hoodwinked

How Do Gay Chinese Avoid Disappointing Their Parents? By Faking a Straight Marriage

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We’ve widely read about how anti-gay sentiments in Chinese culture have less to do with religious-based objections to The Gay than a societal importance on getting married. Which explains why some Chinese might be nudging closer to supporting same-sex marriage, because hey, at least there’s a wedding. And then there are Chinese queers who still feel pressured to get straight married, but found a neat circumvention tactic.

Fake a straight marriage with another gay couple. Writes Elizabeth Murphy:

They had what they thought was the perfect solution, but it turned out that the men are just too picky. They think that Yu Xiaofei, with her cropped black hair and dark-rimmed glasses, looks too much like a tomboy, and they think that Jiang Yifei’s distaste for children is suspicious. So what are these young Chinese women to do? They’re 24, out of college, employed, living at home – and they’re in love with each other and desperate to find a way to stay together. “The most important thing is that we cannot hurt out parents,” Yu said. “They put a lot on us.”

That means finding two men in a similar predicament. Their plan is simple. Yu and Jiang will find a gay male couple, arrange a living situation and lay down some ground rules. Then, they’ll pair off with the men and get married, just as their parents expect them to do. They still have time, and they’re using it to take in every last kiss and touch before these gestures become even more complicated than they already are. Still, their proposed arrangement is no grand tragedy for the pair – it’s practical.

Beneath it all are the Confucian family values that still underpin Chinese society: As a son or daughter, it’s your duty to maintain and carry on the family line by having children. “We have to – that’s tradition,” said Jiang, who sports long caramel-colored hair and clinking bangle bracelets. “That’s what (our parents) think we should do.”

This sounds totally healthy and completely unlikely to yield years of required therapy.

[Miami Herald]

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