China is cracking down on young women who write gay erotica

“I was warned not to talk about it,” the woman wrote that she was arrested for publishing gay erotica before revealing the particles of the day.

“I will never forget – accompanying the car from full look, based on the humiliation of naked peeling in front of foreigners, putting a vest for photographs, sitting in the chair, trembling with fear, my heart hits.”

Hands, PingPing Anan Yongfu, in recent months, has been arrested for publishing gay erotic fiction in the Chinese social media platform Weibo. As the authors described their experiences, dozens of lawyers presented professional bonds.

In his statement to the BBC, at least 30 writers, almost all women in their 20s have been arrested since February. Many of them are waiting for bail or hearing, but some are still in custody. Another lawyer said he was called to question that he had made more contributions to the BBC.

They published his work on the city of Literary, a platform of Taiwan, known for his love of men and erotic fiction.

Think of it as a gay version of the fifty Shades of Gray: BDSM relationship. This is a common thing in historical, fantasy or sci -fi settings. Over the years, he has developed a violent follow -up, especially among young Chinese women.

These authors are accused of accusing China’s pornography law of “production and distribution of obscene material”. Writers who earn profit can be imprisoned for more than 10 years.

The law aims to “open explanations of gay sex or other sexual deviations”. Heterosexual depictions often have more gaps – the work of famous Chinese writers, including Nobel Prize -winning MO, have graphic sexual scenes, but are commonly available.

Although heterosexual erotic writers have been imprisoned in China, the observers say that the species is much less censored. Gay Erotica, who is more destructive, seems to be more uncomfortable with the authorities. Volunteers in a support group for Haitang writers said that the BBC police questioned even some readers.

Those who reported that he had been arrested, fear of echoes refused to interview. The police in the Northwest Lanzhou, accused of carrying out this pressure, did not respond to the BBC.

Online, pressure revealed a debate and a rare return to the law.

“Is sex really ashamed?” A Weibo user argued that China’s Obscenity laws did not come into contact. Another wrote that women could not decide what was obscene, because they did not control the narrative. Even legal academics expressed their concerns that only 5,000 views were described as “distribution” for anything that is considered “obscene” and that it was described as “distribution” and that it has reduced to arrest the creators.

Beijing made Beijing enough to disappear: #haitangauthorsared drew more than 30 million views about Weibo before he was censored. Submissions offering legal advice went. The story of an important Chinese news site has been removed. The authors’ accounts and some handles are also disappeared.

After Anan made Viral of Yongfu, he wiped him out and wrote another, thanking the supporters, and admitted that his article had violated the law. Then he wiped his arm.

Before that last article he wrote: “I was always a good angry in my family’s eyes. But that day I never brought them nothing but shame. They will never raise their heads again.”

These women have long worked in the shadows in China, where homosexuality and eroticism have been stamped. Now, by police investigations outside, faced with cruel social consequences as the legal ones.

“At that moment, the only thing I felt was ashamed,” he wrote the Weibo Happiness “The world is a writer, which means a great psychiatric hospital”. He said that the police had taken him out of the classroom at the university and that he was watching him following him to look for his classmates’ homeland.

“I won my money word with a word on a keyboard. But after going south, none of them were important. People treated me as if they had made money without any work.”

Another wrote that the police were gentle, advised him to talk to a lawyer and return his “illegal earnings” to reduce his sentence. “I am only 20 years old. Very young and I ruined my life very early.”

The third said: “I never imagined that every word I once wrote will not come back to disturb me.”

A writer who has written Danmei novels for 20 years has not been questioned, but the pressure will not stop him. “I find happiness in this way. And I can’t leave the connections I make with the community.”

Inspired by the Japanese men’s love squad, Danmei emerged in the 1990s as an online sub -species. It was very successful with some novels on the international bestseller lists.

In 2021, 60 were chosen for film and TV adaptations. The most expensive IP was reported to be sold for 40 million yuan ($ 5.6 million; $ 4.1 million). Some of China’s largest stars, such as Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, began to flow shows on their career novels.

