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Danmei

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Danmei (Chinese: 耽美; pinyin: dānměi; lit. 'indulging beauty') is a Chinese genre of literature and other fictional media that features romantic relationships between male characters. Derived from both Japanese boys' love and Western slash fiction, danmei is a diverse genre that first emerged online in the late 1990s. Danmei stories are primarily hosted online and are typically created by and targeted toward women. While danmei works and their adaptations have achieved widespread popularity and economic success in China and globally, their legal status remains precarious in China due to government censorship policies, and danmei authors and platforms have been targets of censorship.

Etymology and terminology

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danmei
The term danmei (耽美; dānměi) is reborrowed from the Japanese word tanbi (耽美, aestheticism). Chinese fans often use danmei and BL interchangeably, while danmei is the preferred term.[1]
yuandan
Yuandan (原耽; "original danmei") refers to original works of danmei fiction—that is, danmei works that are not fan fiction.[2] Its opposite, danmei fan fiction, is known as danmei tongren.[3]
fu nu
Female fans of danmei often refer to themselves as fu nu (腐女; fǔ nǚ; lit. 'rotten women'), a term borrowed from the Japanese fujoshi.[4]
baihe
Baihe (百合; bǎihé; lit. 'lilies') is the female same-gender counterpart to danmei. The term is an orthographic reborrowing of the Japanese word yuri.[5] Baihe is not as well-known or popular as danmei.[5]

History

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The male same-sex romance genre of "boys' love", or BL, originated in Japanese manga in the early 1970s, and was introduced to mainland China via pirated Taiwanese translations of Japanese comics in the early 1990s.[6][7] Chinese fans referred to this genre as danmei, a reborrowing from the Japanese tanbi,[1] which in Japan typically refers to BL prose fiction.[8] Danmei as a genre was also influenced by Western slash fiction, with Chinese fans incorporating elements of both BL and slash fiction into their original stories in ways that suited their local context.[9]

The first danmei story was posted online around 1998.[9] By 1999, several online danmei forums had been founded. These venues started as communities for Chinese fans of Japanese BL, but soon began hosting fanworks and original danmei stories by young Chinese women. 1999 also saw the founding of the first print magazine devoted to danmei, Danmei Season, which was published continuously until 2013 despite not having an official permit to do so.[6]

While early online danmei communities were largely run by amateur fans of the genre, those websites were gradually supplanted by a slew of commercial online fiction websites founded in the early 2000s.[7] The largest of these, Jinjiang Literature City, was founded in 2003 and has since amassed 7 million registered users and over 500,000 titles.[as of?] The works published on Jinjiang Literature City include both original works and fan fiction, and heterosexual, gay and lesbian romance as well as stories in other genres, but it is best known as a platform for original danmei novels.[7]

Danmei reached wider audiences in China and elsewhere in the late 2010s and early 2020s, with censored danmei adaptations like Guardian, The Untamed, and Word of Honor receiving billions of views and broad international distribution. In 2020, film and television producers purchased the rights to 59 danmei titles.[10] In 2022, scholars Yanrui Xu and Ling Yang described danmei as "a significant economic and cultural force in China" and said that it "might well be one of the few created-in-China cultural products that have gained a foothold in overseas markets and potentially enhanced China's soft power despite continuous censorship at home".[9]: 19 

Censorship in China

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See also: LGBTQ rights in China § Censorship of LGBT activism and content, and Internet censorship in China

Background: Censorship of pornography and LGBTQ fiction

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Despite its popularity, danmei media is a frequent target of legal action by the Chinese government as it "breaks two social taboos in one shot: pornography and homosexuality."[6][page needed] Pornography is illegal in China, although the exact laws regarding its possession and distribution are blurry,[11] and danmei literature with explicit sex scenes is unambiguously classified as pornography.[citation needed] Since 1998, when the Chinese Communist Party began the Great Firewall project, internet users in China have been at least partially blocked from online access to sexually explicit content, though many danmei writers and fans, like other internet users, have found ways to bypass the government filters, IP blocks, and other measures that make up the Great Firewall.[2] Homosexuality itself was decriminalized in China in 1997,[6][12] but since 2007, China's National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) has nonetheless deemed depictions of homosexuality subject to censorship.[12] Vague legal definitions of "obscenity" and "abnormal sexual behavior" may also result in greater scutiny and censorship of even non-explicit queer literature.[6]

