Nonnormative Masculinity in Danmei Literature: ‘Maiden Seme’ and Sajiao

Year 2021, , 106 - 123, 17.06.2021

Aiqing Wang

https://doi.org/10.17572/mj2021.1.106123

Cited By: 2

Abstract

Masculinity in contemporary China can be embodied by myriads of works featuring male-male same-sex intimacy and eroticism, which fall into a genre dubbed as danmei ‘addicted to beauty; indulgence in beauty’, aka Boys Love (BL). As a marginalised yet increasingly visible subculture, danmei writing has attracted legions of female producers/consumers, who are (self-)referred to as ‘rotten girls’. The female-oriented fiction is overwhelmingly marked by a conspicuous dichotomy differentiating seme (top) from uke (bottom) roles, and a prodigious amount of narratives concern feminisation of uke characters, motivated by the prevailing ‘soft masculinity’. Nonetheless, readers also delight in a subcategory of danmei featured by shaonü gong ‘maiden/adolescent-girl seme’ manifesting epicene demeanour and conducting sajiao which denotes playing cute/winsome/petulant or performing pettishness/coquettish. The sajiao acts of semes indicate authorial personae and the ‘cuteness’ youth culture, especially the ‘paradoxical cuteness’ integrating masculinity and femininity as well as cross-dressing and cross-gender performance. Furthermore, seme characterisation entailing enfeebled virility enables female readers to challenge heteropatriarchal and heteronormative zeitgeist, and it mitigates women’s dread and anxiety concerning sexual violence, exploitation and oppression in real-world contexts.

Keywords

danmei, feminised uke, maiden seme, sajiao, heteronormative

NONNORMATIVE MASCULINITY IN DANMEI LITERATURE: ‘MAIDEN SEME’ AND SAJIAO

Abstract

Masculinity in contemporary China can be embodied by myriads of works featuring male-male same-sex intimacy and eroticism, which fall into a genre dubbed as danmei ‘addicted to beauty; indulgence in beauty’, aka Boys Love (BL). As a marginalised yet increasingly visible subculture, danmei writing has attracted legions of female producers/consumers, who are (self-)referred to as ‘rotten girls’. The female-oriented fiction is overwhelmingly marked by a conspicuous dichotomy differentiating seme (top) from uke (bottom) roles, and a prodigious amount of narratives concern feminisation of uke characters, motivated by the prevailing ‘soft masculinity’. Nonetheless, readers also delight in a subcategory of danmei featured by shaonü gong ‘maiden/adolescent-girl seme’ manifesting epicene demeanour and conducting sajiao which denotes playing cute/winsome/petulant or performing pettishness/coquettish. The sajiao acts of semes indicate authorial personae and the ‘cuteness’ youth culture, especially the ‘paradoxical cuteness’ integrating masculinity and femininity as well as cross-dressing and cross-gender performance. Furthermore, seme characterisation entailing enfeebled virility enables female readers to challenge heteropatriarchal and heteronormative zeitgeist, and it mitigates women’s dread and anxiety concerning sexual violence, exploitation and oppression in real-world contexts.

Keywords

Danmei, feminised uke, ‘maiden seme’, sajiao, heteronormative

References

• Blair, M. M. 2010. ‘She Should Just Die in a Ditch’: Fan Reactions to Female Characters in Boys’ Love Manga. In Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-cultural Fandom of the Genre, eds. Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry and Dru Pagliassott, 110-125. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Chan, Alan and Sor-Hoon Tan. 2004. Introduction. In Filial piety in Chinese thought and history, eds. Alan Chan and Sor-Hoon Tan, 9-16. London: RoutledgeCurzon.