When Sexual Roles Matter More Than 'Gay': Desire, Intimacy, and Recognition in Contemporary Chinese Gay Life

• In Event: Sociology of Sexualities Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Sexuality, Identity, Desire, and the Erotic

Abstract

In contemporary Chinese gay communities, sexual roles—commonly expressed as “1,” “0,” and “0.5” (top, bottom, and versatile)—circulate as a shared social language that extends far beyond sexual positioning. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 Generation Z Chinese gay men, this study examines sexual roles as interactional accomplishments rather than expressions of stable preference or identity. Using a symbolic interactionist framework, the paper analyzes how role labels function as interpretive resources through which participants anticipate conduct, assign intention, and establish social recognizability in everyday encounters, particularly in digitally mediated environments.

Findings show that sexual roles operate as accountability structures: once invoked, they render certain behaviors intelligible and others problematic. Participants repeatedly maintained role identifications even when they contradicted embodied experience or desire, engaging in interpretive repair to preserve recognizability rather than abandoning the category. These mismatches indicate not fluidity or confusion but the social durability of role expectations.

The persistence of role identification is explained by the centrality of legibility in interaction. Role labels function as symbolic currency that enables access to intimacy, credibility, and participation, while ambiguity risks exclusion. As a result, sexual roles become a more consequential axis of social organization than homosexuality itself: individuals are first interpreted through role position before being understood as simply “gay.” Rather than merely reproducing hierarchies of gender expression, the role system constitutes a primary order of recognition that structures interaction, desirability, and belonging within the community. This study therefore shifts analysis of sexuality from identity to categorization, showing how inequality emerges through routine practices of making persons intelligible to one another.

Author

• Jiankai Yang, University of Chicago