2004–2015: Actions against danmei platforms and authors

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Anti-porn crackdowns in 2004, 2010 and 2014 resulted in the closure of many danmei websites and forums.[6] In 2011, Chinese authorities shut down a danmei website hosting 1,200 works, and its founder, Wang Ming, was fined and jailed for 18 months.[4][13] In October 2018, a female danmei author who wrote under the pen name Tianyi was sentenced to 10 years in prison after her self-published homoerotic novel featuring rape and teacher-student romance sold over 7,000 copies, violating laws regarding excessive commercial profit for unregistered books.[14][15]

The strict censorship policies caused some danmei communities to self-police, with sites such as Jinjiang Literature City asking its readers to report explicit works for deletion.[6] In the face of the 2014 anti-pornography campaign directly targeting danmei, online literature platforms implemented stringent self-censorship measures that particularly affected the danmei genre.[6][16]

Baidu blocked several danmei-related forums on its Tieba platform, including "Danmei Bar" and "Funü Bar". Jinjiang Literature City adopted a different strategy by rebranding its danmei channel to "chun’ai" (lit. 'pure love') to distance itself from the genre's explicit associations. The platform also introduced stricter content regulations, surpassing government mandates by prohibiting depictions of body parts below the neck and limiting intimate scenes to non-sexual acts like mouth-kissing and handholding.[17]

2016–2020: Danmei adaptations

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In early 2016, the gay web drama Addicted, which was based on a danmei novel, was abruptly removed from all mainland Chinese streaming platforms before it finished airing on orders from the NRTA.[18] The following week, the China Television Drama Production Industry Association publicized guidelines dated December 31, 2015, that banned television portrayals of "abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors", including same-sex relationships.[19] These new guidelines impacted web dramas, which have historically been subject to fewer restrictions than broadcast television.[20][21] The NRTA went on to issue even stricter regulations regarding online shows in June 2017.[15]

To comply with censorship policies, live-action danmei adaptations began to replace the explicitly homosexual romances of the source texts with deep homosocial friendships instead, sometimes leaving the possibility of more intentionally vague. Adaptations featuring such non-romantic relationships are sometimes called dangai instead of danmei,[22] though dangai's literal meaning is simply "danmei adaptation".[12] Several danmei novels have been adapted as live-action web dramas since 2017, skirting the regulations in this way while retaining queer subtext.[23][17]

In 2018, shortly after releasing its final episode, the live-action danmei adaptation Guardian was pulled from streaming platforms for "content adjustments" following a directive from the NRTA to "clean up TV programmes of harmful and vulgar content".[24] It was later re-released with scenes edited or deleted, apparently due to public complaints about homoerotic subtext.[5][25] The following year, however, in a departure from the norm for danmei adaptations, The Untamed enjoyed massive national and global success[26][27] and was even praised by the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, People's Daily.[28]

2021–present: Renewed regulation

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In early 2021, Word of Honour, a drama adaptation of a danmei novel by Priest, was released. The drama was commercially successful, but in August of that year, one of its lead actors was blacklisted by the Chinese Communist Party as an "immoral celebrity" owing to a visit he had once paid to a controversial shrine in Japan. As a result, all of his works, including Word of Honour, were banned.[29] While the banning of Word of Honour was apparently unrelated to its depiction of queer subtext, it was part of the state's "Internet Clean-up Campaign",[29] which began in August 2021[17] and "marked a policy change towards more direct, severe criticism of and crackdown on the danmei genre".[29]: 275 

