Shanghai Fake Marriage Market Draws Gays And Lesbians Seeking Husbands And Wives

Slate Magazine:

SHANGHAI, China--"I'm here to find a lesbian, to be with me and to build a home," No. 11 says to the crowd clustered on floor cushions at a sunlit yoga studio in Shanghai. No. 11 is a muscular man in a flannel shirt and cargo pants, and he easily commands the attention of the crowd of 40 or so young men and women who are gingerly sipping glasses of wine and whispering to their neighbors.

"In my view, a 30-year-old man should start thinking about having a family, but two men can't hold each other's hands in the street. We're not allowed to be a family," he says. The crowd nods.

I'm at a fake-marriage market, where Chinese lesbians and gay men meet to find a potential husband or wife. In China, the pressure to form a heterosexual marriage is so acute that 80 percent of China's gay population marries straight people, according to sexologist Li Yinhe, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. To avoid such unions, six months ago, Shanghai's biggest gay Web site, inlemon.cn, started to hold marriage markets once a month.

Read the whole story: Slate Magazine

Comments

[liberal123]

03:23 AM on 03/05/2011

It is sad that this is the current state of gay rights in China. Chinese gays feel compelled to arrange sham heterosexual cover marriages to please their parents and to meet social expectations. This must be amazingly stressful and alienating to the gay people who have to participate in this charade, and absolutely soul crushing for them to live out their lives in loveless, sham marriages. This is all so unnecessary and pointless.

[matthewnsea]

02:28 PM on 02/13/2011

They should call it the Todd and Sarah Palin market

[2n2]

08:59 PM on 02/11/2011

So the some of the "fallout" from China's one child policy and utter preference for a male heir is taking shape in another easily foreseen manner...

[Tom Fennell]

06:43 PM on 02/10/2011

I think we should have this here in the good old US of A - and Washington DC would be the ideal spot for the headquarters....

[Lucille]

10:48 PM on 02/11/2011

There is nothing in this for American straight women.

[Cat-Lover]

05:29 PM on 02/10/2011

Marriage is an abomination of nature.
No living thing requires permanent unity with its kind.

[2n2]

09:01 PM on 02/11/2011

weird

so, you don't "dig" it....

k, get that... but your dumping your beliefs all over "humankind" like a kid might dump a bucket of paint over an unsuspecting group of friends....

....weird

[Leland Avants II]

04:51 PM on 02/10/2011

****ppssstt***** Chinese leaders....you might want to pay attention to the civil unrest all over the world...I'd hate for your 1 billion strong population to catch wind of democracy and toss you out on your a-s-s.

[vesaversa1]

04:39 PM on 02/10/2011

China will have their social revolution one day .

[KsWrangler]

04:32 PM on 02/10/2011

I'll start worrying about gay marriage in other cultures when my culture gets it figured out.

[IndependentBadger]

09:04 AM on 02/11/2011

That's ridiculous. With that logic we'd have no right to worry about Egyptians hoping for peace, or tsunami victims in Sri Lanka looking for loved ones, or Palestinians attempting to escape the Warsaw Ghetto South the Israelis cooked up in Gaza.

[Senf]

04:21 PM on 02/10/2011

Sometimes freedom requires creativity. Perhaps the slanted Chinese demographic will, albeit inadvertently, contribute to some ease of this bigotry. 23 million single men without matching brides, one would hope homosexuality will be considered a blessing.

[motoGpifupleez]

03:29 PM on 02/10/2011

This could actually be a nifty way around America's obsession against Gay marriage. Two Men who want to be together and two Women who want to be together can get "American definition of married" and then buy houses next door to each other and live what appears to be the "American lifestyle" on the outside but is what they actually want in their own private world.

A Gay version of 'Big Love', as it were.

[Busbydav]

03:45 PM on 02/10/2011

Or we could have equality, It does do a good job of showing what the alternative is. Is this the kind of world the Christian Right wants for the world?

[Jason N]

03:48 PM on 02/10/2011

You may not realize it, but your proposal is beyond offensive. Gays and lesbians should what, tap dance around bigotry so as not to offend bigots? That makes zero sense. You've basically proposed that gays and lesbians all live theirs lives as one giant lie because some people get their panties in a bunch.

[Ioan Lightoller]

04:33 PM on 02/10/2011

Fanning you again, Jason N. Why should we have to go through permutations like that when it is just easier to be equal. My husband and I are not going through that just to make some bigot feel comfortable. I am not living a lie and if the bigots don't like that, they don't have to watch.

[Jdaddy1951]

06:21 PM on 02/10/2011

Already fanned, but I faved you again. Openness about one's sexual orientation is by far the sanest way to go.

[DeeTwoCents]

02:46 PM on 02/10/2011

How utterly oppressive and depressing!

[DAE]

03:56 PM on 02/10/2011

You're kidding I hope. I found it extremely liberating and hopeful.

[Jason N]

03:59 PM on 02/10/2011

Liberating?!?! To lie to everyone around you your entire life? That's liberating to you. Why don't you try it sometime. Seriously, pretend you're not whatever sexuality you are and see how long you last before slipping up.

[DAE]

03:57 PM on 02/10/2011

You obviously didn't read the whole article.