Homoerotic Relationships Research Articles

Chinese media production and fandom between queerbaiting and “survival instincts”

Using the term “queerbaiting,” I describe a set of media industry tactics that suggest queer relationships between fictional characters (or real-life celebrities) by intentional hints and jokes to attract audiences. Such tactics are used to encourage online participation by fans of female danmei (literary writings describing homoerotic relationships among male characters, generally written by female authors for a female-dominated audience) in China. By analyzing this strategy, I examine the intersection between three different cultural forces in the Chinese mediascape: the censorship of queer themes, the media industry’s attempts to profit from popular danmei stories, and fans who participate in online data labor. The heteronormative cultural environment in China turned so-called “queerbaiting” practices into a socially accepted and commercially profitable mental game denied of a physical outlet. The de-homoeroticized danmei media adaptations and the fandoms surrounding them show how the media industry and fans interact, negotiate and cooperate for their own interests.

Leftover peaches: Female homoeroticism during the Western Han dynasty1

Female homoeroticism in early imperial China has received minimal scholarly attention. This article purposes to investigate lesbianism in the Western Han dynasty, taking into consideration both the literary and archaeological material. I first offer a succinct rundown of the ancient terminology of male homosexuality, principally in an effort to underline the classical Chinese language’s absence of a precise vocabulary to describe lesbian attachments. Next, I turn to the transmitted textual sources, analysing the two extant records of love between women in order to gauge something of the nature and permissibility of female homoerotic relationships. The final section of this essay is dedicated to mortuary objects, namely the moulded bronze phalli and other sexual training tools disentombed from Western Han gravesites. When properly contextualised, the excavated dildos can be interpreted as having been used by concubines, both within same-sex partnerships and in the course of pornographic displays staged for their master’s enjoyment.

Queer(ed) Bodies: Subversive Sexualities and Gender Identities in Shakespeare’s As You Like It

As far as Shakespeare’s comedies are concerned, a recurring topic is the exploration of love via the portrayal of gender role transformations and the cross-dressing of female characters. This often involves the depiction of power dynamics between male and female characters, which may be seen as alluding to homoerotic relationships and transgressions of gender roles. Shakespeare, in his play As You Like It, reveals the reformulation and deconstruction of established and logocentric gender roles and sexuality, where female characters adopt trans-gendered bodies, queer identities, and homoeroticism through the concept of love and cross-dressing in many respects. Likewise, the play explores the issues of gender roles and sexuality, particularly via the portrayal of female characters who assume trans-gendered identities, engage in cross-dressing, and experience homoerotic love in various ways. It can also be stated that the identity of Shakespeare is never fixed but is constructed. The fluidity of identity, sexuality, and desire in the play indeed challenges and deconstructs any basic hetero/homo, masculine/feminine dichotomy. In this context, Shakespeare effectively challenges traditional gender roles and norms by subverting them through the portrayal of male and female characters. Specifically, the female characters deviate from their expected gender roles and boundaries, resulting in the depiction of a homoerotic love triangle involving Phebe, Orlando, and Rosalind/Ganymede. As in the play, the heterosexual love between Orlando and Rosalind is subverted to a homoerotic love between Orlando and Ganymede/Rosalind, and Phebe and Ganymede/Rosalind. As a result, it can be claimed that Shakespeare’s play features transgendered sexuality and a homoerotic love triangle between male and female characters. Hence, as it has been stated, Shakespeare suggests here that, as with the title of the play, one can construct his or her gender role as she or he likes or desires, even if this sex is different.

Audiovisual Translation, Multilingual Desire, and the Construction of the Intersectional Gay Male Body

This study focuses on the HBO series Looking, whose two seasons and film make up a critical telecinematic artifact that reveals how authorial vision integrates ideologies on class, race, and desire that are identifiable in visual modes and language use—particularly multilingual dialogues. The analysis begins with the assumption that Looking is a relevant case of complex television and centers on the narrative structure of the series and the way that language, translation, and visual semiotic resources interact in the construction of a gay Latino character in the source version of the series and two Spanish dubbed versions—one for Latin America and the other for Spain. The findings reveal that Looking, as a televisual and aesthetic artifact, proposes a post-gay discourse of homoerotic relationships while also constructing racialized objects of desire, particularly the Latinx (male) body. A comparative linguistic analysis shows that both the dubbed versions highlight the boundaries of the so-called globalized gay identity. The data gathered demonstrate that the representation of ethnic, racial, and erotic difference changes according to the language system used. Moreover, new interactions between dubbed dialogues and visual resources result in a greater degree of semiotic layering of ideological discourses throughout the series.

Koinōnia in the Symposium: from community to communion?

