China Cracks Down on Danmei Fiction

The Dragon’s Net: China’s War on Women Who Write Gay Romance

A nationwide campaign has ensnared dozens of female authors of same-sex romantic fiction, sparking a heated debate over censorship, artistic liberty, and the government’s escalating grip on internet culture. Authorities have apprehended no fewer than thirty writers since February, the vast majority of them young women, for publishing on platforms hosted overseas.

A Knock in the Morning

The day of the apprehension remains an unforgettable trauma. One author, who used the online name Pingping Anan Yongfu, detailed the ordeal. The account described being marched to a vehicle in full public view, the degrading experience of a nude search before strangers, and being made to don a specific garment for pictures. Seated in a chair, heart racing, a profound sense of dread took hold. The episode left an indelible mark of shame.

Another writer recounted the moment officers removed her from a university lecture. Her peers looked on as officials escorted her away to search the dormitory. The income earned, from painstaking work at a keyboard, suddenly felt worthless. It was as if people saw it as unearned money, devoid of real labour. This feeling of public disgrace and humiliation is a common element in the narratives shared by the detained authors.

The Scope of the Sweep

Since February, in a coordinated operation, officials have detained no fewer than 30 writers, who are predominantly young females in their twenties. Many have since secured temporary release on bail, although some are still being held. The campaign appears to be an escalation of a prior wave of arrests in late 2024, when police in Anhui province prosecuted approximately 50 writers. This time, the net has been cast wider; even individuals with minimal participation were reportedly not spared.

Legal professionals providing free counsel have been overwhelmed. One reported getting over 150 requests for consultation in a span of just two days. A great number of those who reached out had not yet been formally accused but were deeply frightened by that prospect. The apprehensions have been spearheaded by police in the northwestern metropolis of Lanzhou and eastern China's Jixi County, fostering a climate of fear that extends through the entire digital writing sphere.

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The World of Danmei

These individuals had placed their creative output on Haitang Literature City, a Taiwan-hosted portal well-known for "danmei" fiction. The term, which translates to "indulging beauty," designates a category of romance between male characters that often includes erotic scenes. It began in Japan during the 1970s as "boys' love" comics and reached China via Taiwanese translations in the 1990s, where it rapidly built a profoundly loyal online audience.

Danmei narratives combine romance with other genres like historical fantasy, martial arts (wuxia), and science fiction. A recurring plotline features a BDSM-style dynamic that evolves into a dedicated, happy relationship, not unlike a same-sex Fifty Shades of Grey. This distinct fusion of love stories and escapism has attracted a massive readership, with young females in China being a major component. The category has grown into a major cultural and economic force.

A Coded Female Space

The attraction of danmei for heterosexual women is a complicated phenomenon. In a social environment where the expression of female sexual interest is frequently controlled, danmei offers a veiled, inventive avenue for self-expression. According to Dr Liang Ge, a lecturer on digital sociology at University College London, it enables women to "disengage from gender-based realities," which they frequently connect with the responsibilities of matrimony and raising a family.

Within these stories, conventional gender expectations are often upended or thrown out. Men are able to conceive children and are comfortable expressing their own frailties—a stark departure from the often imbalanced dynamics that many Chinese women contend with in their day-to-day lives. This make-believe world provides an escape and a forum to explore desire free from patriarchal constraints, effectively letting women write about their own longings for other women via male characters.

The Ambiguity of the Law

The creators are charged with breaking China's pornography statutes for creating and circulating indecent content. The legislation, last revised in 2010, zeroes in on graphic portrayals of homosexual relations or alternative sexual deviations. A conviction for generating income from such works can result in a prison term exceeding a decade. This legal structure often allows more latitude for heterosexual scenes; literary pieces by respected authors, including Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, have detailed sexual passages but remain broadly obtainable.

Commentators note that while creators of heterosexual adult fiction have faced incarceration, that genre receives substantially less official scrutiny. The same-sex variety, perceived as more defiant of social norms, appears to be a greater source of irritation for the government. The legal criteria for criminal "circulation" is alarmingly wide; as few as 5,000 views of anything classified as "indecent" makes it much easier to apprehend content creators. This ill-defined threshold places immense pressure on writers.

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Pop Culture's Rebellious Royal

Danmei occupies a strange paradox. It is the defiant aristocrat of Chinese popular culture—too well-known to disregard, but too divisive for the state to celebrate. In 2020 alone, 59 danmei works had their adaptation rights purchased for cinema and television. The most valuable intellectual property was reportedly acquired for 40 million yuan (£4.1 million). Some of China's most famous celebrities, such as Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, began their careers in streaming productions that were adapted from danmei fiction, like The Untamed.