In short, the rebellious royal of pop culture – very popular to ignore, is very controversial to honor.

And in Haitang, in Mandarin, it offers a signature that is a flower flower in every shadow of the pink.

Appropriately, Haitang and Danmei developed as unique women’s fields, even though male heroes averaged. In a culture where women’s sexual desire is routine, a coded, creative output of danmei – an area where women can write about the desire of women for other women.

Dr. London University College teaching digital sociology. This is what makes Danmei exactly “destructive”. It allows women to “separate from sexual facts” that they often associate with marriage and motherhood.

For example, in Danmei stories, men can get pregnant and relieve vulnerable – a sharp contrast from unequal relationships in which many Chinese women compete in real life.

“Danmei saves me from thinking about all these potential dangers in relations in traditional heterosexual romanticism,” he explains that he has been active in the Danmei world for ten years.

Danmei novels are not without critics, because some contain extreme and violent scenes. “As a parent, how many of us can accept our children while reading such novels?” he asked a Weibo user.

The age of the authors was also a source of concern: a handful of the BBC, they said that they all started to read and write gay erotic, some are less than 11 years of age, some less than 11 years of age.

Ma, a Danmei writer who only shares his surname, added that the community added that there is a problem to accept and address, that it is a problem for all adult content, because China does not restrict content according to age.

However, especially Danmei, Beijing has been increasingly attacked in the last decade because it launched a series of campaigns to “clean”. In 2018, a Danmei writer was sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling 7,000 copies of his book Occupy.

As marriage and birth rates decrease, and China’s leader Xi Jinping encourages a national rejuvenation, so Danmei says that the state investigation has increased.

“The Chinese government wants to encourage traditional family values ​​and liked Danmei novels, making women less willing to have children.”

This was the second wave of arrest arrest in less than a year – at the end of last year, about 50 Haitang writers were prosecuted. A famous writer who won about 1.85 million Yuan was imprisoned for about five years.

According to a lawyer representing some defendants last year, the two pressures are similar, “However, this time, even those with small participation were not preserved”.

A lawyer, who offers free legal advice, said more than 150 people demanded consultation within just two days. Most of those who communicated with him were not yet accused – still afraid of possibility.

A lawyer who writes a “practical guide” to help Haitang writers says, “This is classic open sea fishing.” The term means excessive access by the local police – people in Lanzhou called writers in various places beyond their undisputed judicial powers.

Many of them reported that he paid in his pocket to fly to Lanzhou. One reported that 2,000 Yuan, which he won from two books in Haitang, paid for the flight.

Last year, all arrests were made by the police in Jixi district east of China.

The debtor local governments have previously done this to earn income with fines, and sometimes forced a warning from the central government. The lawyer says that cyber crimes are prone to “as long as they claim that a local reader is broken”.

Danmei writers know that tolerance may be undecided. That’s why they censored with metaphors. “Dinner” means sex; The “kitchen tool” is the code for male genitals.

Still, the last edition stunned them. “A telephone conversation shredded my dreams,” how a writer told the police call.

They accused the police of calling their phones without order. They said that their crimes were evaluated by adding their opinions for each chapter – a method they discussed is misleading, because because it exaggerated the reader.

Another Danmei writer said: “I wrote to Haitang with only a handful of readers for years. Then, the overlooked stories accumulated from more than 300,000 clicks and the evidence of my crime of 4,000 Yuan on the copyrights sitting in my account.”

It is difficult to know if this is the end of his careers in Haitang.

“If I could go back, I would still choose to write. And I will continue to write,” Sijin also wrote.

“Right now, I hope that the law will only see the words on the page – and the girl who jumps to save money, the girl who sells her hair to buy a pen, the girl who believes that her mind can lead to fate. I hope it gives us a fair chance.”

Grace Tsoi’s additional reports in Hong Kong