Homosexual Behaviors in Contemporary China

Sampling of homosexual males in the People's Republic of China has been impossible to undertake until recently, when greater openness and reforms have surfaced a more visible gay male population and provided opportunities for face-to-face interviews. We review a brief history of male homosexuality in China, and go on to report on 165 convenience sample interviews with homosexual men collected in 1993 in four cities throughout China. Supporting structured interview data are data from ethnographic interviews with over 520 self-admitted gay males, also collected during city visits. Data show broad variation in the range of sexual orientation as well as practices in the sample, some social class and educational segregation practiced with partner selection and social activities, and sizeable percentages married, with children, practicing covertly or acting bisexually. Active and passive roles in the sexual relationship are not mutually exclusive, and do not reinforce cultural gender role notions present in Chinese heterosexual relations, nor underscore traditional homosexual roles already copiously reported in the historical literature on the practice in China. This is the first sizeable data set on Chinese male homosexuals to reach the Western professional press since reforms began in 1979.