Overview

An inside look at the lives of gay male and transgender sex workers in China In Unlocking the Red Closet, Eileen Yuk-ha Tsang takes us to an upscale gay bar in the port city of Tianjin in Northeastern China, where the male staff have sex with regular clientele. She brings this world to life through interviews with over two-hundred people, including gay male sex workers and their wives, known as ""Tongqi"" (heterosexual women married to gay men), transgender sex workers, HIV patients, and the doctors who care for them. Tsang argues that the violent oppression against the LGBTQ community in China has far-reaching consequences: the limitation of careers outside of the sex industry for gay men, because they do not adhere to traditional ideas of masculinity; the constant exposure to high-risk sexual practices and poor medical care due to stigma in the medical community; and the maintenance of the facade of heterosexual married life. Tsang denounces the homophobic culture and state-sanctioned oppression of the gay community, making a case that, in addition to the very real health risks many face in their profession, many of the gay male and trans sex workers also face social death should they try to lead lives that would embrace their gender and sexual identities. Unlocking the Red Closet is a fascinating look into a rarely seen world that successfully locates the necropolitical within the queer and the queer within the necropolitical.

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9781479821174

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Eileen Tsang illuminates cultural and social expectations locking gay men and trans people inside the red closet in China today. Based on four years of ethnographic observations, and over 300 interviews with male sex workers, their wives, customers, and medical staff, Eileen Tsang provides a fascinating examination of the heretofore little explored lives of queer sex working men in China. * Bernadette Barton, co-editor of Sex Work Today: Erotic Labor in the Twenty-First Century * An insightful account of a marginalized community that survives less on the edge than in the midst of urban society. Tsang’s narrative is nuanced, contextual, insightful, and a delight to read. I learned a lot. I'm sure you will too. * William Jankowiak, author of Illicit Monogamy: Inside a Mormon Fundamentalist Community * Unlocking the Red Closet is a rich ethnographic study of male sex workers and their male and female clients. This important book exposes how economic independence has significant limitations as a force for liberation from social stigma and institutionalised prejudices—be they based on sexual identity, health status, or rural residency. It also shows how poverty and inequality intersect with prostitution to produce a thriving sector in urban areas, despite its illegality. Tsang provides readers with powerful insights into parts of Chinese society largely unseen and often misunderstood. * Louise Edwards, author of Citizens of Beauty: Drawing Democratic Dreams in Republican China *

""Eileen Tsang illuminates cultural and social expectations locking gay men and trans people inside the red closet in China today. Based on four years of ethnographic observations, and over 300 interviews with male sex workers, their wives, customers, and medical staff, Eileen Tsang provides a fascinating examination of the heretofore little explored lives of queer sex working men in China."" - Bernadette Barton, co-editor of Sex Work Today: Erotic Labor in the Twenty-First Century ""An insightful account of a marginalized community that survives less on the edge than in the midst of urban society. Tsang's narrative is nuanced, contextual, insightful, and a delight to read. I learned a lot. I'm sure you will too."" - William Jankowiak, author of Illicit Monogamy: Inside a Mormon Fundamentalist Community ""Unlocking the Red Closet is a rich ethnographic study of male sex workers and their male and female clients. This important book exposes how economic independence has significant limitations as a force for liberation from social stigma and institutionalised prejudices - be they based on sexual identity, health status, or rural residency. It also shows how poverty and inequality intersect with prostitution to produce a thriving sector in urban areas, despite its illegality. Tsang provides readers with powerful insights into parts of Chinese society largely unseen and often misunderstood."" - Louise Edwards, author of Citizens of Beauty: Drawing Democratic Dreams in Republican China

Author Information

Eileen Yuk-ha Tsang is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong. She is the author of several books about China, including China's Commercial Sexscapes: Rethinking Intimacy, Masculinity, and Criminal Justice and Blending East and West: Understanding the Changing Chinese Society.

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