Plato’s Symposium stages a playful subversion of paiderastia by philosophia through successive interconnected speeches. Phaedrus and Agathon praise Erōs as a god presiding over homoerotic relationships, be it at war or at peace. Pausanias and Eryximachus distinguish between two Erōtes, being eager to supervise these paiderastic communities or even the cosmic harmony. But Aristophanes subverts their perspective by introducing the Androgyne, a combination of male and female, which being displayed by Socrates-Diotima will finally give birth to the Erōs-Daimōn. Only he ensures us real human community by enabling true communion with the divine, witness Alcibiades’ final praise of Socrates.

Гендерные представления девушек, увлекающихся метажанром «Boy’s Love»

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objective. </strong>To describe the relations between liking visual representations of male same-sex romance and gender representations of young female fans of BL. <strong>Background. </strong>Nowadays there is a globally spread interest in manga among teenagers. Manga has a vast diversity of styles, genres, and followers. Nevertheless, some heterosexual girls quite often demonstrate stable interest in the manga sub-genre focusing on homoerotic relationships between young – and frequently androgynous – male characters. This research has addressed an issue whether heterosexual girls’ liking for visual representations of male homosexuality in Boy’s Love (BL) comics relates to their gender representations. <strong>Study design. </strong>The survey among the members of the Internet Social Media Manga Publics included: description of socio-psychological effects of viewing BL pictures, scaling attitudes towards masculinity ideology, exploration of gender role beliefs and description of femininity concepts. Comparison of the data between BL fans and other members of Manga Publics being acquainted with Boys’ Love, but deliberately neglecting it. Mann–Whitney U test, Fisher F test, and Pearson’s chi-squared test are used. <strong>Participants. </strong>Russian sample: 140 female respondents 11-45 years old (M=17,95; SD=4,84). Main group consists of 90 respondents 11-45 years old (M=18,88; SD=5,22). Control group consists of 50 respondents 12-27 years old (M=16,79; SD=3,10). <strong>Measurements. </strong>Questionnaire of socio-demographic characteristics. Author’s scale of socio-psychological effects of visual representations. Masculinity Ideology in Relationships Scale by J.H. Pleck, F.L. Sonenstein, L.C. Ku. Gendered Personality Characteristics (I.S. Klyotsina). Masculinity and Femininity Questionnaire by T.A. Bessonova – psycho-semantic version by N.V. Dvoryanchikov for examining individual femininity constructs. <strong>Results. </strong>Girls that fond of homoerotic drawn fictions prefer non-normative gendered traits combinations and give specific interpretation of their femininity. BL followers significantly often describe their femininity with traditionally masculine traits. Gender polarization is weak. Gender identity of female BL fans comply with non-orthogonal conceptualization. They believe that core of gender identity in every human being should consist of gender-neutral characteristics. Male emotionality, represented in homoerotic drawings, arrests attention of all respondents. But BL fans are less likely to perceive men in the light of normative (hegemonic) masculinity. <strong>Conclusions.</strong> Straight girls’ enthusiasm for BL is grounded in the possibility of apprehending their gender non-normativity/non-conformity within a fictional realty, and in BL manga meta-genre capability to display adequately significant aspects of new non-normative gender practices and ensure their social affirmation.</p>

DYNAMICS OF DESIRE: GIFT GIVING AND RECIPROCITY IN ANCIENT GREEK HOMOEROTIC COURTSHIP COURTSHIP

The article addresses the problem of reciprocity in homoerotic relationships in classical Athens. According to the more traditional approach, the pecking ord er model ’’, these typically a symmetrical relationships almost inevitably involved humiliation of one of the partners, who literally or metaphorically assumed a passive and therefore u n manly role. Although more recent studies tend to underline the arti fici al cha racter of these schola rly reconstructions, they still fail to account for the nuances of ancient homoerotic courtship. I argue that some sources often used by scholars as reflec t ing negative attitudes towards homoeroticism may actually t estify to the existenc e of very clear rules of highly valued and praised behaviours of passive partners. T h ese rules formed an implicit grammar of social actions but were never explicitly codified.

The Analysis of Fantasy and Representation of Female on Gay and Male Homoerotic Relationships in the Yaoi Genre

The research aims to analyze the analysis of fantasy and representation of female on gay and male homoerotic relationships in the Yaoi Genre. This research uses an ethnographic approach, which is one of the qualitative research methods. The results of this study indicate that Fujoshi's background likes love stories between men is certainly different. But from this study it is found that there are a number of similarities, such as being Fujoshi because they initially like manga and anime, those who were curious about the Yaoi Genre, and those who feel bored with the love story between men and women, as well as various other reasons that made them finally addicted romance between men to have sexual fantasies between men.