Jinjiang Literature City officially banned external links to sexual material that same year, in an escalation of the platform's previous self-censorship strategies. As a result, many readers and experienced writers migrated to Changpei, a platform perceived as offering greater creative freedom. This relative liberty was short-lived, as Changpei's growth into a commercial danmei platform attracted the attention of state censors. To align with regulatory demands and sustain operations, Changpei eventually adopted self-censorship practices as well, removing explicit content and urging authors to avoid publishing sexually explicit scenes.[17]

Also in 2021, a new regulatory approach targeting danmei adaptations emerged, combining state media criticism with authoritative measures to enforce self-censorship on digital platforms. This marked a significant clampdown on danmei-inspired dramas, following a series of critical state media articles that framed them as "vulgar culture" in line with the Internet Clean-up Campaign. Editorials, such as those by Xinhua News Agency in March 2021, argued that danmei stories encouraged irrational fanaticism and consumerism among adolescents, necessitating regulation. In August, the Guangming Daily, a newspaper run by the Chinese Communist Party, criticized the perceived vulgarity of male-male flirting and the distortion of male aesthetics through femininity, and advocated for hyper-masculinity as the state-preferred standard. This stance dismissed opposing viewpoints as harmful to youth values.[17]

In September 2021, the Central Propaganda Department released the "Article of Comprehensive Management of the Cultural and Entertainment Sector," highlighting concerns about "traffic and commercial dominance," "distorted aesthetics," "fandom chaos," and the detrimental social influence of danmei adaptations, particularly on teenagers. High-profile meetings with major companies like Tencent and NetEase underscored the need for increased political compliance.[30] The NRTA reinforced these efforts with a September conference explicitly boycotting danmei adaptations and addressing fandom issues.[17] This regulatory push resulted in a dramatic decline in danmei-inspired dramas, reversing the genre's earlier success following Addiction in 2016. The once-common strategy of portraying male friendship as a façade for danmei themes was no longer tolerated. Many completed dramas, such as Immortality, You by My Side, and Eternal Faith, remain unreleased due to state restrictions, signaling the end of a brief period of prosperity for the genre.[2][17]

Some mainland Chinese danmei authors circumvent the restrictions on pornography by hosting the explicit portions of their work on Taiwanese literature websites.[7] This strategy has not kept authors entirely safe from prosecution, however; in the summer of 2024, several mainland Chinese danmei authors who published their sexually explicitly work on the Taiwanese BL website Haitang Literature City were arrested and charged by Chinese police.[16]

Genre characteristics

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Danmei works always feature a central romance between men, but otherwise vary widely.[5] Many draw on wuxia and xianxia tropes and settings or incorporate elements of other genres like sports or science fiction.[31]

It is common, but not universal, for the two male protagonists of a danmei work to be divided into gong (攻; gōng; lit. 'attacker') and shou (受; shòu; lit. 'receiver') roles, meaning "top" and "bottom". These roles are analogous to the Japanese seme and uke. Some works do not incorporate these roles and instead refer to the protagonists as hugong (互攻; hùgōng; lit. 'mutually attacking').[5] Scholars such as Yao Zhao and Anna Madill have noted that danmei adheres to heteronormative gender roles within same-sex relationships.[32] Since the mid-2010s, danmei literature has expanded to encompass a wider variety of relationship dynamics, though the gong-shou model remains dominant in the genre.[5]

Audience

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Most danmei fans are Chinese, and straight women predominate among Chinese danmei fans. A 2015–2018 survey of Chinese danmei audiences found that around 88% identify as female, 66.5% as heterosexual, 15.7% as bisexual, and 2.7% as homosexual. Perhaps because it is created for an audience of predominantly heterosexual women, researchers have found danmei to have a "heteronormative frame".[32] Fans of danmei cite equality between partners as part of the appeal of the genre, especially in comparison to heterosexual romance.[23]

Researcher Anna Madill has written that among danmei fans in the Anglosphere, "there is a sizable proportion of women with very heterogeneous sexual identifications (and uncertainties) and a relatively small, but not negligible, group of gay male fans."[33]

