Document Type
Article
Abstract
This paper examines Chinese women's perception of 'xing', the term for sex/sexuality in daily lives. It bases on in-depth interviews with 38 urban Chinese women born in 1970s, participant observation and experience of daily lives. Xing is a fluxing concept in changing contexts. Husband-wife life, a term got popular in Mao's era (1950s) is still widely used, which has a strong implication of relationship within marriage and the life far more than sexuality. However, it is challenged by 'sexuality out of marriage is much sexier and attractive'. The logic that supports these two statements calls for a reflection on the triangle between love, sex and marriage under the background of sexual revolution. In a bodily level, xing is coined with the understanding of so-called vagina- penis intercourse between beloved couple. Within this framework, the important components as (marital/non-marital) relationship, gender (heterosexual/homosexual), love and desire are emerging. As a conclusion, xing is not an independent and individually based concept; it opens for challenging in a transitional society, especially requires an affirmative 'gendered' understanding beyond the heterosexual imagination.
Repository Citation
Huang, Ying-Ying. "What is Xing?: Defining Sexuality in Young Urban Chinese Women’s Daily Lives." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 15, no. 2, 2015, pp. 1–21. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol15/iss2/3