Chinese Writer Sentenced to 10 Years in Jail for Writing Gay Erotica

Yet ironically, Chinese artists and writers have been producing pornography for centuries!

In 2018 a Chinese novelist known as “Tianyi” was sentenced to 10 years in prison for writing and distributing — of all things — a homoerotic novel.

Her severe sentence provoked widespread debate throughout China on the issue of pornography. After all, pornography was traditionally a taboo subject in the Middle Kingdom.

Tianyi’s novel “Occupy” was described by police as depicting “obscene sexual behaviour between males”. Her defenders meanwhile described it as an accurate and poignant description of a troubled same-sex relationship. They praised her elegant prose and realistic style, criticising the government for allowing a ridiculously-long sentence despite the fact that there were far worse crimes being committed daily in China.

Among the Chinese-speaking public the debate then went along the lines of — “Should producing erotic material be punishable by law?” After all, a novel isn’t as blatantly shocking as a hardcore pornographic film, for instance. Also, China has always produced erotic material going back centuries. Some fascinating examples dating from the Qing Dynasty are shown below:

The argument then turns to — “Should producing homosexual erotica be illegal?” After all, the Communist party had declared homosexuality as a “disgraceful” and “undesirable” practice. Needless to say, homosexuals were heavily persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and were completely invisible during Chairman Mao’s era.

What then about works of art such as these?

The 19th Century painting depicts, in accurate detail no less, a pair of partially-undressed young Chinese men wearing costumes from the Ming Dynasty (at least a couple of centuries before the artist’s lifetime) having homosexual intercourse. One man (the older one, judging from his headdress) sits on an elaborate carpet on the floor, his lover (who wears a boy’s hairstyle and is thus probably in his teens) straddling him and being penetrated by him. Meanwhile, the older guy strokes the boy’s erect penis with his left hand and his right had reaches up to play with the boy’s right nipple.

Honestly, this scene could have come straight out of any gay pornographic film made today, much less a painting dating from the 19th Century!

So no, saying that homosexuality has no place in Chinese culture (just because Chairman Mao thought it was indecent), is really ignoring the evidence. Ancient Chinese society was surprisingly open to “scandalous” sexual activities ranging from wild orgies in wealthy men’s harems to sexual relations between men. At least in certain, very specific situations. We’ll take a look and explore this further.

Sex and Sexuality in Ancient China

The more we investigate the history of China, the more we realise that the current taboo status of sex and sexual topics there was more the result of an overarching patriarchal social structure on the populace. Chinese philosophies like Confucianism promoted the idea that men are the leaders and heads of families and thus women occupied a low status. Women from the middle and upper classes were not allowed to work and served the family only as child-bearers and nurturers.

A wealthy man in ancient China was expected to have one legal wife, but depending on his wealth and station, one or more concubines —usually a girl who was purchased specifically (yes, slavery was legal in ancient China) to serve as his “secondary wife” and who had fewer rights than his legal wife. The higher up on the social ladder he was, the more concubines he could have.

Meanwhile, a woman was expected to be loyal to one man until his death.

As a result, a woman was expected to be faultlessly loyal to her husband and only bear his children. This meant that the only kind of desirable bride is a virgin one and women who were caught in premarital relationships were severely punished and disowned by their families.

Having a child out of wedlock was the worst crime a woman could commit (with the possible exception of killing her own husband, but that is a topic for another day). Therefore, anything sex-related that could potentially be available to impressionable young virgin girls became culturally off-limits, lest young women be tempted to experiment! Men were not limited in the same way of course, just because men were after all, the owners and masters of women. In fact, it wasn’t until the 16th Century that homosexuality was outlawed in China.

Chinese men in prior centuries, rather like men in Ancient Greece and Rome, could sleep with whomever they wanted, unlike women, whose functions as wives and mothers meant that their sole purpose was to bear their husbands’ children.

It is in this curious state of affairs that a lot of the newer (“newer” in China could mean “from a few centuries ago”) pornographic materials were produced.

Ancient Pornography

It’s no secret that China has been producing erotic art for centuries. But unlike modern times, the artwork was not meant for the masses. Instead, pornographic artwork and erotic literature were privately commissioned, almost always by wealthy male patrons.

They served as sex education primarily for boys and young men.

As such, they were most often centred on the the “male-gaze” with the man being the main “experiencer”. The painting above depicts a young man having a threesome with his wife and concubine. The wife had a more elaborate hairstyle and jewellery and both the ladies have bound feet, an extremely painful practice inflicted on young girls to ensure their feet remained small and dainty. Chinese pornography from this period often fetishised the tiny feet of the females participants, which was considered sexually attractive. The concubine is wearing a dudou, an apron-like undergarment worn to cover the breasts. It served as lingerie and was often featured in erotic art as well, exactly like modern lingerie.

The painting above, from even earlier than the 19th Century, shows a naked man having his way with three women, presumably concubines. Two of the ladies clearly have tiny bound feet, while the one of the right, has normal-sized feet.

Finally, this example is very interesting:

The sex scene (which wouldn’t be out of place in a 21st Century bisexual porn movie) involves one woman and two men. The woman (wearing her red dudou lingerie) is balancing herself on the back of one naked man, while another naked man takes turns penetrating her vagina and the other man’s anus. Two birds with one stone, how about that?

Sex in China Today

Compared with other countries, China’s anti-indecency laws. many of them put in place during the Cultural Revolution and the Communist Era, are more numerous and specific. The government still regulates sexuality to a very high degree. Opening a brothel here and there might be tolerated to a certain degree, but writing and publishing a novel might get you in deep trouble.

In 2010, Ma Xiaohai, computer science professor from Nanjing was sentenced to prison for three and a half years for organising what Americans would call a “swingers party”. The Chinese authorities labelled it a “wife-swapping party” and accused him and the other participants of “group licentiousness”.

In 2021 a Chinese court upheld a ruling that a textbook description of homosexuality as “a psychological disorder” was not an error but merely an “academic view”.

Another Writer Get Jail Sentence

Besides the unfortunate case of Tianyi, another writer named Tang, who writes homoerotic stories online was sentenced to four years in jail for illegally publishing and selling “obscene” books.

And that’s not all. In the same case, two owners of an online book shop were sentenced to three and a half years in prison, while three owners of the printing factory were given two and a half years! All that just for publishing and distributing erotic novels.

China still has a long way to go.

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