Imagined Comrades and Imaginary Protections

This paper describes the recent development of identity and community among gay men in China. It focuses both on the ways emerging forms of gay identity relate to larger ideological and discursive shifts within society, and on the ways these new forms of identity and community affect situated social interaction among gay men themselves. In particular, it addresses the question of how these emerging forms of gay identity and gay community affect the ways gay men in China understand the threat of HIV and make concrete decisions about sexual risk and safety. Among the chief tactics used by gay men in China to forge identity and community involves appropriating and adapting elements from dominant discourses of the Party-State and the mass media. This strategy has opened up spaces within which gay men can claim “cultural citizenship” in a society in which they have been heretofore marginalized. At the same time, this strategy also implicated in the formation of attitudes and social practices that potentially increase the vunerability of Chinese gay men to HIV infection.