Media

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Most popular danmei properties originate as web novels that are published serially on websites like Jinjiang Literature City, Liancheng Read, and Danmei Chinese Web.[5][7] Readers pay for new chapters as they are released,[34] as is common in Chinese online literature. Complete novels may also be published as physical editions in China (either self-published or via Taiwanese publishers) and abroad. Fan translation of Chinese web novels, especially danmei, is widespread.[35]

Danmei novels are often adapted as manhua (comics), donghua (animation), audio dramas, and live action television series, which may or may not retain textual queer elements. Live action web series adaptations of danmei have achieved major commercial success via both producers and audiences' negotiation with the demands of the Chinese government censorship and broader consumer culture.[36][37]

Original comics remain uncommon in danmei relative to Japanese BL, where manga is the dominant medium.[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Ge, Liang (2024-09-03). "Ambivalent affective labor: The datafication of qing and danmei writers in the cultural industry". European Journal of Cultural Studies. 28 (3): 773–792. doi:10.1177/13675494241270468. ISSN 1367-5494.
  2. ^ a b c Ge, Longlong (2024-09-01). "Repression, Permeation, and Circulation: Retracing and Reframing Danmei Culture Online in Mainland China". Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics. 8 (2): 34. doi:10.20897/femenc/14946. ISSN 2468-4414.
  3. ^ Feng, Jin (2009). ""Addicted to Beauty": Consuming and Producing Web-based Chinese "Danmei" Fiction at Jinjiang". Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 21 (2): 1–41. ISSN 1520-9857. JSTOR 41491008.
  4. ^ a b "Click bait: Homoerotic fiction is doing surprisingly well among straight women". The Economist. 14 November 2015.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Liang, Yuan (2019). "Women in Transition: Analyzing Female-Oriented Danmei Fiction in Contemporary China". Two Cases of Chinese Internet Studies (PDF) (M.A.). Cornell University.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Yang, Ling; Xu, Yanrui (2017). "'The love that dare not speak its name': The fate of Chinese danmei communities in the 2014 anti-porn campaign". In McLelland, Mark (ed.). The End of Cool Japan: Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture. Routledge. pp. 163–183. doi:10.4324/9781315637884. ISBN 9781315637884.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Lavin, Maud; Yang, Ling; Zhao, Jing (2017). Boys' Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Hong Kong University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1rfzz65. ISBN 9789888390809.
  8. ^ Welker, James (2015). "A Brief History of Shōnen'ai, Yaoi and Boys Love". In McLelland, Mark; Nagaike, Kazumi; Suganuma, Katsuhiko; Welker, James (eds.). Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 52–53. doi:10.14325/mississippi/9781628461190.003.0003. ISBN 9781626740662.
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  15. ^ a b Xi, Lin (26 February 2019). "How 'Boys' Love' Authors Are Using Love to Make War on Ignorance". Sixth Tone. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  16. ^ a b Ge, Liang (2025-03-19). "The Haitang Incident 2024 and the ugliness of danmei culture/industry". European Journal of Cultural Studies. doi:10.1177/13675494251326775. ISSN 1367-5494.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g Hu, Tingting; Ge, Liang; Wang, Cathy Yue (2024-03-03). "A state against boys' love? Reviewing the trajectory of censorship over danmei". Continuum. 38 (2): 229–238. doi:10.1080/10304312.2024.2357335. ISSN 1030-4312.
