'On Not to Be Gay'

Hongwei Bao has recently published a new article, 'On Not to Be Gay: Aversion Therapy and Transformation of the Self in Postsocialist China'.

In this article, through a critical reading of the published diaries written by the gay ‘patients’ who received aversion therapy in order to become ‘straight’ in south China in the 1990s, Dr Hongwei Bao examines how the transformation of subjectivities from gay to straight was made possible by such ‘self-technologising’ practices as writing diaries and affective communication with others. In doing so, he considers the centrality of the body and affect in the process of subject (trans)formation, and asks how a new, coherent and authentic ‘self’ was fabricated through bodily and affective experiences. This discussion not only reveals the social construction of the self as central to China’s postsocialist governmentality, but also the central role that gender and sexuality play in processes of self-formation.

Hongwei Bao, 'On Not to Be Gay: Aversion Therapy and the Transformation of the Self in Postsocialist China', Health, Culture and Society, 3(1): 132-49.