I've researched LGBT rights and history in China and it has said that homosexuality was accepted as a normal part of society. There were even gay people that were part of royalty back in Ancient China. I wonder what happened to their accepting society. Even though you won't get arrested for being gay in public, many people would lose respect for you. Chinese families would lose face when their son or daughter (if they even have one) comes out as gay. Gay people even marry the opposite gender to humor their parents rather than to tell them.
If I recall correctly, it was when the British took over that China's gay rights plummeted with the introduction of anti-buggery laws and general intolerance to gay people.
^ this nothing new here also, marrying opposite gender is pretty much like, what do you call that, fake marriage? idk ._.
^ Wearing a beard. Oh, yes. The British sure did a load of good for China back then, didn't they? Opium, buggery laws, white colonial superiority...
but look at hong kong! it's now much more liberal or something? though interestingly, i was a church kid in hong kong while most of my relatives either still worship dead people or dont give a fuck about religion
Didn't know Britain played such a large role in how today's society treats the LGBT community. Learn something new every day... Quite disappointing.
HK is in general a lot more Liberal since we like to distance ourselves from mainland Chinese and hate being grouped as the same.
Do they have similar heteronormal standards in China to the conservative West? An extremely sheltered girl from there I knew said that she was surprised that I cooked my own food as a male. Whereas another Chinese student I knew dressed in "gay" clothes, watched Desperate Housewives, had limp wristed, "Oh you are awful" style mannerisms, said that he was too fat despite having a >30" waistline and cooked more than any the rest of us in the flat. He said that he wanted to get a girlfriend, get married and have a child or two, as his family expected and when our flatmate said that he was gay, he denied it. Moreover, he was studying the role of men in a predominantly female area of work for his dissertation and that was apparently his idea. My point there is that by Western standards, many would assume that he's gay, but he denies that both in Britain and China. Does that mean it's acceptable for straight men to act like that where he comes from? Do you think it has much to do with the laws concerning having children?
this is like asking if some things european men do are gay... at least that's how i interpret it. I have no idea how to answer you. as for the Deseparate Housewives thing. It's just a show ._. I never understand why people categorize entertainment as gay or straight or whatever... It's interesting sometimes to see plot holes in a show, at least for me
I'm not saying they are. I'm saying that things like that make people like my other flatmates at the time think that other people are gay and in the West, I would expect someone who doesn't want people to think that even if he is straight, to play it all down.
In general, almost all Chinese families believe that their kid is straight, no matter what. Traditional chinese families don't really correlate flamboyant mannerisms with being gay.
The British Empire brought 'buggery' laws with it wherever it went, and these have survived to this day in many former British colonial possessions. For example 'buggery' laws inherited from the colonial era also still criminalize gay relationships in Caribbean nations like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
I don't know about China as much, but Japanese anime suggests that being an effeminate guy in Japan is not considered a sign that you're gay. I can only think of a few gay male anime characters off the top of my head, as opposed to many effeminate straight male characters.
The stereotype is that East Asian men are somehow less 'masculine' than their western counterparts (less body hair, smaller on average, emphasis on humility and restraint, etc). Sadly, I've seen this stereotype even from members in the gay community, assuming all Asian men are these asexual, effeminate ghosts. Don't get me started on the ruckus made on another forum when the topic of Japanese men sitting down to urinate made.