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  19. ^ Lu, Shen; Hunt, Katie (3 March 2016). "China bans same-sex romance from TV screens". CNN. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  20. ^ Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (4 March 2016). "China bans depictions of gay people on television". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  21. ^ Lin, Lilian (21 January 2016). "China's Censors Pull More Web Dramas, Including Hit Rom-Com". The Wall Street Journal.
  22. ^ Qin, Lucy Yuan; Cheong, Kong F. (2022). "Gender, Death, and the Supernatural in The Untamed (Chen Qing Ling): A Danmei Genre Pop Cultural Phenomenon". In Gibson, Rebecca; VanderVeen, James M. (eds.). Global Perspectives on the Liminality of the Supernatural: From Animus to Zombi. Lexington Books. pp. 19–34 [23]. ISBN 978-1-66690-742-1.
  23. ^ a b Zhou, Viola; Ewe, Koh (5 April 2021). "Boys Keep Flirting With Each Other on Chinese TV But Never Fall in Love". Vice. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  24. ^ Zhang, Phoebe (4 August 2018). "Gay-themed drama is latest victim of China's drive to purge 'harmful and obscene' content from web". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  25. ^ Zhang, He (11 November 2018). 《镇魂》时隔3个月重新上架，剧情有删减 ['Guardian' is back on the shelves after 3 months, the plot has been cut]. Beijing News (in Chinese).
  26. ^ 326.7万人付费看陈情令演唱会直播 平台收入近亿|陈情令|陈情令国风音乐演唱会|陈情令国风音乐专辑_新浪娱乐_新浪网. Sina (in Chinese). People's Daily. November 4, 2019. Archived from the original on November 5, 2019.
  27. ^ Carvalho, Keyla (February 11, 2020). "'The Untamed': A Primer On The Chinese Drama The Internet Is Obsessed With". Bustle. Retrieved May 25, 2025.
  28. ^ 人民日报评《陈情令》:书写国风之美传递文化自信|陈情令|肖战|王一博_新浪娱乐_新浪网. Sina (in Chinese). People's Daily. June 28, 2019. Archived from the original on June 29, 2019.
  29. ^ a b c Hu, Tingting; Ge, Liang; Chen, Ziyao; Xia, Xu (May 2023) [March 2, 2023]. "Masculinity in crisis? Reticent / han-xu politics against danmei and male effeminacy". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 26 (3): 274–292. doi:10.1177/13678779231159424. ISSN 1367-8779.
  30. ^ "百度安全验证". wappass.baidu.com. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
  31. ^ Ge, Liang (2021-10-01). "Problematizing heteronormativity: Performativity, resignification and A/B/O fiction in Chinese danmei literature". East Asian Journal of Popular Culture. 7 (2): 241–254. doi:10.1386/eapc_00051_1. ISSN 2051-7084. S2CID 240172620.
  32. ^ a b Zhao, Yao; Madill, Anna (2018). "The heteronormative frame in Chinese Yaoi: Integrating female Chinese fan interviews with Sinophone and Anglophone survey data" (PDF). Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. 9 (5): 435–457. doi:10.1080/21504857.2018.1512508. S2CID 191635597.
  33. ^ Madill, Anna (2020). "The Yaoi/Boys' Love/Danmei Audience". In Ross, Karen; Bachmann, Ingrid; Cardo, Valentina; Moorti, Sujata; Scarcelli, Cosimo Marco (eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication. Wiley. pp. 1–5. doi:10.1002/9781119429128.iegmc051. ISBN 9781119429128. S2CID 225787311.
  34. ^ Myers, Steven Lee; Cheng, Amy (24 September 2017). "68 Things You Cannot Say on China's Internet". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  35. ^ Kanesaka, Kirk; Mac, Gladys (2023-09-01). "Labour of love: Chinese-to-English fan translations of BL web novels". East Asian Journal of Popular Culture. 9 (2): 243–259. doi:10.1386/eapc_00110_1. ISSN 2051-7084.
  36. ^ Ge, Liang (2022). "Dual ambivalence: The Untamed Girls as a counterpublic". Media, Culture & Society. 44 (5): 1021–1033. doi:10.1177/01634437221104713. ISSN 0163-4437. S2CID 249695426.
  37. ^ Ng, Eve; Li, Xiaomeng (2020-05-18). "A queer 'socialist brotherhood': the Guardian web series, boys' love fandom, and the Chinese state". Feminist Media Studies. 20 (4): 479–495. doi:10.1080/14680777.2020.1754627. ISSN 1468-0777. S2CID 221057991.
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