Homosexualité, Islam et désacralisation du pouvoir royal dans Le jour du Roi d'Abdellah Taïa

Dans Le jour du Roi, Abdellah Taïa explore le thème d’une altérité assujettie à un intraduisible enfermé dans un aspect politico-symbolique : celui à la fois de s’exprimer dans la langue de l’autre et celui d’exprimer des relations homo-érotiques et homosexuelles vécues au Maroc sous le règne d’Hassan II. Or, ce discours révèle l’instabilité d’un modèle d’identification confronté à un dispositif sexuel normalisant les corps et les esprits, où la société surveille et participe à une discipline hétéro-normative de l’homosexualité en punissant toute déviation rendue publique ou visible sous le regard symbolique du roi du Maroc. Ceci semble parvenir à déstabiliser toute identification avec « l’Autre comme moi », en s’introduisant dans l’intimité même des deux jeunes protagonistes du roman et en imposant une hétéro-normativité sur un amour homo-érotique qui ne pouvait se résoudre que par l’annihilation d’une des deux parties et ainsi au meurtre de l’Autre mais de l’Autre comme moi. Ce fratricide remonte aux mythes fondateurs en Islam et renvoie particulièrement au meurtre originel qui se différencie et s’émancipe du modèle oedipien, traduisant à ce titre une conception différente de l’amour du « Même » et d’une homosexualité identitaire occidentale à prétention universaliste.

Homoerotismo en Aguascalientes. Una mirada etnográfica a un ligar de encuentro sexual

The treatment of sexual encounter public places for man as an environment where subjets, subjetivities and bodys are constructed and produced, leads to analysis of social as well as sexual practices, within a limited space. This article is about homoerotics encounters in a gay profile Spa, located in the village of Aguascalientes. On a corresponding slope of the methodological approach, trought etnographic registration, different homosociality and erotism elements are studied in the costumers, exposing and questioning some hegemonic speeches about pleasure and sexual practices around homoerotic relationships.  

Pour une généalogie de la littérature lesbienne française

This essay posits that a genealogy of French lesbian literature can be traced back to a certain number of women’s writings of the first decades of the 20th century, and in particular to the period between the two world wars; among these authors are Renee Vivien, Natalie Barney, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Jeanne Galzy and Colette. In their poetic and, to a lesser extent, narrative texts, the liquid element often acts as a metaphor for homoerotic relationships between women, but also as an image of the fluidity of gender and sexual identifications, beyond male-female and heterosexual-homosexual binarism.

Homoeroticism and performances: representations of bodies and human relationships in ancient Rome in paintings of Pompeii

Among the academic subjects, Ancient Studies are those considered the most conservative. However, through interdisciplinarity (particularly through the dialogue with Archaeology), this field of study has managed to reach more critical perspectives, mainly in researches on love and sexuality. This work keeps a dialogue with the research carried out by the classicist Pedro Paulo Funari, who, in turn, has inspired many Brazilian researchers to break up the normative models, questioning old concepts and patriarchal values to give rise to a more libertarian classical antiquity. After presenting a discussion on gender and sexuality in Ancient Rome, a theoretical debate is proposed. Later on, some paintings of erotic relationships, showing diversified practices (particularly emphasizing homoerotic relationships), found in a suburban bath in the Archaeological Site of Pompeii, are presented to evince how differently individuals interpellated norms, to question the definition of pornography and to deal with the relationships between the images and their contexts.

The Crisis of Masculinity: Jez Butterworth’s Mojo

Abstract During the late twentieth century, crisis of masculinity appears in all societal settings; at work, at school, on the street and in the family. The crisis of fatherhood, anxiety, power, and abuse create the crisis of masculinity. As a concrete example of the masculinity crisis Jez Butterworth’s most discussed stage play Mojo was first performed at London’s Royal Court in 1995. This paper takes Mojo under observation as a frontier play depicting a male identity that portrays rock and roll culture, gangland violence, and male Soho gangsters of the 1950s. With these concepts in mind, this paper analyses the contemporary anxieties related to masculinity through witty, absurd dialogues and homoerotic relationships of this striking play.

Brushes, Burins, and Flesh

This essay examines the erotic works produced collaboratively by members of Karel van Mander’s so-called “Haarlem Academy” to suggest that early modern art making created a space in which slippages could occur between homosocial relationships and homoerotic practices. Hierarchical power relations inherent to collaboration, and to early-modern precursors to formalized academies, facilitated these dynamics because they structurally replicated essential conditions of homoerotic relationships. In turn, the piece proposes ways in which formal readings of works coupled with the interrogation of collaborative artistic production can help explore how works of art do more than index homoerotic relationships and, instead, instantiate them.

