“Borderline Suggestive” Talk: A Policing Discourse around JK Uniform Wearers in China

• In Event: Sociology of Sexualities Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Sexuality and Gender II

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the popularity of JK uniforms among young women in China and, in the course of that popularity, the pressures and constraints that wearers experience. JK uniform originated as a Japanese high school uniform, originally symbolizing youthfulness, purity, and cuteness; yet these very qualities also render the girls who wear it particularly sexually appealing. After JK uniforms circulated to China through Japanese popular culture, Chinese wearers likewise became susceptible to being labeled as “borderline suggestive” (“擦边”). Through a content analysis of a total of 30 posts on the Chinese social media platform RedNote, combined with an interview with one JK-uniform enthusiast, the paper explores when the commonly used critique of being borderline suggestive is deployed and what meanings it carries. The “borderline” refers to a gray zone prior to reaching the legal category of obscene or pornographic crimes. The analysis shows that people’s interpretations of what counts as being borderline suggestive are highly flexible and arbitrary. Women, more than men, tend to use this comment to assert their own moral standing and to position themselves as sexually passive “good women.” Criticism framed as being borderline suggestive functions not as everyday discourse, but as a form of policing discourse.

Author

• Xiaowen Tan, SUNY-Albany