Fanservice: Queer Baiting or a Step Toward Acceptance?

I was sitting in the Shanghai Pearl Market which is filled with souvenir shops, restaurants, massage places and nail places. My driver was going to be late so I decided to get my toes done. Why not? I needed to kill time.

I usually read or tried to use my Chinese on the nail techs... but not this time.

On TV was a band playing rip tear. A gorgeous visual Korean pop band was ripping pieces of paper using only their mouth and teeth... lips pressed together oops! Again and again... and I was enthralled as were all the other women in the salon.

"Why can't Chinese bands be like this?" "I didn't know two boys could like kissing each other."

From their lips to an author's finger tips! I wrote out the Suck Blow scene years before the band was even fully formed.

Here's one of those KPop TV Shows:

The shock and embarrassment is an expected as part of the game. I know many people will see this as queer baiting.

Queer Baiting: "In a fannish context, queer baiting (or queerbaiting) is a term used to describe the perceived attempt by canon creators (typically of television shows) to woo queer fans and/or slash fans, but with no intention of actually showing a gay relationship being consummated on screen. This is done either by introducing a character whose sexuality seems, early on, to be coded as something other than one hundred percent heterosexual, or by indicating -- be it ever so slightly -- that two same-sex characters might possibly be attracted to each other." (quoted from https://fanlore.org/wiki/Queer_Baiting)

In many cases I'd say yes. But after having lived there I can see this as a possible first step toward acceptance.

Unlike the West China was completely closeted. I had friends who didn't think homosexuality existed in China.

This type of fanservice (while not the best in terms of presentation or education based on our Western filters) it is a baby step to admitting there are people who like to kiss people of the same sex. It's a tiny turn to see how or why two girls or two guys could fall in love.

Sometimes the road to acceptance isn't always a politically correct one.

Seeing a TV program like this allows someone who is on the rainbow the ability to hope and to dream of potential and possibilities.

Many hugs, Z.