Asexuality in the age of sexual revolution in China

It is claimed that sexual revolution is gaining grounds in China. Indeed, the implementation of the one-child policy and the emergence of a more open atmosphere for sexual stories in the mass media have helped separate sex from procreation and promoted the idea of sex for pleasure. However, it is worth noting that sexual pleasure is encouraged only within the bounds of heterosexual marriage. Marriage remains the prevailing norm. The only-child generation not only faces unprecedented pressure to get married and have a child, but is also subject to the new demand for active and harmonious sex in marriage, all of which resulting in increased difficulties for people who fail to meet the social expectations.

Since the late 1990s, online brokers for asexual marriage have appeared in China. This study employs a mixed method of qualitative research, including online interviews and textual analysis of online materials, to explore the meanings that Chinese people attach to asexuality and asexual marriage. In Western countries, asexuality has become an identity category. The biographical stories of asexuals are unified by the common elements of self-questioning, assumed pathology, self-clarification and communal identity. In China, far from a well-defined identity, asexuality can refer to a variety of meanings including the physical and mental conditions of individuals, the expectations about marital life, and the desired spiritual condition of life. This paper analyzes the narrative structure of their stories in order to gain understanding of the social construction of asexuality in contemporary China. It discusses the multiple discourses and subject positions associated with asexuality, whereby Chinese people articulate a new sense of ethical sensibility in intimate relationships, pursue reflexive life plans built around notions of love and happiness, and respond to a new mode of subjectification that remodels their behaviors and attitudes toward sexual pleasure.