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A conversation about the different generational experiences of LGBT academics and the changing status of sexuality and queer studies. Ken Plummer, Arlene Stein and Travis Kong, longtime colleagues and sociologists of sexuality, share their insights. They discuss how different generational contexts and geographic locations shape sexuality studies. They acknowledge the ways Ken's work, and the efforts of his generation of activist-scholars, played a pivotal foundational role in establishing LGBT studies. They consider the relationship between queer theory and sociologies of homosexuality, and the growing importance of digital media. In conclusion, they discuss how neoliberalisation and authoritarian movements are impacting intellectual work.

In Sexuality and the Rise of China Travis S. K. Kong examines the changing meanings of same-sex identities, communities, and cultures for young Chinese gay men in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. Drawing on ninety life stories, Kong’s transnational queer sociological approach shows the complex interplay between personal biography and the dramatically changing social institutions in these three societies. Kong conceptualizes coming out as relational politics and the queer/tongzhi community and commons as an affective, imaginative means of connecting, governed by homonormative masculinity. He shows how monogamy is a form of cruel optimism and envisions state and sexuality intertwining in different versions of homonationalism in each location. Tracing the alternately diverging and converging paths of being young, Chinese, gay, and male, Kong reveals how both Western and emerging inter- and intra- Asian queer cultures shape queer/tongzhi experiences. Most significantly, at this historical juncture characterized by the rise of China, Kong criticizes the globalization of sexuality by emphasizing inter-Asia modeling, referencing, and solidarities and debunks the essentializing myth of Chineseness, thereby decolonizing Western sexual knowledge and demonstrating the differential meanings of Chineseness/queerness across the Sinophone world.

Western theories are often universalized, with non-Western experiences serving as empirical data for validation. The sociology of homosexuality suffers from this predicament. This article proposes a transnational queer sociology that challenges the dominance of the Western sociology of homosexuality, generates mutually referenced queer experiences that are often missing in the study of the globalization of sexuality, and engages sociology with queer theory by bringing material and textual analyses together in understanding sexualities. Through meta-analysis of the existing literature, the article conceptualizes the early histories of tongzhi (LGBT+) identities in three Chinese societies: Hong Kong and Taiwan (1980s and 1990s) and China (late 1990s and early 2000s). It demonstrates that the formation of those identities in such periods respectively was the result of both differential Western impacts and mutually referencing effects among the three locales. The article thus provincializes Western sexual knowledge and provides nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of contemporary Chinese homosexualities.

The sociology of homosexuality lacks engagement with queer theory and postcolonialism and focuses primarily on the global metropoles, thus failing to provide a plausible account of non-Western non-normative sexual identities. This research adopts the author's newly proposed transnational queer sociology to address these deficiencies. First, it critiques the Western model of sexual identity predominantly employed to elucidate non-Western, non-normative sexualities. It does so by examining not only the queer flows between West and non-West but also those among and within non-Western contexts to produce translocally shared and mutually referenced experiences. Second, the proposed approach combines sociology with queer theory by emphasizing the significant role of material, as well as discursive, analyses in shaping queer identities, desires and practices. This article employs the approach to examine young gay male identities, as revealed in 90 in-depth interviews conducted in Hong Kong (n = 30), Taiwan (Taipei, n = 30) and mainland China (Shanghai, n = 30) between 2017 and 2019. More specifically, it highlights the interplay between the state and identity by investigating the intersection and intertwining effects of these young men's sexual and cultural/national identities, revealing three different forms of civic-political activism. The article both demonstrates the way in which sexuality and the state are mutually constituted and provides nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of contemporary homosexualities in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. In applying a new sociological approach to understanding sexuality, this research joins the growing body of scholarship within sociology that is decentring the Western formation of universal knowledge.

Recent debates in critical studies of men and masculinities center around the intricate relationship between neoliberalism and male identity formation. Drawing on narratives from in-depth interview...

