<i>Xing</i>: The Discourse of Sex and Human Nature in Modern China



Rocha, Leon Antonio ORCID: 0000-0002-0880-069X
(2010) <i>Xing</i>: The Discourse of Sex and Human Nature in Modern China. Gender &amp; History, 22 (3). pp. 603-628.

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Abstract

<jats:p>In Modern Chinese, <jats:italic>xing</jats:italic> is the character most commonly used to denote sex, gender and sexuality. However, the character was a specialist Confucian term originally meaning ‘human nature’ in Classical Chinese, and only came to signify <jats:italic>both</jats:italic> sex <jats:italic>and</jats:italic> human nature in the early twentieth century. This usage was invented by Japanese intellectuals in the late nineteenth century for their translations of sexological texts from Europe, in which they encountered the concept of sex as a natural drive and the fundamental core of individuals. This article investigates the convoluted linguistic career of <jats:italic>xing</jats:italic>, and argues that in China in the 1920s, sex/<jats:italic>xing</jats:italic> became the point of anchorage for a new politics, which naturalised sex, legitimised talk about reproduction and desire, and made imperative the intensification of the production of scientific knowledge on sex (and by extension ‘human nature’). It is emphasised that the history of <jats:italic>xing</jats:italic> in China in the 1920s is not just a curiosity or appendage to more ‘mainstream’ history of sexuality; rather, it is impossible to appreciate the global nature of modernity without a thorough understanding of the circulation of sexual ideas.</jats:p>

Item Type: Article
Subjects: ?? D204 ??
?? DS ??
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 12 Jan 2016 08:52
Last Modified: 31 Oct 2023 01:07
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01609.x
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/2017742