Cashing the pink RMB through docile bodies: queering paradox of erotic entrepreneurs on Chinese social media platforms

The study situates the rise of eroticized influencer labor within China’s rapidly expanding platform economy and uneven socio-economic development. While desire and intimacy traditionally remain private, recent platformization has commodified them through livestreaming and short video. The paper focuses on male-identified/male-presenting influencers who monetize tactically packaged erotic performance and play (distinct from illegal sex work), operating within stringent regulations and social norms. It examines how their practices challenge categorization, visibility, and sexualities in China. Adopting a Foucauldian perspective on productive power, the study asks how these erotic entrepreneurs construct and market intimacy under platform, state, and fan disciplining forces, and how queerbaiting/bromance strategies enable monetization while negotiating censorship and audience expectations.

The paper employs Foucault’s concept of the docile body to analyze how platform technologies, surveillance, and discourses produce normalized, productive bodies within China’s creative economy. Drawing on Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, the authors argue that sexuality is an object and target of power, and that platformized mediation amplifies disciplinary effects via algorithms, moderation, and fan panopticism. The framework distinguishes docility (external disciplining) from the care of the self (self-discipline/resistance), while highlighting neoliberal homo economicus and human capital as inseparable from embodied labor. The authors situate erotic entrepreneurship within biopolitical governance and surveillance capitalism, emphasizing fan-led, real-time disciplining through e-gifts and editorial control. The review engages Chinese and global scholarship on influencers, queer visibility, and fandom (e.g., BL/ACGN cultures, queerbaiting/bromance, prosumption). In China, queerbaiting functions as straight-baiting: straight-identifying men deploy homoerotic personae without explicit queer identification to widen appeal and avoid censorship, aligning with a neoliberal creative economy and nationalism. The "queering paradox" describes how these performances simultaneously disrupt hegemonic masculinity while reinforcing hierarchical, patriarchal orders and market imperatives, complicating the applicability of Western feminist/queer theories to the Chinese context.

A virtual ethnographic approach was adopted to study identity performance and digital work practices across Douyin (TikTok) and Bilibili. Methods included: - Thematic analysis of 40 videos across 20 Bilibili pages, purposively sampled via keywords such as "boyfriends," "husbands," "confess," and "PK" (competitive livestream battles with e-gifts and commissions). Videos were examined for recurring topoi, archetypes, and monetization tactics. - Participant observation of over 20 erotic entrepreneurs via fan groups and immersive live broadcasting on both platforms. Researchers observed cross-platform reposting/editing by fans and its feedback into future editorial choices. - Four pairs of influencers were selected as case studies: a semi-hidden gay couple (self-identified publicly as "flatmates"), two cross-dressing/cosplay beauty vloggers, and four chat-vloggers; each pair was treated as a "couple" in RPS fandoms. Names/accounts/shops were pseudonymized per ethical approval.

- Erotic entrepreneurship constitutes diversified income streams beyond explicit sexual content: infrastructure-enabled e-gifts/tips, sponsored products, advertorials, merchandise, one-on-one engagements, and fandom entry fees. Transactions are tracked on-platform, exerting disciplinary pressure and typically split 50/50 between platform and influencer, with further MCN cuts when applicable. - Most observed influencers self-identified as straight; a unique semi-hidden gay couple faced exclusion in PK sessions, indicating selective gamification that disadvantages outed LGBTQ influencers and pressures queer subjects into passing. This contributes to docility via market and platform design. - PK competitions monetize fan rivalry across “houses.” Winners impose punishments on losers—ranging from playful to humiliating (e.g., washing underwear/socks/feet on camera, push-ups, AR filters, eroticized confessions)—often with sexual innuendo. Platform moderators surveil in real time; punishment segments sometimes trigger bans lasting 3–7 days. - Fans exert panoptic, editorial control: paying for privileged access, directing collaborations, determining punishments, screen-recording/editing reposts on Bilibili, and shaping future content strategies. The highest bidders wield greatest influence, reinforcing hierarchies and market-driven docility. - Popular topoi/archetypes include bromance, pranks, grooming for sponsors, product placements, and persona roles (e.g., jocks, tyrant boss, warm gentleman, little-fresh-meat, husband). These are synchronized with platform cart functions for direct sales, closing a monetization loop. - Queerbaiting/straight-baiting is normalized and “copyrighted” as a monetization formula, enabling straight-identified men to perform queered masculinities while disavowing homosexuality. Homophobic/gay-bravado humor and bottom-shaming surface as comic devices, paradoxically diversifying yet hierarchizing masculinities. - Technical affordances (beauty filters, body-slimming, height illusions) support "technofantasies" that sustain desirability. Fans often valorize struggle narratives as motivational, linking them to follower counts, income, and sponsorships rather than identity politics. - Case insight: a "jock sister" persona cultivated bromance, sadomasochistic play, and ambiguity; after revealing a girlfriend, paid fan groups dissolved amid accusations of deception, illustrating the fragility of the tacit contract around queered ambiguity and market-driven expectations.

Findings show erotic entrepreneurs operate as Foucauldian docile bodies under intersecting powers of the state, platforms, and fans. Platform rules, monetization mechanics (e-gifts, PK), and moderation shape acceptable performances; heteronormative cultural norms encourage queered but non-queer-identifying masculinities; fan economies enforce real-time discipline through payments and editorial influence. The queering paradox explains how performances can simultaneously subvert and reproduce hegemonic masculinities: queer-coded intimacy increases visibility and commercial appeal, yet privileges straight-identified personae, marginalizes outed LGBTQ creators, and reifies patriarchal hierarchies via homophobic humor and role stratifications. This addresses the research question by revealing how eroticized intimacy is marketized through disciplined bodies and mediated affects, challenging simplistic notions of repression and highlighting productive power in China’s platformized desire economy.

The paper contributes a contextualized application of Foucault’s docile body to China’s platform economy, theorizing erotic entrepreneurs’ marketized intimacy as produced through platform governance, state regulation, and fan-led disciplining. It identifies queerbaiting/straight-baiting as a core monetization strategy that both disrupts and reinstates gendered hierarchies, clarifying the limits of Western feminist/queer theories in the Chinese context. Practically, it maps a monetization value chain linking PK competition, fan editorial control, branded integrations, and technofantasies. Future research should further examine influencer performance and activism across platforms (including those blocked in China), the conditions under which queered visibility can advance LGBTQ politics, and broader qualitative studies of marginalized groups in China’s digital desire economy to avoid monolithic or celebratory narratives.