ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at mainland Chinese women’s online micro-fictions and do-it-yourself (DIY) comics based on the Japanese animation genre of Boys’ Love (in Chinese called danmei 801 or simply “BL”). This genre refers to female-authored narratives about homosexual love affairs that involve emotional hardship and include hard-core sex. Just like the Japanese fans of Boys’ Love, Chinese women who devour the genres and sub-genres of Boys’ Love have labeled themselves with the ironic self-description of “rotten girls” (the Japanese term is fujoshi and the Chinese term is Funu) or “rotten families” to distinguish themselves from the well-behaved moral mainstream. The stories are divided into classical Chinese stories, modern stories and fantasy stories, focusing on the interplay of “sweet love” and “abuse” between the two male characters. They also consist of esoteric fantasies about gay sex, such as the existence of a specific male genital entitled 801, “Boys’ Love ana (801),” which would be located between the penis and the anus and can be thought of as a male vagina.
