Comparing the Lives of Gay Men in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China

Travis S. K. Kong's new book is a bold, insightful contribution to the growing literature on gay sexualities in three Chinese-speaking societies. Kong shows how the experiences of men growing up in the People's Republic of China (mostly Shanghai), the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the Republic of China in Taiwan are all impacted by the rise of China. In contrast to the cultural and media studies approach dominant in the field, Kong's book uses life stories and first-hand ethnographic observations to compare young gay sexualities in these three regions. Building on the sexual storytelling method of Kong's mentor Kenneth Plummer (1995), to whom this book is dedicated, Kong's approach is sympathetic and humanistic, offering clear accounts of how young men experience growing up gay in these diverging contexts. Kong shows how men dealing with similar personal dilemmas develop distinctive attitudes and strategies under the influences of contrasting social structures and political environments. Kong thus sociologizes queer theory by paying equal attention to the social institutions and discourses key in shaping genders and sexualities. Sexuality and the Rise of China situates the study of sexuality in this politically volatile East Asian context. This is not just another study of transnational Sinophone discourses but a timely ethnography of the tense and rapidly evolving geopolitics of Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese sexualities. This focus alone makes the book an impactful contribution to sexuality studies in Asia.Kong's approach decenters Western-centric accounts of queer history by providing simultaneously transnational and local histories of the development of contemporary tongzhi identities and cultures. (Tongzhi is the Mandarin term adopted to refer to gay men across these contexts.) The book shows how the state, the market economy, and civil society (family, religion, NGOs, popular culture) shape the divergent pathways through which gay men become sexual subjects in these three societies. However, when we look at the microlevel situations of these men, commonalities also stand out. First, Kong argues that there is a double closet in all three societies characterized by the tension between heterosexuality and homosexuality and the tension between performing and not performing a traditional familial role as filial son. Influenced by patriarchal Chinese traditions, family life is the main site of struggle for most of these men. In contrast with the previous generations, the young generation generally chooses to come out publicly, although there are differences among these coming-out patterns in the three locales, with gay men in Taiwan more likely to be out actively and gay men in China still struggling between in and out. Hong Kong men seem somewhere in the middle. Second, in all three regions Kong shows the dominance of a homonormative masculinity with four features: masculinized gender performance, coupled intimacy, middle-class sensibility, and (although this plays out differently in the three societies) a general political conservatism. Third, across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China, Kong argues, men experience monogamy as an example of “cruel optimism,” defined as something you desire but that is actually an obstacle to your flourishing (Berlant 2011). In response, men develop various strategies for negotiating with the monogamous ideal, with many forming varied types of nonmonogamous relationships. Although Kong emphasizes how structural and political conditions influence how men deal with these dilemmas in each society, the similar nature of these predicaments stand out throughout in his ethnography, with the family at the center.One arena in which gay men in these three regions differ most is in how they engage with national identity and political activism. Kong uses the concept of homonationalism to show how the three governments exert both enabling and restricting effects on homosexuality, revealing three contrasting versions of homonationalism. Kong labels these as incorporative homonationalism in Taiwan, deficient homonationalism in Hong Kong, and pragmatic homonationalism in mainland China. The three distinctive cultural/national identities (Taiwanese, Hongkonger, and Chinese national) have given rise to three distinct identifications with nationalism, resulting in turn in three separate forms of civic-political activism that variously align with or contradict the states’ positions on homosexuality. We thus see that sexuality is inherently implicated in the tense nationalist struggles ongoing in this region.Overall, Sexuality and the Rise of China is a highly innovative account both empirically and conceptually. Kong deftly engages with a vast corpus of Western and non-Western literatures while remaining grounded in personal and local narratives. The book situates these stories in current topics of concern (e.g., coming out and family, queer community and commons, pink economy, queer love, homonationalism, globalization of sexuality, Chineseness) and offers new insights on how young gay sexualities intertwine with local histories of the state, market, and civil society. Rather than forcing the three societies into a linear narrative of emancipation and ranking them as more closed or open, Kong instead emphasizes their similarities and differences across multiple dimensions. Both shared histories and global influences have produced significant commonalities such as neoliberal entrepreneurial masculinity, neo-familism, relational politics, homonormative masculinity, and the monogamous ideal as cruel optimism. However, we see notable differences in how these men deal with coming out, how they connect with each other over the internet, and how they think about the official governance of homosexuality. The result is a transnational queer sociology that addresses Western theories while decentering the West as the universal exemplar of societal and sexual transformations. Kong thus frames Sexuality and the Rise of China as a contribution to the decolonizing movement in sociology. The book also is a vivid ethnographic account that can be assigned to undergraduate as well as graduate students interested in a readable, non-Western perspective on queer sociology.