3 - Ambiguous Transnational Porn Consumption: Chinese Young Men Watching Japanese Adult Videos

Facilitated by digital media, Japanese adult videos (JAV) have long been popular among young Chinese men. The gender representation in JAV presents unique characteristics, with men depicted as rescuing women from a state of sexual innocence. Many JAV even include elements of insult, abuse, and incest. Against this backdrop, this article explores how Chinese young men perceive and interpret gender representations in JAV. Through semi-structured interviews with 15 Chinese young men, we found that many respondents have an ambiguous relationship with transnational porn consumption. On one hand, the sense of cultural affinity with JAV allowed them to immerse themselves in these videos’ patriarchal plots. On the other hand, the perceived problematic plots also motivate Chinese young men to consciously and unconsciously distance themselves from JAV – what we call “suspension”. Through suspension, respondents attempt to reconcile their consumption of JAV’s problematic gender representations by creating an imagined distinction between a decent, normal “Chinese-ness” and an exotic, overtly sexual “Japan-ness”. We argue that the ambiguous porn consumption among Chinese young men both manifest patterns of inter-Asian inter-referencing and cross-fertilization of sexual knowledges, and point to the connection and disconnection between pornographic fantasies and realistic gendered power dynamics, which warrants further scholarly attention. 

Co-Author 1
Shitong Sun, Chinese University of Hong Kong