This article seeks a dialogue between masculinity studies and generational sexuality studies by comparing two generations of gay men in Hong Kong through in-depth interviews with 15 older gay men born before the 1950s and 25 young gay men born after 1990 using a life course approach. The article highlights the sociohistorical and political changes shaping male identity, practice, and culture in colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong, and identifies responsibility and respectability as two key dimensions in the construction of Chinese masculinity. It argues that the two generations under study accomplish gay masculinities against changing Chinese masculine ideals and hetero/homonormativities sensitive to different social relations and institutions, as well as engage in constant negotiation with the dominant heteronormative life course and need to manage stigma. Drawing on the narratives of the participants from the two generations, the article examines continuity and change in the idealized and practiced forms of masculinity embedded in different institutions, thereby providing a nuanced understanding of the transformations of Chinese generational masculinities under broad social–historical changes.

Although Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China broadly share common social and cultural norms rooted in Confucian values and culturally Chinese family ideals, they have developed distinct political and economic trajectories since 1949 that have created very different possibilities for LGBT movements. Coming from the conservative political, social, and moral milieu of the 1950s through the 1970s, in the 1980s and 1990s, these societies witnessed a blooming of sexually alternative, even queer, cultural productions, commercial venues, and political activism, together with distinctive “gay,” “lesbian,” or tongzhi identities, among other self-identification labels. By the late 20th century, flows of people, ideas, concepts, and relationships had grown increasingly salient for emerging terms of identification and modes of organizing in all three societies. The diverse combinations of democracy, socialism, authoritarianism, and postcolonialism have shaped the content and direction of sexuality-based identities and sexual rights movements in these three societies. How explicitly these communities pursued visibility and claimed sexually specific identities, however, varied significantly both internally and in comparison across the three societies. The shared histories have created significant commonalities across the region; yet the different degrees of physical and societal openness and the extent of access to domestic and foreign interlocutors in these three societies have produced striking differences in LGBT citizens’ ability to claim diverse rights and protections under multifaceted forms of sexual citizenship.

Globally, there has been increasing public health and scholarly interest in chemsex, where the consumption of drugs is related to enhancing sexual pleasure, often in a group context, particularly among gay men or men who have sex with other men (MSM). Since the early 2000s, Hong Kong has witnessed the growth of a chemsex scene. In recent years, HIV/AIDs surveillance reports indicate that chemsex goers have contributed to the rise of HIV infections among MSM, and with increasing pressure from frontline workers, the government has recently acknowledged that this is an emerging issue. Drawing on neoliberalism as a policy framework, ideology, and mode of government, this article traces the adoption of neoliberal discourses of harm reduction in HIV/AIDS and drug policies in Hong Kong. We argue that this emergent issue is the result of two divergent policy orientations, thereby leading to a critical health service gap. This article examines the intersection between HIV/AIDS and drug policies in a particular cultural context to underscore health policy gaps and extend our understanding of the construction of neoliberal subjects in health policies beyond the West.

Through a meta-literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homosexual subject under major socio-economic and political changes. Chinese sociology of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western knowledge production and the political ideology of the communist party-state. Fused with the bio-medical model and the state's modernization project in the 1980s–1990s, the sociological study adopted a functionalist and positivistic approach with survey-based methodology in the main which focused on the etiology of homosexuality. A new transnational knowledge production of sociology of homosexuality has formed since the 2000s which has shifted towards a constructivist/ post-structuralist approach and reflexive qualitative methodology. The new sociological study examines the rise of male (as well as female) homosexual identity in China, questions the hetero/homosexual binary and discusses how an individual makes sense of homosexual identity to form same-sex intimate relationships. By tracing the epistemology of homosexuality in contemporary China, this paper rethinks the dominance of the Western construction and the role of the state in shaping the knowledge of homosexuality and proposes alternative spaces for theorizing Chinese sexual identities, desires and practices.

China’s reconfiguration of the state and the market in its reform era has created new spaces and opportunities that have attracted millions of rural migrants to urban centres in search of freedom, wealth and new identities. However, the new space and the self both remain constricted by post-socialist parameters and the market. Based on ethnographic research on the male sex industry in post-socialist China (2004–2014), this article studies one such group of the rural-to-urban migrant population, namely male sex workers, or ‘money boys’ in the local parlance. Building on existing migration and prostitution literatures in China and my previous work, this article examines the ways they become money boys and manage three stigmatised identities – rural-to-urban migrant, men who sell sex and men who have sex with men – in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. This article concludes that money boys represent a group of the new migrant generation with distinct needs and desires, which is simultaneously embedded in the neoliberal discourse of development and empowerment, and at risk of dislocation and isolation.

