Abstract
Drawing upon Raymond Williams’ notion of culture and in-depth interviews with 40 women, this article examines forces that have shaped the landscape of sexuality in China. It argues that the process of changing sexuality contains multiple and overlapping forms of sexual culture, in which the party-state’s ideology, emergent sexual cultures and traditional Chinese beliefs intertwine and struggle. In addition to age-based differences in attitudes towards sexual practices within studies of youth culture, this study incorporates a class-based variable into the account.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Nanjing yi fu jiaoshou zuzhi juzong yinluan bei qishu (An associate professor in Nanjing prosecuted for organizing licentious activities), Xinhua News Agency, March 11, 2010. http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2010-03-11/143419842367.shtml. Accessed 30 November 2011.
Nanjing yi fu jiaoshou zuzhi juzong yinluan bei qishu (An associate professor in Nanjing prosecuted for organizing licentious activities), Xinhua News Agency, news website, March 11, 2010. http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2010-03-11/143419842367.shtml. Accessed 30 November 2011.
Yan’an fuqi zaijia kan huangpian bei zhua (A married couple in Yan’an was arrested when watching a porn movie at home), Huashang wang news, December 17, 2006. http://www.voc.com.cn/Topic/article/201206/201206171755101696.html. Accessed 26 December 2011.
Shanghai renda daibiao: zhencao shi nuhai zuihao de jiazhuang (A Shanghai representative of the People’s Congress Bai Wanqing: viginity is the best bride gift), Changjiang ribao (Changjiang Daily), March 4, 2011. http://news.sohu.com/20110303/n279630461.shtml. Accessed 5 November 2011.
Hubei weishi tui gongyi lei jiemu, yao zhencao nusheng jiang daode (Hubei Satellite TV plans to launch a program for public interest, and invites the goddess of chastity to lecture morality). March 28, 2012, Changjiang ribao (Changjiang Daily). http://www.timenews.cn/a/20120328/42588.html. Accessed 26 September 2013.
References
Alford, W. (2004). Have you eaten, have you divorced? Debating the meaning of freedom in marriage in China. In W. C. Kirby (Ed.), Realms of freedom in modern China (pp. 234–263). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Baker, H. D. R. (1979). Chinese family and kinship. London: Macmillan Press.
Barlow, T. (2004). The question of women in Chinese feminism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Barthes, R. (1977). Image-music-text. London: Fontana.
Barthes, R. (1983). The fashion system. London: Jonathan Cape.
Barthes, R. (1990). Elements of semiology. New York: Hill & Wang.
Braverman, A. (2002). Open-door sexuality. University of Chicago Magazine, 95(1). http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0210/research/index.html. Accessed March 23, 2013.
Chang, J. (1999). Scripting extra-marital affairs: Marital mores, gender politics and infidelity in Taiwan. Modern China, 25(1), 69–99.
Chen, F. (2014). The making of “concubines”: Media, audience, and social change in contemporary China. Ph.D. thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
Dikotter, F. (1995). Sex, culture and modernity in China: Medical science and the construction of sexual identities in the early republican period. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.
Ebrey, P. (1993). The inner quarters: Marriage and the lives of Chinese women in the Sung period. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Erwin, K. (2000). Heart to heart, phone to phone: Family values, sexuality and the politics of Shanghai’s advice hotlines. In D. Davies (Ed.), The consumer revolution in urban China (pp. 145–170). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Evans, H. (1997). Women and sexuality in China: Female sexuality and gender since 1949. New York: Continuum.
Evans, H. (2008). The subject of gender. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Fang, G. (2012). Xingquan yu xingbei pingdeng: Xuexiao xing jiaoyu de xin linian yu xin fangfa (Sexual rights and gender equality: New theories and new methods for sexual education at schools). Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe.
Farrer, J. (2002). Opening up: Youth sex culture and market reform in Shanghai. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Farrer, J., & Sun, Z. (2003). Extramarital love in Shanghai. The China Journal, 50, 1–36.
Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, A. (1992). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. Cambridge: Polity.
Hershatter, G. (1996). Sexing modern China. In G. Hershatter, E. Honig, et al. (Eds.), Remapping China: Fissures in historical terrain (pp. 77–93). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hsu, F. L. K. (1971). Under the ancestors’ shadow: Kinship, personality, and social Mobility in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Jeffrey, E. (2006). Introduction: Talking sex and sexuality in China. In E. Jeffreys (Ed.), Sex and sexuality in China (pp. 1–20). New York: Routledge.
Jeffrey, E. (2009). China’s governmentalities: Governing change, changing government. London: Routledge.
Larner, W. (2000). Neo-liberalism: Policy, ideology, governmentality. Studies in Political Economy, 63, 5–25.
