Negotiating homosexual identities: the experiences of men who have sex with men in Guangzhou

Abstract

This paper reports on an ethnographic study of male homosexuality in contemporary Chinese society. The study focused on how men negotiated with the mainstream Chinese heterosexual society and in so doing constructed their sexual identities. The factors found to inform sexual identity were: the cultural imperative of heterosexual marriage, normative family obligations, desired gender roles, emotional experiences and a need for social belonging. The four types of sexual identities constructed included: establishing a deliberate non-homosexual identity, accumulating an individual homosexual identity, forming a collective homosexual identity and adopting a flexible sexual identity. For the men interviewed, sexual identity was both fluid and fragmented, derived from highly personalised negotiations between individualised needs and social and cultural constructs. The analysis is set against the background of China's rapid and recent economic development, shifting national and international social environments and improved access to the Internet.