Male Brothels, Urbanization and Xiaoguan Identity in Late Ming Fiction: The Forgotten Tales of Longyang

Published in 1632, Jingjiang’s Besotted with Bamboo Recluse’s The forgotten tales of Longyang (Longyang yishi ) is a short story collection focusing on contemporary male same-sex prostitution. Among the twenty tales, the stories narrate various forms of male prostitution from private agreements, to deals via go-betweens, to public male brothels. This diversity of venues and arrangements appears to reflect the instabilities in which male love was caught up as a result of late Ming urbanization as well as the growth of urbanization in separate regional centres.