Methodological Reflections on the Significance of Same-Sex Desire in Traditional Chinese Society

Abstract

Reflecting on attitudes and stances toward sexuality in traditional Chinese society, much can be learned from cultural studies and cultural historical approaches to same-sex desire, revealing a historical record that is much more diverse than is usually assumed. Aimed at a better understanding of the place of same-sex desire 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.