Danmei fandom is a subcultural community of young women in China. In the context of strict online censorship in China, they engage in the practices of writing, sharing, and reading Danmei fanfic, which is fan secondary works that focuses on the romantic relationship between male characters in media content and popular culture productions. This thesis proposes three research questions: 1) What kind of gendered exploration do female fans do through their participation in the reading and writing of Danmei fanfic? 2) How do fans engage in communication in the Danmei fandom online community? and 3) How do fans’ understanding of censorship guide their practices of circumventing censorship? This thesis uses textual poachers, subculture theory, and heterotopia theory to construct a theoretical framework to explore the subcultural practices of female Danmei fans and the tensions between Danmei subculture and mainstream ideology. To better understand Danmei fandom in a specific context, this project adopted the qualitative research methods of in-depth interviews and netnography to collect empirical data. This research discovers that Danmei fanfic can be a tool for female empowerment, providing a space for women to freely explore their sexuality and challenge traditional gender roles and stereotypes. This creative space offers an alternative perspective that diverges from mainstream values and norms, allowing for resistance against dominant ideologies. However, Danmei fandom is connected to mainstream society in a broader ideological sense and reproduces hegemonic discourses and systems to some extent. Additionally, Danmei fandom not only makes diverse gender explorations, but also shows resistance to authoritarian censorship. By imagining the procedures and standards of censorship, they develop collective media use strategies and symbolic meaning systems to circumvent censorship. This thesis focuses on Chinese women’s daily leisure activities to understand female youth subcultures in Chinese contexts and broaden the understanding of slash fanfic in non-Western as well as non-English contexts.

Danmei, a genre of Chinese online fiction very popular among young Chinese females, refers to narratives of male-on-male romance. Studies of danmei, however, have been limited to the fields of Chinese language and literary studies. The genesis, development, and impact of danmei have not been systematically studied in a broader context. This thesis gives a detailed account of the emergence of Chinese danmei online fiction and its development by introducing studies of Japanese Boys Love culture, the source of danmei, and Western Slash Fiction. I also provide a case study of Beijing Gushi (Beijing Story), one of most influential Chinese danmei narratives and some other online danmei narratives in order to discuss Chinese young Chinese females’ thinking about gender equality, women’s rights, and the family. The rise and popularity of danmei fiction show that, while young Chinese females have already noticed the gender inequality in Chinese society and are eager for change, the patriarchal ideology still controls them. At the same time, danmei offers women a fantasy space to assert their subjectivity.

During the last two decades, Mainland China has seen a rise in the emergence of homosexually charged themes in popular underground literature via the spread of the “Danmei” novel. Mandarin for “indulge in beauty,” the term refers to works of fiction centering on graphic depictions of same-sex love between two central male characters. By the late nineties, an explosion of online Danmei forums proved to be a powerful tool in circumventing government censors, and authorship (mainly by young heterosexual women) skyrocketed. Xiao Chun’s Collide, first uploaded to the internet in 2006, swept through online message boards and reading forums to become one of the cornerstone pieces of the Danmei genre. Banned for its lascivious homosexual content, its rabid Internet consumption throughout China and Taiwan has contributed to (and, indeed, sheds light on) a wide array of observable changes occurring in the modern Chinese social landscape. This paper begins with a brief explanation of what little is known about the author of Collide, as well as an introduction to the background of the Danmei movement. Following these sections, a discussion of the sociocultural relevance of the Danmei movement will be presented with special attention paid to the significance of female-dominated authorship and readership, to the voyeurism associated with the genre, and to the relationship between Danmei literature and changing attitudes toward homosexuality. The remaining sections will provide notes from the translator and further remarks on Collide. The analysis will conclude with a full translation of the novel.