A Roundtable: Chinese Gender / Sexuality in 21st Century 廿一世紀中華性／別圓桌會議

14-15 Dec, 2007

Man Kit-Wah Eva 文潔華

ABSTRACT Sex and Emotion: The Intimate Relationship among Agents of Prostitution in Hong Kong and Its Representations in the Consumer Society Discourses in Chinese history regarding the intimate relationship among prostitution agents are found on personal diaries, notes, guidelines and discussion around them. There are also legends and folk stories praising or criticizing the behaviors and attitudes the agents held on each other, most of them are on the issue of care and abandonment, illustrating strong Confucian influences. Yet discrepancies are found on the representation of these relationships in Hong Kong Cinema, which are associated with supply and demand, violence and power, demonstrating direct commercial implications in a consumer society. This paper will first review the traditional discussion on the “Chin” and “Yi” and even the notion of “propriety” in prostitution in China based on old recorded guidelines. The related discourses touch on the subject of sex and emotion, which aimed beyond the customer and client relationship solely on sex. The discussion will check these influences on some famous examples in Chinese literature, as well as the related representation in old Chinese cinema in the first of the 20th century. It is interesting to see the changes the representation of these complicated relationships underwent in Hong Kong Cinema from the 1970s to the last decade, which play on the sadistic elements and reflect on the rapid growth of the capitalistic society. The paper will also compare the subject represented with that in the recent documentaries on sex workers in Hong Kong for further review and discussion. The approaches of the research will be interdisciplinary, reading the subject from the philosophical, historical, literary, cinematic studies and post-colonial perspectives.

BIOGRAPHY Professor Eva Kit Wah Man got her Ph. D from Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is presently the Head of the Humanities Programme and a professor of the Religion & Philosophy Department of Hong Kong Baptist University. Her academic research areas include Comparative Aesthetics, Neo-Confucian Philosophy, Feminist Aesthetics and Philosophy, Gender Studies and Cultural Studies. She has published numerous refereed journal articles, creative prose writings and academic books in Philosophy and Aesthetics. She is also writing columns for Mingpao and Hong Kong Economic Journal. She hosts cultural programmes for Radio Television Hong Kong and the Metro Radio Hong Kong. In 2004, she acts as a Fulbright Scholar at U C Berkeley, U.S., and a visiting scholar of Clare Hall College, Cambridge University, UK.