2018/09/03 by Yao Zhao, Anna Madill · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · Engineering · #Media, Gender, and Advertising #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Asian Culture and Media Studies #Thematic analysis #Feeling #Gender studies #Romance #Fandom #Demographics #Frame (networking) #Sociology #Psychology #Media studies #Social psychology #Qualitative research #Social science #Psychoanalysis #Demography #Engineering
paper · doi:10.1080/21504857.2018.1512508
openalex publication_date 2018/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article addresses the research question: How do Chinese Yaoi fans read Yaoi stories? Yaoi is a female-oriented genre of Japanese popular culture which describes romantic and erotic relationships between men. We interviewed twenty Chinese nationals who are self-defined fans of Yaoi (mean age = 23.5 years). Although men were not excluded, none volunteered. A Yaoi fandom survey was created in Chinese and in English with five sections: demographics, Yaoi materials, feelings about Yaoi, social relationships, and other erotic materials (Chinese N = 1085; Anglophone N = 1615). Thematic Analysis of the interviews produced five themes suggesting the existence of a heteronormative frame: social and family approval, everlasting romantic relationship, heteronormative couple, dislike reversible relationship, and gay relationships in reality. We then selected questions from the survey for statistical analysis on the rationale that these items might inform this frame and help us interpret and contextualise the qualitative analysis. Our survey results support our thematic analysis that Chinese Yaoi fans tend to read Yaoi through a heteronomative frame and, importantly, that in comparison with Anglophone fans, this is differential to Chinese culture.