China’s crackdown on gay erotica targets young female writers

China is tightening its grip on a booming underground literary scene — and the target this time is young women who write gay erotica. Known as danmei, the genre focuses on male-male romantic and erotic storylines, often penned by female authors and consumed by a largely female readership. But what began as fan-fic fantasy has turned into a legal nightmare for its creators.

Once a billion-yuan genre, boys’ love fiction now draws the gaze of China’s morality police

Since February, at least 30 writers — nearly all women in their twenties — have reportedly been arrested across China, according to lawyers speaking to the BBC. Some are still in custody. Others are out on bail, facing trial for violating the country’s pornography laws. The crackdown has mostly centred around Haitang Literature City, a Taiwan-based digital platform that hosts danmei fiction. While the site is technically offshore, its content has drawn Beijing’s ire. According to Chinese law, the “production and distribution of obscene material” is a criminal offence — and gay sex, more than its heterosexual counterpart, seems to fall squarely within that category. 

Writers have described traumatising experiences: being detained, forced to strip in front of strangers, interrogated, and humiliated. Posts from users like Pingping Anan Yongfu, who shared a now-deleted account of her arrest on Weibo, briefly sparked outrage online before censors scrubbed them clean. The hashtag #HaitangAuthorsArrested reportedly drew over 30 million views before it vanished. What makes this crackdown more chilling is its gendered edge. Though erotic fiction of all kinds is technically outlawed, critics say that heterosexual works — even those by bestselling male authors — are often treated more leniently.

Female authors writing queer content, however, appear to be facing the full weight of the law. Some legal experts have also flagged the dangerously low bar for what qualifies as criminal “distribution” — just 5,000 views across a serialised story is enough to trigger arrest.

Despite censorship, fragments of resistance remain. Users on Weibo have questioned who decides what counts as “obscene”, pointing to the double standards applied to female writers. Others argue that China’s laws have not caught up with contemporary pop culture, where danmei has become a billion-yuan IP machine — fuelling bestselling novels, global fan bases, and hit TV dramas starring megastars like Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. For now, though, the authors who helped shape that world are being silenced — one post, one arrest, one vanished handle at a time.

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