activism

Oyaji Uke

Katrien Jacobs

Tiger and Bunny_birthday animal

Detail from the Japanese BL fan comic Birthday Animal by Akou Susugu (Scanlated into English by Vices and Devices) In this story Tiger has a dildo-like tail (a birthday present from Bunny) which gives him sexual energy but also seems to have a life of its own.

I produced a zine for the Parasite Exhibition Ten Million Rooms of Yearning: Sex in Hong Kong which takes place in five venues in Hong Kong and will be open until August 10, 2014. My zine comments on a collection of Boy’s Love fan zines and slash fiction about tow anime characters,  Tiger & Bunny, and focuses on a reappraisal of the middle-aged male character as “bottom” (In Japanese Oyaji Uke)

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The Chinese Dream

Katrien Jacobs

 

Together with Tatiana Bazzichelli and Francesco Palmieri I am organizing several panels for the forthcoming Transmediale Festival in Berlin from 29 january till 2 february in Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt whose theme this year is “afterglow.” One of the panels deals with artistic-sexual rebellion and censorship in the Chinese netsphere. The speakers for this panel are Dr. Sufeng Song who is an outspoken academic and activist at Sun Yat Sen university, Guanzhou, and Didi-Kirsten Tatlow who is a correspondent for the New York Times in Beijing with a focus on art, democracy, feminism and technology. Besides these two speakers I have interviewed two well known dissident artists/intellectuals who are currently banned from international travel–the pioneering sex activist and investigative documentarian Ai Xiaoming (sometimes called “Ai of the South”)and the world famous artist and social media commentator Ai Wei Wei (“Ai of the North”).

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Both Ai Xiaoming and Ai Wei Wei have had their passports removed and are undergoing constant surveillance by the state while all information about their work is censored.While the contents of their statements can only be revealed at the festival, here are some snapshots of the famous cat of Ai Wei Wei, who made an appearance during the interview. The cat walked in fifteen minutes before the interview took place and jumped on the “celebrity chair.” When Ai Wei Wei himself walked in a bit later and was ready to sit down, she refused to move at all, so Ai Wei Wei then gently dragged the chair with the cat on it away and took another chair. Then we talked  about about the state of Chinese art, political provocation, the importance of the imagination and social debate within the neo-liberal authoritarian state. Ai Wei Wei’s statements were overall quite pessimistic and it was difficult for me to ask more personal questions or to lift the mood.

We sensed and acknowledged a total rift between China and the West in how he is treated as a public celebrity figure–while we can find an overload of information about him outside China, his compatriots who share his cultural background cannot not find any information at all. It is as if he is officially deleted from the networks and could well be replaced by his cat. But of course Ai Wei Wei continues to make art internationally and does have a local support system. If you want to read an account of how Ai Wei Wei feels affected and deals artistically with his post-prison condition read Didi-Kirsten Tatlow’s recent interview in the New York Times.  Here you can read how he engages in  small protest on a daily basis, how he feels that art and intellectual life in China is sick and needs healing, and where he would like to go if he could travel again.

 

The man who never screamed during orgasm.

Katrien Jacobs

I had been invited by Professor Sufen Song of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guanzhou to give a talk about “Feminine Pornography as Art of Failure” and to hold a workshop with women who are into gay erotic animations and fictions.  The talk garnered unusually rich feedback from students. The workshop was well attended and came alive during the second half, where they were asked to imagine  a short story about  gay couple in Berlin, an older Belgian professor Moenen (named after the devil in the Flemish medieval story Marieke Van Nijmeghen) who falls in love with the much younger Fritz from Berlin.

The Guanzhou imagination ran wild as students improvised their versions of this relationship.  One student recited her story in loud and confident english sentences and was not shy to use the f*** word. And several days later that very story got stuck in my mind, so I summarize it here for you:

Professor Moenen is very old-fashioned and strict, the kind of person who takes care of his own household. Between the two world wars he visits Berlin. a wet and dark city, and ends up in a bar called Neo, filled with strictly gay men. They are the kind who drink their coffees while talking about Plato. When Moenen runs into the gorgeous Fritz, he falls for him quickly and does all the things Fritz tells him to do.

Fritz  fucks professor Moenen very hard. But Moenen does not scream or shout it loud. Fritz wants him to say “Fuck me harder!” but he does not shout. Fritz soon is tired of the old dog who just follows him around. In the end he dumps old Moenen who also  ends up being forgotten by history.

It is only when Fritz himself become Professor many years later, that he misses the old men.

Perhaps these young Chinese women like to pester high-brow masculinity and deprive it of a voice. As they explained afterwards, they like to eroticize vulnerability and pain alongside the details of sexual conquest. Let this be a lesson for us middle-aged academics. If at all possible, let’s follow our wildest desires and do it with younger lovers, but let our matured minds also really enjoy the sex, “to scream and shout it out loud!”

