Regulation of pornography and criminalization of BL readers and authors in contemporary China (2010–2019)

ABSTRACT

Foucauldian works on censorship have revealed that censorship produces, rather than prohibits, media content, the economy of which reflects political conflicts between different ideologies of its contemporary. This is especially true in the pre-porn era, when self-regulation has not been legally established in the media industry and with anti-censorship liberalism yet to become an indisputable truth. Heavily censored in China, yaoi/BL (Boys’ Love) fiction is recognized worldwide as women’s exploration of eroticism and subjectivity. Chinese BL censorship provides a rare case for studying the implied gender and media politics in a context without normalized commodification of sexuality for a divided market. Since 2000, there is an increase of censorship, commodification, and criminalization of BL, alongside waves of anti-pornography campaigns and an upsurge of internet feminist movement foregrounding women’s sexual freedom. This paper examines three legal cases to study the relationship between queer pornography, gender, and censorship: the cases of fujoshi Ding Yanyan (2010–2011), yaoi writer Tianyi (2017–2019), and BL writer Shenhaixiansheng (2017–2019). Adopting a mixed method of discourse analysis, textual analysis, and case studies, I draw research data from television programmes, online video records, the open verdicts, criminal law articles, discussions of the cases online, and Ding’s petition letter. I argue that regulation of pornography in China is objective and fixed in its measurement of sanction, but contextually and structurally gendered. However, women’s guerrilla battles push us to recognize the brutality of misogyny, even if it is implied in yaoi, and the yaoi fans and authors are ready to dwell their fantasies on women’s bodies and celebrate their own gender.

KEYWORDS:

• BL
• yaoi eroticism
• censorship
• queer pornography
• slash fiction
• fujoshi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council [grant number 2009601027].

Notes on contributors

Meijiadai Bai

Dr. Meijiadai Bai is a lecturer at Liaoning University, China. She completed her doctoral studies in Communications at the Institute of Communications Research, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research examines gender, class, nationality in censorship and fandom in China, and representation of adapted traditional Chinese folklore.