The Fine Line of Friendship

The developing European idea that homoerotic relationships occurred between men of similar ages found representation in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Apollo et Hyacinthus, an early Classical opera, written for a graduation celebration hosted by the local Roman Catholic school, Salzburg University. From Greek antiquity until the early Renaissance, the myth of Hyacinth was often used synonymously with the myth of Ganymede to evoke homoeroticism. In the early Renaissance, the myth of Hyacinth (as well as Ganymede) took on more pederastic overtones, but gradually the myth of Hyacinth began to be differentiated from that of Ganymede: Hyacinth began to be used to evoke equitable male homoerotic relationships. The opera reflects this use and served to instruct students of Salzburg University on how to deal with homoerotic and sexual feelings.

Soccer and homosexuality: The conflicts that lie within the affective game of the coach-adolescent athlete relationship

Discussions regarding homosexuality within a sports context are mediated by emotional nuances, especially in the world of soccer, where practitioners are required to have attributes such as strength, masculinity and aggressiveness. As a consequence, this work aimed to analyze the symbolic representation of homosexual relationships between adolescent soccer players and their coaches; and, furthermore, to understand the intention behind homoerotic relationships that are established between members of the management team and its players. In this study, researchers used the life history methodology, with participation from three adolescent athletes, ages 14, 15 and 16, and three former athletes, ages 26, 28 and 45, who we called speakers. Based on the collection and analysis of research participants' testimonies, homosexual relations were found to have occurred between athletes and coaches, or between athletes and other members of the management team, as a part of a "social contract" that is exclusively linked to their professional objectives. These relationships appear to be purely objective; authentic affective links are absent, due apparently to the transient nature of the athletes in these groups. Too, this context is usually marked by the athlete's physical and emotional vulnerability, and the agreements he makes within this context are accompanied with moral dilemmas, because such adolescents idealize the coach as a paternal archetype.

Autoerotism, Homoerotism, and Foreplay in African Women Who Practice Labia Minora Elongation: a Review

ABSTRACT. Objectives: Labia minora elongation is a female genital modification in which some women in certain linguistic groups from Africa engage. One of the purposes is to enhance sexual pleasure for their male partners. Methods: The literature has been reviewed to describe how labia minora elongation serves for women to increase their sexual pleasure, both as an autoerotic method and in the context of homoerotic and heterosexual relationships. Results and Conclusions: This aspect deserves to be investigated, as there are narratives from some women practitioners of labial elongation that this practice might contribute to improve the sexual health of some of the women who engage in it.

The Queer Frontier: Male Same-sex Experience in Western Canada’s Settlement Era

The essay documents and interprets episodes of male same-sex sexuality at different localities and moments in time across Western Canada during its settlement era, circa 1870-1945. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau, it seeks to explain same-sex experience in relation to the production, strategic, and tactical use of space. Utilizing court, jail, and police records, among other sources, it documents the recurrence of homoerotic desire across the West in this period, the places where men connected with other men, and their resourcefulness in accessing and reclaiming space to express their sexual imperatives. The data and analysis suggest a comparative laxity in moral regulation of male homoerotic relationships in the early frontier era, followed by entrenched police surveillance and repression by 1930-45. A provisional conclusion is that the frontier era afforded men some latitude within which to produce same-sex space, notwithstanding developing homophobic regimes and the risk of discovery, ostracism, and incarceration.

Rural intentions: Sexuality in Danish homeland cinema

Abstract This article focuses on the central importance of issues of sexuality, gender and the body in Danish homeland cinema. It demonstrates how the characters’ physical and emotional bond with the land and the livestock has a significant physical component which, considered in connection with a libidinal crisis of the films’ young couples, may be taken to harbour a sexual potential. Many of the films illustrate crises of procreative heterosexuality that threaten the rural heritage. The article posits marked sexual overtones in the aesthetic interdependence of virtue and villainy and the way moral encounters are staged. Sexually aggressive characters who threaten a passive couple may function as necessary sexual activators. Likewise, natural forces that provoke intense physical and emotional reactions are examined for their sexual associations. Apart from dangerous forces and characters, homeland cinema features many positively portrayed queer characters and relationships, which include male homoerotic relationships involving the hero.

Reflection on Chinese boys' love fans: An insider's view

The fandom of BL, as it is known in China, celebrates explicit homoerotic relationships between boys or men—fictional characters taken from mainstream media, real-life celebrities, and male personifications of day-to-day objects and animals, as well as original characters. Mainstream media reports on BL fandom and BL fan girls in China have never been favorable; this subculture and the fans within it are constantly represented in a negative and biased light. But because I am a BL fan girl myself, I can offer an insider's perspective. This essay is a reflection on my personal experiences and observations as a member of BL fandom, and a response to erroneous, stigmatizing claims and moral panic about this community in China.