Virtually girlfriends: ‘emergent femininity’ and the women who buy virtual loving services in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Beginning in 2014, Chinese Internet-users can purchase care and concern online. Customers can hire both male and female virtual lovers (xuni lianren) to talk to them while the lovers perform character roles of their choice. By examining why female customers consume virtual loving services, we argue that women hire male virtual lovers to assuage the frustrations that they accrue in their daily lives, and not to look for offline romantic partners. Inspired by the concept of ‘emergent masculinity’ (Inhorn & Wentzell, 2011. Embodying emergent masculinities: Men engaging with reproductive and sexual health technologies in the Middle East and Mexico. American Ethnologist, 38(4), 801–815), we coin the term emergent femininity. This term describes how, after a century-long process where the individual breaks free from familial and societal strictures, present-day young and urban Chinese women now exhibit a novel mode of womanhood characterized by historically unprecedented self-confidence, a willingness to openly articulate and purchase what they want, and a high degree of mediatization. Hence, this paper illuminates the appearance of ‘new women’ in China.