Leclerc-Madlala, S. (2003). Transactional sex and the pursuit of modernity. Social Dynamics, 29(2), 213–233.
Lehman, K. J. (2011). Those girls: Single women in sixties and seventies popular culture. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Levy, M. (1968). The family revolution in modern China. New York: Atheneum.
Li, Y. (2012). Lun zhongguo ren de chunu qingjie (On the complex of female virginity in China). Dongfang Nüxing (Oriental Women), 3, 2–3.
Luo, W. (1998). The 1997 criminal code of the People’s Republic of China. Chicago: W.S. Hein & Company.
Mann, S. (1991). Grooming a daughter for marriage: Brides and wives in the Mid-Ch’ing period. In P. Ebrey & R. Watson (Eds.), Marriage and inequality in Chinese society (pp. 204–230). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Newman, J. (2005). Introduction. In J. Newman (Ed.), Remaking governance: People, politics and the public sphere (pp. 1–9). Bristol: The Policy Press.
Pan, P. P. (2003). Love story: Couple tests China’s policy banning student premarital sex. Asian Wall Street Journal (Washington Post News Service), 20 February, 1.
Pan, S. (2000). Zhongguo dangdai daxuesheng xingguanlian yu xing xingwei (Perspectives and behaviors of sexuality among Chinese college students in contemporary China). Beijing: Shangwu yinshu guan.
Pan, S. (2004). Xingai shinian: Quanguo daxuesheng xingxingwei de zhuizhong diaocha (Sexuality of Chinese college students: A ten-year longitude nationwide random study). Beijing: Shehui kexue wentian chuban she.
Pan, S. (2006). Transformations in the primary life cycle: The origins and nature of China’s sexual revolution. In E. Jeffreys (Ed.), Sex and sexuality in China (pp. 21–42). New York: Routledge.
Rofel, L. (2007). Desiring China: Experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ruan, F. (1991). Sex in China: Studies in sexology in Chinese culture. New York: Plenum Press.
Ruan, F., & Bullough, V. L. (1989). Sex repression in contemporary China. In P. Kurtz, L. Fragell, & R. Tielman (Eds.), Building a world community: Humanism in the twenty-first century (pp. 198–201). Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
Schoenhals, M. (1992). Doing things with words in Chinese politics: Five studies. Berkeley: University of California.
Sigley, G. (2006). Sex, politics and the policing of virtue in the People’s Republic of China. In E. Jeffereys (Ed.), Sex and sexuality in China (pp. 43–61). New York: Routledge.
Hunter, M. (2002). The materiality of everyday Sex: Thinking beyond prostitution. African Studies, 61, 99–120.
Voloshinov, V. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wamoyi, J., Wight D., et al. (2010). Transactional sex amongst young people in rural northern Tanzania: An ethnography of young women’s motivations and negotiation. Reproductive Health, 7(2). http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/7/1/2. Accessed March 23, 2012.
Watson, R. (1991). Wives, concubines, and maids: Servitude and kinship in the Hong Kong region. In P. Ebrey & R. Watson (Eds.), Marriage and inequality in Chinese society (pp. 231–255). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wheeler, L. (2013). How sex became a civil liberty. New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams, R. (1958a). Culture is ordinary. In N. Mackenzie et al. (Eds.), Conviction (pp. 74–83). London: MacGibbon & Kee.
Williams, R. (1958b). Culture and society. New York: Columbia University Press.
Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
News Articles from Chinese Media
Hubei weishi tui gongyi lei jiemu, yao zhencao nusheng jiang daode (Hubei Satellite TV plans to launch a program for public interest, and invites “the goddess of chastity” to lecture morality). March 28, 2012, Changjiang ribao (Changjiang Daily). http://www.timenews.cn/a/20120328/42588.html. Accessed 26 September, 2013.
Nanjing yi fu jiaoshou zuzhi juzong yinluan bei qishu (An associate professor in Nanjing prosecuted for organizing licentious activities), Xinhua News Agency, March 11, 2010. http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2010-03-11/143419842367.shtml. Accessed 30 November, 2011.
Shanghai renda daibiao: zhencao shi nuhai zuihao de jiazhuang (a Shanghai representative of the People’s Congress Bai Wanqing: virginity is the best bride gift), Changjiang ribao (Changjiang Daily), March 4, 2011. http://news.sohu.com/20110303/n279630461.shtml. Accessed 5 November, 2011.
Yan’an zaijia kan huangpian bei zhua (a married couple in Yan’an was arrested when watching a porn movie at home), Huashang wang news, December 17, 2006. http://www.voc.com.cn/Topic/article/201206/201206171755101696.html. Accessed 26 December, 2011.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of Concordia University Research Commitee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Human and Animal Rights
This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.