Blossom from a Crack in Stone: A Maslovian Study of Chinese Danmei Readers

This thesis investigates the emergence, transformation, and appeal of the Chinese danmei genre — female-authored male–male romantic fiction — as a significant form of gendered popular culture. Combining historical contextualisation, reader-response theory, and thematic narrative analysis, the study adopts Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to offer a comprehensive explanation of danmei’s resonance among well-educated urban Chinese women. It locates danmei within a global genealogy of female-produced queer male romance (including Japanese BL and Western Slash) while emphasising its unique entanglement with Chinese digital platforms, state censorship, and market-driven infrastructures. Chapter One traces the genealogy of danmei from its introduction via pirated Japanese BL manga in the 1990s to its prosperity on platforms like Jinjiang Literature City. It explores how danmei evolved through stages of localisation, diversification, and regulation, under the dual pressures of state censorship and commercial opportunity. Chapter Two engages with existing qualitative reader-focused studies and quantitative data on the demographic features of the readership to explore why danmei resonates with its primary audience. Through a Maslovian lens, this chapter reveals how danmei responds to readers’ psychological needs for safety, esteem, and self-actualisation, moving beyond prior research that emphasises sexual curiosity or community bonding alone. Chapter Three turns to the texts themselves, analysing the top-ranked danmei and yanqing novels from 2003 to 2024 on Jinjiang. Using the tag system of the website as a proxy for thematic structures and reader expectations, it identifies key narrative elements that correspond to women’s layered affective and aspirational demands. These include depictions of egalitarian intimacy, personal growth, through professional or heroic accomplishment, and emotional security. Comparative analysis reveals that danmei fiction is more likely than yanqing to bypass gender constraints, enabling female readers to engage imaginatively with alternative relational possibilities. Chapter Four synthesises what can be inferred from these textual patterns and audience motivations, arguing that danmei’s popularity cannot be reduced to the appeal of its erotic content alone. Rather, it is argued that its appeal lies in its ability to construct emotional and ideological spaces that respond to the lived contradictions of modern Chinese women — caught as they are between degrees of independence and the strictures of patriarchy, between what can be thought of as modern and traditional value systems. Drawing upon comparative insights from analogous subcultures abroad, this thesis concludes that danmei represents a subtle yet potent means of negotiation with gender norms, mediated through narrative pleasure. Ultimately, danmei fiction emerges as a culturally embedded medium through which Chinese women navigate the tensions between autonomy and conformity, using male-male romance to articulate their need for emotional security, self-worth, and imaginative freedom.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

dprof

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Wu, Jiaqian

• HN Hanes cymdeithasol ac amodau. Problemau cymdeithasol. Diwygiad cymdeithasol
• PN Llenyddiaeth (Cyffredinol)

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:4266