Mixing business with pleasure: Masculinity and male sexual culture in urban China in the era of HIV/AIDS

This dissertation examines the potential impact that re-emerging trends of masculinity and male sexual culture in urban China can have on the country's burgeoning HIV epidemic. Elite men who engage in networks and relationships used to succeed in business and government in contemporary China often participate in a series of banqueting, drinking, and entertainment activities embraced by a society governed by both traditional socialist patron-client relations as well as a deeper seated tradition of relationship building (guanxi ). I trace the lives of urban men who are trying to benefit from the many opportunities available in the market-oriented period of post-Mao China. I highlight the struggles they encounter between traditional family expectations, traditional Chinese masculine entitlements, and contemporary expectations of state loyalty that often govern their success. Much of the dissertation is framed on how the hosting and entertaining activities expected of these men as an informal part of their work requirements create vulnerabilities to STD and HIV infection for both the men and their sexual partners. I also link the roles that formal and informal governance and HIV/AIDS policy have played in the development and response to a sexually transmitted epidemic in China. This is done in several ways. First, because my research on masculinity and male sexual culture focuses on men who engage in bureaucratic networks, I link this subject to the role informal governance plays in shaping the development of China's sexually transmitted HIV epidemic. More specifically, I analyze how certain national level policies about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment are implemented at the local level. I also use the vantage point of my primary fieldsite, which is located on the Chinese-Burmese border, to analyze the socio-cultural and politico-economic dynamics that have helped shape the development and response to HIV in China's first epidemic region. Ultimately the study highlights the need to expand our perspective of HIV vulnerability in China beyond the scope of 'high-risk groups' to one that includes the breadth of sexual networks emerging in contemporary Chinese society.