This paper draws on 24 in-depth interviews and 2 focus-group discussions conducted since 2012 with Hong Kong heterosexual men who buy sex in order to examine men's level of physical and emotional engagement with sex workers under two dominant sexual scripts in contemporary Hong Kong. Torn between companionate sexuality, with its companionate model of relationships, and recreational sexuality, with its promiscuous model of sexual pleasure, Hong Kong male clients seek to satisfy their sexual and affective needs through commercial sexual relationships. The term (meaning 'chicken worm', connoting a 'McSex' form of masculinity) refers to those men who seek impersonal sexual release with as many women as they wish, while the term (meaning 'sunken boat' and connoting a 'Titanic' form of masculinity) refers to those men who seek an intense level of emotional intimacy with sex workers. Between these two contrasting types, the majority of respondents fall into a form of 'bounded' masculinity characteristic of men who emphasise control and balance by seeking emotionally responsive women in a time-bound romance. By comparing clients' variations in the level of physical and emotional engagement with sex workers, this paper seeks to understand individual differences in client types and offers a new understanding of Chinese male sexuality and relationship formation, and the corresponding health risks (e.g., sexual, emotional) associated with each type.

This entry first provides a brief history of the study of Asian sexuality in sociology, followed by an examination of four major aspects of sexual cultures in Asia: changes in marriage, love and sexuality; homosexuality; the sex trade; and the HIV/AIDS situations in countries across Asia.

Modern heteronormativity in Hong Kong has been produced via British colonialism, land developers, and the family, and maintained through post-colonial administration. Together, these factors have resulted in a heterosexual culture of intimacy with rigid public/private distinctions. Homonormativity has emerged with the rise of tongzhi (synonym for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) space in Hong Kong since the 1990s, but has had the effect of marginalizing certain tongzhi along lines of class, age, and the body. Based on the narratives of 14 older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong, this article discusses how they have negotiated same-sex intimacy in everyday sites at two specific times – in their parents’ homes and public toilets in the 1940s–1950s, when homosexuality was a crime and homosexual identity had not yet developed; and in their own homes and within the present-day tongzhi world, which presents them with new opportunities and challenges. Using a post-structuralist conception of power/resistance that juxtaposes power and resistance in the same site, this article argues that the private home and public spaces are sites of governmentality/resistance while tongzhi spaces are sites of desire/domination, with class and age being important social identifiers of Hong Kong gay men. Through radical use of spaces, a tongzhi heterotopia can be created and practised in both hetero-/homo-sexual worlds. This article contributes to the sociology of sexuality by exploring how governmentality via British colonialism (and post-colonialism), land use, and the family shape tongzhi bodies and space, exposing the domination of hetero-/homo-normativities in tongzhi lives, and highlighting tongzhi resistance in Hong Kong.

Based on ethnographic research on the male sex industry in China since 2004, sociologist Travis S.K. Kong examines how male rural migrants become male sex workers (or “money boys”) and explains how to make sense of their lives within the context of China’s quest for urbanization, modernization, and globalization. Money boys have found opportunities opened up in new spaces by the development of the market economy, the burgeoning of the sex industry, and the emergence of the gay community in reform China; however, they are struggling in these new spaces of social exclusion, legal constraints, and cultural domination.

As part of a massive rural-to-urban migrant population in post-Mao reform era China, rural male migrants in their early twenties are increasingly entering the sex industry, which offers same-sex sexual services to other men. These young men, known as “money boys,” form a new urban subject. From continuous ethnographic research on the male sex industry in China since 2004, the author argues that this new urban subject represents the site of multiple contradictions in China's continual transformations, which are at once authoritarian and neoliberal. The neoliberal reconfiguration, such as development strategies, commercialization of bodies, and liberalization of identities, opens up new social and sexual spaces and nurtures in thema new enterprising and desiring ethics of the self. However, their pursuit of needs, wants, and desires for work, love, and sex remains constricted by authoritarian codes such as the hukou system, antiprostitution measures, and the stratified cosmopolitan tongzhi community. Money ...