These adaptations, however, are intensely sanitized. The explicit romance is removed and repackaged as a profound "bromance" to meet strict regulations. This leads to a situation where bowdlerized versions become mainstream successes that generate billions of views, while the original works and their writers are prosecuted. The genre's popularity has made it a notable cultural export, bolstering China's soft power even as it is crushed at home.

Xi's Digital Purification

This campaign is not an isolated event. It is one element in a wider set of initiatives under President Xi Jinping to "purify" the internet. Since 2013, Xi has highlighted the internet as a crucial front for ideological and state security. This has prompted sustained crackdowns on content considered "harmful," such as pornography, "inappropriate values," and what the government terms "abnormal aesthetics."

State-controlled media has increasingly depicted danmei as "vulgar culture" that encourages irrational fanaticism in young people. As the nation confronts declining marriage and fertility figures, the government has advocated for a return to conventional family ideals. Dr Ge observes that an affinity for danmei is considered an element that could make women less inclined to have children, putting the genre squarely in the government's crosshairs.

A History of Suppression

The current apprehensions are the newest event in a long pattern of censorship aimed at danmei. Anti-pornography initiatives in 2004, 2010, and 2014 resulted in the shutdown of many danmei websites. In 2011, the proprietor of one such site was imprisoned for 18 months. The most notorious incident happened in 2018 when the writer Tianyi was given a 10-year prison sentence after selling 7,000 units of her self-published book, Occupy.

That case prompted a public outcry over the harshness of the punishment, which many critics argued was more severe than sentences for violent offenses like rape. The targeting of Tianyi and others established a frightening precedent, showcasing the grave legal dangers. Platforms such as Jinjiang Literature City reacted with severe self-censorship, renaming its danmei category "pure love" and prohibiting any depiction of intimacy below the neck.

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The Tactic of 'Offshore Fishing'

The recent apprehensions underscore a disputed police method called "offshore fishing," in which regional police forces take on cases well outside their geographical mandate. Police in Lanzhou, for example, have called in writers from all over the country, arguably exceeding their legal reach. Several authors mentioned having to cover their own airfare to Lanzhou for questioning. One person shared that the 2,000 yuan she made from her writing barely paid for the flight.

This approach is frequently motivated by monetary gain. Fiscally strained municipal administrations can collect substantial funds through the large penalties levied in these situations. An author named Yun Jian, who had made 1.85 million yuan, received a sentence of four-and-a-half years and was fined double her earnings. This tactic is especially useful for cybercrimes, as police can assert authority simply by professing that a local inhabitant was negatively affected by the material.

A Community Under Siege

The campaign has sent tremors through the danmei community. Authors described having their phones inspected without a proper warrant and contended that the police's way of calculating readership—by totaling the views for every installment—was deceptive and artificially boosted the figures. One author lamented that works she created for just a few followers suddenly gathered more than 300,000 views, transforming her 4,000 yuan in author payments into "evidence of a crime."

In reaction, the community has displayed glimmers of opposition. The Weibo tag #HaitangAuthorsArrested collected over 30 million interactions before censors took it down. Posts that dispensed legal guidance from pro bono lawyers have also disappeared. In the face of intense examination, writers and fans have long employed symbolic language to bypass filters, using phrases like "making dinner" for sex or "kitchen tool" for male genitalia.

The Debate Within

The danmei genre is not without its own detractors. Some stories depict scenes of extreme violence, which raises valid concerns. The young age of the creators and readers is a further point of contention. A small number of authors confirmed they all started consuming and creating same-sex adult fiction before they were eighteen, with some starting when they were as young as eleven. One Weibo contributor, identifying as a guardian, questioned how many people would be at ease with their children consuming, much less composing, such fiction.

A writer named Ma conceded that this is an issue the community ought to recognize and tackle. However, she added that this is an issue for all mature content in China, a nation that does not have a formal age-based content rating system. These internal discussions are made more complex by outside pressure, as the state frequently uses these issues to rationalize wider suppression of the entire genre.

The Future of a Forbidden Art

The outlook for these authors is unclear. Following the widespread circulation of her message, Pingping Anan Yongfu took it down, expressed gratitude to her followers, and acknowledged that her creative works had broken the law before erasing her account completely. One of her final communications expressed a profound sense of disgrace, stating she had shamed her parents, and they would never feel proud again. This underscores the harsh social fallout that accompanies the legal punishments.

Yet, amid the apprehension, a resilient spirit endures. One author, who has created danmei works for two decades, declared the official campaign would not deter her. "This is how I find happiness," she stated. "And I can't forsake the bonds I have formed within the group." Another, using the alias Sijin de Sijin, expressed a hope that the legal framework would perceive more than just the text on the display—to see the young woman who was convinced her creativity could forge a new path through hardship.