''Danmei'' () is a genre of literature and other fictional media that features romantic relationships between male characters. ''Danmei'' is typically created by and targeted towards a heterosexual female audience. While ''danmei'' works and their adaptations have achieved widespread popularity in China and globally, their legal status remains murky due to Chinese censorship policies. The female same-sex counterpart to ''danmei'' is known as ''bǎihé'' (), which is an orthographic reborrowing of the Japanese word '' yuri'', but it is not as well known or popular as ''danmei.''

History

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

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a Country, country in East Asia, at the junction of the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) to the n ...

ese translations of Japanese comics in the early 1990s. The term ''danmei'' is reborrowed from the Japanese word ''tanbi'' (, "aestheticism"), and Chinese fans often use ''danmei'' and BL interchangeably. 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. 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. The largest of these, ''Jìnjiāng Wénxuéchéng'' (), was founded in 2003 and has since amassed 7 million registered users and over 500,000 titles. The works published on 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. ''Danmei'' reached wider audiences in China and elsewhere in the late 2010s, with censored ''danmei'' adaptations like ''Guardian'' (2018, Youku) and ''The Untamed'' (2019, Tencent Video) receiving billions of views and broad international distribution. In 2020, film and television producers purchased the rights to 59 ''danmei'' titles.

Genre characteristics

''Danmei'' works always feature a central romance between men, but otherwise vary widely. Many draw on Chinese literary '' wuxia'' and '' xianxia'' tropes and settings, or incorporate elements of other genres like sports or science fiction. It is common, but not universal, for the two male protagonists of a ''danmei'' work to be divided into ''gōng'' () or "top" and ''shòu'' () or "bottom" roles, which are analogous to the Japanese ''seme'' and ''uke.'' Some works do not use these roles and instead refer to the protagonists as ''hùgōng'' (). ''Danmei'' has been criticized for its adherence to "

heteronormative Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal mode of sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most ...

" gender roles within same-sex relationships, but in recent years the genre has grown to contain a wide variety of different relationship dynamics.

Audience

Due to ''danmei'' being primarily created and consumed by heterosexual women, ''danmei'' is considered to have a "female perspective" and "heteronormative frame". It is considered appealing toward heterosexual women for its separation from the female body and fans of ''danmei'' cite equality between partners as part of the appeal of the genre, especially in comparison to heterosexual romance. Female fans of ''danmei'' often refer to themselves as ''fǔ nǚ'' (; lit. 'rotten woman') which is borrowed from the Japanese term '' fujoshi.''

Media

Most popular ''danmei'' properties originate as web novels, which are published serially on websites like Jinjiang Literature City, Liancheng Read, and Danmei Chinese Web. Readers pay for new chapters as they are released. Complete novels may also be published as physical editions in China (either self-published or via Taiwan) and abroad.

Fan translation Fan translation (or user-generated translation) refers to the unofficial translation of various forms of written or multimedia products made by fans (fan labor), often into a language in which an official translated version is not yet available ...

of Chinese web novels, especially ''danmei,'' is widespread. ''Danmei'' novels are often adapted as ''

manhua () are Chinese-language comics produced in China and Taiwan. Whilst Chinese comics and narrated illustrations have existed in China in some shape or form throughout its imperial history, the term first appeared in 1904 in a comic titled ''C ...

'' (comics), '' donghua'' (animation), audio dramas, and live action television series, which may or may not retain textual queer elements. Live action

web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single ...

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

Censorship

Despite its popularity, ''danmei'' media is constantly at risk of legal action by the Chinese government as it "breaks two social taboos in one shot: pornography and homosexuality." Pornography is illegal in China, although the exact laws regarding its possession and distribution are blurry, and ''danmei'' literature with explicit sex scenes is unambiguously classified as pornography. Homosexuality itself has been decriminalized in China since 1997, but due to vague legal definitions of "obscenity" and "abnormal sexual behavior", even non-explicit queer literature may be subject to censorship. Anti-porn crackdowns in 2004, 2010 and 2014 resulted in the closure of many ''danmei'' websites and forums. 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. 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 Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...

novel featuring rape and teacher-student romance sold over 7,000 copies, violating laws regarding excessive commercial profit for unregistered books. The strict censorship policies cause some ''danmei'' communities to self-police, with sites such as Jinjiang Literature City asking its readers to report explicit works for deletion. Some mainland Chinese ''danmei'' authors circumvent the restrictions on pornography by hosting the explicit portions of their work on Taiwanese literature websites. In early 2016, the gay web drama '' Addicted'' (based on a Chinese boys' love novel) was abruptly removed from all mainland Chinese streaming platforms before it finished airing on orders from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT). 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. These new guidelines impacted web dramas, which have historically had fewer restrictions than broadcast television. The SAPPRFT went on to issue even stricter regulations regarding online shows in June 2017. Several ''danmei'' novels have been adapted as live action web dramas since 2017, skirting the regulations by removing explicit queer romance elements while retaining queer subtext. In 2018, shortly after releasing its final episode, live action ''danmei'' adaptation ''Guardian'' was pulled from streaming platforms for "content adjustments" following a directive from the SAPPRFT to "clean up TV programmes of harmful and vulgar content". It was later re-released with scenes edited or deleted, but none of which had to do with homoerotic subtext. To comply with censorship policies, large budget adaptations will often replace an explicitly homosexual romance with a homosocial deep friendship instead, possibly leaving the possibility of more intentionally vague. Adaptations featuring such non-romantic relationships are sometimes called ''dangai'' instead.

References