Situated in the masculinity and deviance literature, this article examines a “deviant” masculinity, that of the male sex worker, and presents the ways men who engage in sex work cope with the job. Based on in-depth interviews of Chinese male sex workers (n = 18) in the Hong Kong sex industry, I argue that the stigma management techniques these men employ are simultaneously gender strategies they use to accomplish masculinity. It is through this process that they negotiate a masculine identity within the hierarchy of masculinities in order to become “respectable” and “responsible” Chinese men.

The sexual behaviour and HIV risks among Chinese MSM in rural areas are grossly under-researched. The aims of this study were to explore the process and formation as well as the factors in an initiation of sexual relationship or act in among MSM in this cultural setting. Twenty-four in-depth interviews and observation were conducted in Dali prefecture in two field visits in 2004 and the data were analysed using grounded theory and an ethnographic decision model. We found their sexual relationship can be understood as a negotiation process with self, family and society, some of which (e.g. emotional and physical needs; rationalization in choosing partners) are common in all MSM groups while others (e.g. sex hierarchy or role of family) are geographically and culturally more unique or prominent for rural China. By better understanding of these decision processes, more effective and target-orientated intervention programmes can be implemented fighting against HIV/AIDS in this sexually marginalized sub-group of the population.

This article seeks to investigate the complexity of the working experiences of female prostitutes in Hong Kong, using an oral history approach. Based on 13 in-depth interviews, I depict my respondents as performing the skilled emotional labour of sex in exchange for their clients’ money. Looking at the ways in which the women manage the job, the self and the business, I argue that their major problem is not with the commercial transaction (that is, the content of the work itself), nor with the ‘conflict’ between their personal and work selves, but with the social stigma, surveillance and dangers at their workplaces. Inspired by a post-structuralist conception of power and identity formation, I propose a women-centred lived-experience feminist approach in the hope of filling the gap between the bipolar imageries of ‘sexual slavery’ or ‘sex radical’ that have been thrown up in the feminist debate over the meaning of prostitution. This approach emphasizes the inter-relationships among women’s lived experiences, the micro-sites of social surveillance and the macro-condition of wider society. Although Hong Kong female prostitutes are not ‘political’ in fighting for their rights and benefits, they have tended to take the path of micro-resistance in combating societal domination. They negotiate an identity of the ‘prostitute’ that is sensitive and flexible to different institutional areas that seems to jeopardize the neat binaries of madonna/ whore, good girl/bad girl, victim/warrior, conformist/radical. This allows them to create their own space to work and survive.

This article investigates the embodied identities of Hong Kong gay men in two different `sites of desire', namely London and Hong Kong. In London, Hong Kong gay men have constantly encountered the intertwining relationships between race and sexuality in the constellation of the Western construction of body/desire/masculinity. By contrast, Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong tend to place more emphasis on issues of family and culture. The main site of struggle for Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong is the family-oriented and community-based environment. They adopt not a confrontational politics in a constitutional sense but rather derive tactics of microscopic resistance against societal and familial domination. By comparing 34 Hong Kong gay men living in London and Hong Kong, I argue the divergent constructions of being gay in these two contexts. Through the `voices' of these gay men, I criticize the `Western' construction of identity/the body and offer new insights into the discussion of gay identities.

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne (Bundoora), VIC, Australia (D Altman MA); National Centre in HIV Social Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia (P Aggleton PhD); Michael Kirby Centre for Public Health and Human Rights, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia (M Williams LLB); University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong (T Kong PhD); Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa (V Reddy PhD); Grupo Dignidade, Curitiba, Brazil (D Harrad MA); Associacao Brasileira de Lesbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais, Curitiba, Brazil (T Reis PhD); and Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (R Parker PhD)

