Girl power in boy love: Yaoi, online female counterculture, and digital feminism in China

Abstract

This article employs in-depth interviews with 64 female authors of Yaoi fiction, a popular online narrative genre among young Chinese women, to examine the discursive strategies adopted in their creation of homoerotic stories, and theorize such strategies within contemporary Chinese political, cultural, and social contexts. Three discursive constructions are distilled and discussed through analysis of Yaoi fictionists’ cultural production practices: the idealization of intimate relationship, the deconstruction of the heteropatriarchal gender norm through female gaze, and the imagination of female power in negotiation with state discourse. The article then indicates the deliberate intention incorporated in the production of the Yaoi counterculture to subvert the state-backed gender hegemony. It proposes that a comprehensive understanding of contemporary Chinese feminism can only be achieved through intersectional analysis of its interactions with China’s authoritarian state discourse, and calls for closer attention to the feminist political potential brought about by digital technology.