat others felt compelled to makesexual purity one oftheir primarymissions.8 Thesimultaneous proliferation ofsexual activity and regulation are bothpart of what now can be seenas thecontinual negotiation of sex andsexuality at thecore of the Cultural Revolution. One couldargue thatthe very act of conductinga so-calledcriticism session against twopeople for romantic or sexualliaisons in itselfconstituted a discussionof sexuality. Itis importanttopoint out that popular experiences of sex and sexualityduring the Cultural Revolution were deeply gendered. Both men and womenwere victims of politicalscapegoating, and bothwere agentsof sexual pursuits. Yet women had particular vulnerabilities as objectsof sexual scorn (being labeled "broken shoe," for example), as victimsof sexualattack, and as supplicantsexpected to tradesexual favorsfor basic needs. They also facedthe particular risks associated withpregnancies resulting from sex (desiredor undesired) outside of marriage.In thiscontext, sexual experiences of the Cultural Revolu- tionboth reflected and perpetuatedwomen's subordination to men (despitethe Cultural Revolution state propaganda proclaiming that "menand women are the same"). Finally,we shouldreturn to the broad assumption, alluded to at the beginningof this article, that the post-Mao era represents a total, com- pletereversal of CulturalRevolution policies and social practices (sometimeswith the implication that "there was death, and now life"). One ofthe important findings of research on sexualityis thatphenom- ena usuallyassumed to be particularto theeconomic reforms (or to pre-1949China)-premarital sex, extramarital affairs, pornographic literature,rape, prostitution, abandoned babies-in factexisted duringthe Cultural Revolution as well,even while their causes and spe- cificforms were often profoundly different. Ultimately, it is those specificitiesthat are most crucial.

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NOTES

1. Filmsof the 1990salso emphaticallyinserted sexuality into reflections on theCultural Revolution.See, forexample, Jiang Wen's Those Brilliant Days (Yangguangcanlan de rizi)and WangXiaoyan's The Monkey Kid. 2. WendyLarson extends this analysis by suggestingthat the emphasis on sex featuredin recentaccounts of theCultural Revolution, particularly ones writtenfor an English-speaking audience,is inpart an effort to modernize China by rewriting the Cultural Revolution as anerotic experience(Larson, 1999). 3. Onlyin 1974 did thebooklet Funii baojian zhishi(Knowledge about women's health) appear-andeven it devoted less than a singlepage to women's "sexual life," included in the sec- tionon familyplanning. It describedsex as a "naturalbiological desire" among physically matureadults, an activityappropriate to marriedcouples. The briefpresentation focused on the circumstancesunder which sex shouldbe avoided(when a womanwas menstruatingor when eitherperson had consumedalcohol or was ill) andhow it shouldconform to a plan("once or twicea weekis normal")(Shanghai diyi yixueyuan, 1974: 9). Thisbook appears to be a revision of a 1970publication. 4. HarrietEvans points out that when the story, "The White-Haired Girl," was revisedto be performedas a modelopera, both the romance between Xi'er and Daichun and the rape of Xi'er bythe landlord disappeared (Evans, 1997: 7). Fora highlynuanced analysis of the erasure of sex- ualityfrom "The White-HairedGirl," see Meng(1993). 5. I am gratefulto CarolynWakeman for this observation. 6. The commonnessof cohabitationis also attestedto by thefrequency with which sent- downyouth sought abortions. Liu Liliang,sent to Lishuiin Jiangsu,recalls that many knew of educatedyouth who, having become pregnant, went to Nanjing for abortions or who tried to find personalconnections that would enable them to get an abortionat a nearbyhospital. Otherwise, theywould use Chinesemedicine, but that, she believed, was dangerousand risky (Liu Liliang, interviewwith author, Nanjing, 1997). 7. This regulationreinforced a pre-Cultural Revolution (1964) CentralCommittee docu- mentcommanding local cadresto attendto the widespread problem of female sent-down youth beingforced or trickedinto marriage and sexuallyabused (Ding Yizhuang,1998: 321). 8. It is worthnoting, too, the possible relationship between the phenomena described here andthe extensive sexual "adventures" of Mao Zedong,as describedin The Private Life of Chair- manMao (Li Zhisui,1994).

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EmilyHonig is a professorof women's studies and historyat theUniversity of Califor- nia,Santa Cruz. She is theauthor of Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cot- tonMills, 1919-1949 and CreatingChinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai,1800- 1949.She is currentlyworking on a studyof gender and sexualityduring the Cultural Revolution.

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