This study is the first to examine the role of partner type in sexual practices of men who have sex with men (MSM) in China. Using cross-sectional self-administered questionnaires (N=692) with MSM in six Chinese cities (Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xi'an, Dalian and Beijing) in 2008, this paper examines MSM's sexual practices, particularly condom use with different male and female partner types. We categorise sexual partner relationships into five types: partner/spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, acquaintance, stranger and sex worker and hypothesise that the greater the affective distance between the partners, the greater the likelihood of engaging with intimate act and the lesser likelihood condom use. Results show that respondents had more MSM than heterosexual experiences. Relationships tended to be short-term, multiple (more than two) and concurrent (simultaneously two or more) principally with other men and to a lesser degree with women. Findings reveal that affective distance varied with partner types. Respondents performed more intimate acts (e.g., kissing, caressing) with intimate or stable partners (partner/spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend) than casual or unknown partners (acquaintance, stranger, sex worker). Condom use decreased when the affective distance with a partner increased. We conclude that partner type is a key factor of HIV infection among MSM in China; short-term, multiple and concurrent relationships are clear risk factors. Future research should focus on the subjective varied meanings of relationships, the idea of trust and the dynamics with different relationships to understand HIV infection of MSM in China.

Based on forty-five in-depth interviews with Hong Kong Chinese gay men, this chapter discusses how non-heterosexuals 'do' family and intimacy. It views family as representing "a constructed quality of human interaction or an active process rather than a thing-like object of social investigation". The chapter is drawn from a larger project of de-centring heteronormative processes of gender conventionality, heterosexuality and family traditionalism and 'doing family', respectively; through ninety personal stories of gay Chinese men collected in Hong Kong, London and mainland China between 1996 and 2008, some of which involved ongoing conversations. Interviews were free-flowing in style but focused on these men's identity formation in relation to their experiences about love, intimacy and family. The chapter highlights that alternative lifestyles and sexual and intimate relationships that might go beyond the culture of 'compulsory monogamy' and the notion of coupledom have slowly emerged, and need more attention and investigation. Keywords: compulsory monogamy; doing family; Hong Kong Chinese gay men; marital relationship; non-heterosexuals

Objectives: To identify key factors affecting condom use among male sex workers (MSW) who serve men in China. Method: In-depth semi-structured face-to-face interviews in Beijing and Shanghai, China. Informants were recruited through referral from a non-governmental organisation with a strong men who have sex with men (MSM) network and the snowball technique. Results: Between 2004 and 2005, 30 MSW were interviewed (Beijing n = 14; Shanghai n = 16). The MSW in this study were mainly single, young, homosexual, rural migrants with secondary education. None practised safer sex in their home towns. Until they migrated to big cities and entered the sex industry, they did not develop safer sex practices. They reported high condom use at work, but more than half of them (n = 17) had not been tested for HIV. Four factors, derived from the interviews and correlated to their rural background, sexual orientation and sex work identity, put MSW at risk of HIV/sexually transmitted infections (STI): incorrect AIDS knowledge; economic hardship; homosexual orientation and over-trusting in sexual relationships. Conclusion: MSW, a distinctive but often neglected group in both studies and sentinel surveillance among the MSM population in China, deserve special attention. There is not only potential for HIV/STI infection among the MSM population but also for infecting the general public. Education and prevention programmes should take their three major interlocking identities: rural migrant, sex worker and homosexual into consideration in social, cultural and economic contexts in China.

What comes to your mind when you think about Asian men? The Kung Fu masters Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, famous for their martial art skills? Or those who excel professionally such as Yo Yo Ma (a cello player), Michael Chang (a tennis player) and Yao Ming (a basketball player)? What about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's who plays the grumpy, almost hysterical Japanese landlord who constantly shouts at Audrey Hepburn? Or William Hung, the infantile and non-threatening (sexually and physically) Chinese boy who jumps and sings with "no regrets" in American Idoll

Objectives: To explore the characteristics and issues specific to HIV related risk behaviours among men who have sex with men (MSM) in rural China. Method: Qualitative study using semistructured in-depth interviews in Dali prefecture, Yunnan. 24 informants recruited through a local MSM network, snowballing and byword of mouth. The main outcome measures were themes identified as increased exposures and risks to HIV. Results: Risk behaviour, social stigma, one child policy and concepts of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) had significant roles in the spread of HIV in rural China. Many MSM lead a life with double identities in China and condom use was found to be variable with attempts to "rationalise" the risky behaviour being its major determining factor. Health seeking behaviours of genitourinary problems were infrequent and illogical, which were further held back by the existing healthcare system and lack of sensitivity expressed by the health professionals. Conclusions: Clear education messages to the general public while raising awareness among health professionals of the health risks and needs in MSM are essential in the prevention of the current HIV epidemic., link_to_OA_fulltext