Peter Teffer blog: Bloot als politiek wapen in China

Katrien Jacobs

De foto’s staan als memory-kaartjes naast elkaar en zijn bepaald niet opwindend. Je ziet jong en oud, man en vrouw, met als enige gezamenlijk kenmerk: geen kleren aan. Ongeveer tweehonderd mensen, vooral Chinezen, hebben naaktfoto’s op internet geplaatst om de Chinese kunstenaar en activist Ai Weiwei te steunen. Boven de afbeeldingen staat ‘Luister, Chinese regering, naaktheid is géén pornografie’.  Lees hier verder

The Effects of Youth on Pornography

Katrien Jacobs

From People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet (Intellect Books)

While much of my meanderings through Chinese pop and porn culture usually originate from conversations with friends and colleagues, occasionally I receive a message from an anonymous party whose motivations are unknown. I once received a zip file attachment with DIY photos of a young couple “caught in the act”, photos snapped outside the window of a university dormitory. To receive such a gift, from an unknown and untested source,it made me a bit paranoid, but I also realized that I had to take it at face value, as it was saying” We do have sex in China. Please include us in your collection.”

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Yay or Nay?

Katrien Jacobs

I have received lot of reactions on the Internet and in the media to my forthcoming book  People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet. It will officially be released on 26 november and soon thereafter be available on amazon.com. 

Meanwhile I have signed a contract with the Hong Kong  publisher  UP publications for a Chinese translation of the book. The editor Chak interviewed me about the history of banned books for their monthly magazine Life and Reading Culture.  I talked about the 1960s ban of Jean Genet’s books in the USA and said “I just hope that my book will not be banned in China.” I asked him if he thought it would be safe in China. He said he was not sure and pointed to the stuffed animal on my desk, the Chinese anti-censorship animal  grass mud horse (ca0 ni ma) . The problem would be the horse. Now I need to think about a horse-less version of People’s Pornography. 

For many years I have been asked to censor my publications and take out all kinds of sexually explicit images or vulgar language. I have always tried to compromise but somehow cannot separate from the horse –all the surreal motions of of power and lust that it represents–how it allowed me to project my own fables and finish my book. 

So do you think that the book can exist without reference to the grass-mud horse?

Filippino lesbian wedding in Kennedytown

Katrien Jacobs

Today is my 45th birthday and I had a very sweet day. I received gifts and kisses, a message from my ghost. I also actually attended a lesbian wedding organized by the Filippino lesbian organization Filguys. The young couple Jeczer and Shey were accompanied by their butch-femme “parents” and “grandparents,” and many other lesbian couples, and—-0h my goddess—-what an amazing showcase of queer pride and performance artistry. I have never seen so many beautfiful butches in my entire life, not to mention their sexy looking femme-girls, and it was indeed a very emotional moment for all those involved. Hong Kong can feel like a crusty cold patriarchy but then here we entered a space of love and subversion. Of course this is not a legal wedding but a hijacking of that sacred space of male-female entitlement, and it maintained very traditional Filippino wedding elements, like the wedding rings, and the coins, and the couple being tied together by means of a cord.  The young butch Jeczer was dressed as a golden prince and gave a long and tearful speech, which was much better anything in the British royal wedding. It was also just so nice to be welcomed so warmly, to be invited to give a speech, it was one of the best queer events that I have ever had. And let’s also hope the butch-femme couple is having good sex right now. And thank you my student Ada Lee for inviting me along.

How A Sex Scene is Implied in A Chinese Poem

Katrien Jacobs

 

(Thanks to Carrie Yang for this finding cute sex poetry, for translating it into English, and for annotating it below. Happy christmas everyone and don’t forget to be bad. )

月出煙盡琴簫冷

The moon rose, the smoke dissipated, the flute became cold

階前侯人唯杯影

I waited before the steps for the one with a glass and its shadows

且執木樨眠

Slept with the Osmanthus fragrance in hand

千紅棲碧淵

Thousands of redness rested on green abyss

欲提羅襪去

I was going to leave with my silk socks

聞語還凝佇

But I hesitated upon his voice so I stopped

夢里喚真真

It reminded me how we called out in dreams

掩門辭舊塵

I shut the door and bid farewell to the old dust…

Explanations:

The Poem is written in Pu Sa Man (菩薩蠻）

首句，月出而清，清則不亂，煙盡而寒，無情始

The first sentence, when the moon rise, the whole world cleared up, there was no longer noices and chaos; when the smoke dissipate, it becomes cold…It signified ruthlessness and cruelty.

The flute is widely used to refer to the dick. And the action of “playing(blowing) the flute” is the synonym of “blow job.”

A glass before the steps…You can imagine wither it’s drug or wine.

Redness refers to blood of the woman. The green abyss is from Tao Te Ching…It refers to the virginal.