Thoughts on Key Issues of Same-Sex Desire in Traditional Chinese Society

Abstract

Given the current debate in Hong Kong concerning same-sex marriage, much can be learned that will contribute to our present understanding and positions by looking back and reflecting on attitudes and stances to same-sex desire in traditional Chinese society. In particular, much can be learned from cultural studies and cultural historical approaches to same-sex desire, which reveal a much more diverse story than is usually assumed. In order to better consider how same-sex desire was understood in pre-modern China, this lecture will focus on how fundamentally different the religio-cultural, legal and social status assumptions were in contrast to the modern European assumptions that came to influence social opinion through much of the world in the twentieth century. This lecture is part of the Faculty of Arts Gender Studies Lecture Series. The Lecturer and Respondent have many years experience researching questions of gender and sexuality in China and Asia, and have both published widely in English and Chinese.