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For Fun: Affect and Belonging in Contemporary Gay Beijing
William Schroeder
In: Changing Subjects: Male Sexualities and Masculinities in Asia; 05 Nov 2010-05 Nov 2010; The Contemporary China Centre, University of Westminster, London, UK. 2010.
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Abstract
This paper explores affect's relationship to gay subjectivity in contemporary Beijing. It presents belonging and personhood as contextualized experiences that emerge from a range of alliance practices related not only to sexual orientation, but also to leisure interest, regional affinity, and even feeling. Among many options, informants most frequently highlighted "heart opening" (having fun, feeling happy) as the goal of coming together, which suggests a need to open up analysis of sexual subjectivity to the more visceral aspects of social and cultural experience. I consider in two short vignettes of gay recreational groups how this kind of affective reasoning sometimes trumped other logics in context, thus tracing the ways affect informed and emboldened relationships.