East Asian Sexualities

This entry provides an introduction to a vibrant, multidisciplinary body of scholarship on sexualities in East Asia. Scholars have long recognized the importance of producing knowledge about gender and sexuality beyond dominant Euro-American models and theories. Yet the tendency to approach East Asian sexualities through the lens of difference, as area studies or as a point of comparison within an East–West binary opposition, has left theoretical Eurocentrism largely intact. (Here, Eurocentrism refers to the use of theories created in the West to analyze data collected elsewhere; constantly referring back to Euro-American experiences and ideas as the norm or standard of measurement for a field of study; and describing Euro-American sexuality studies as, simply, “sexuality studies” without denoting its regional specificity, while the specificity of other ...