Queering Democracy Activism and Online Obscenities: Hong Kong Women’s Boys’ Love Protest

Abstract

This essay focuses on women’s contributions to democracy activism as part of an ongoing fight for more tolerant community standards and censorship legislation. It looks at how Hong Kong Boys’ Love fans use Facebook to circulate gay-themed erotica and sexually explicit media despite a rigid ban on depictions of sex and nudity. Secondly, it discusses a specific Facebook community, Lester Alex HeHe (捍衛 佔領巫山團), also nicknamed “Alexter,” that was set up during the Hong Kong Umbrella movement. As part of the movement for universal suffrage and Hong Kong’s political self-determination, Boys’ Love fans started posting political updates and also “queered” the political-activist mission by posting soft-erotic gay fantasies about the university student leaders.