Where Is My Brokeback Mountain?

Abstract

Based on forty-five in-depth interviews with Hong Kong Chinese gay men, this chapter discusses how non-heterosexuals 'do' family and intimacy. It views family as representing "a constructed quality of human interaction or an active process rather than a thing-like object of social investigation". The chapter is drawn from a larger project of de-centring heteronormative processes of gender conventionality, heterosexuality and family traditionalism and 'doing family', respectively; through ninety personal stories of gay Chinese men collected in Hong Kong, London and mainland China between 1996 and 2008, some of which involved ongoing conversations. Interviews were free-flowing in style but focused on these men's identity formation in relation to their experiences about love, intimacy and family. The chapter highlights that alternative lifestyles and sexual and intimate relationships that might go beyond the culture of 'compulsory monogamy' and the notion of coupledom have slowly emerged, and need more attention and investigation.