T S K Kong
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 16818 |
|---|---|
| NOME | T S K Kong |
| PRENOMES | T S K |
| SOBRENOME | Kong |
| ASSINATURA | KONG T S K |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4108-9921 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 37 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 207 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 37 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2001 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Statement on the Importance of Sexuality and Gender Research
Seeking Western Men
Ken Plummer
This small piece of writing is my personal account of how I met Ken Plummer and of the impact he had on my academic career. I describe the way in which our relationship changed from teacher and student to lifelong friends, and also share my last encounter with him. In retrospect, I am proud to say that Ken was not just my PhD supervisor, but also my colleague, my mentor, my substitute father and my dear friend
Ken Plummer’s contributions to the study of sexualities and beyond
This special issue pays tribute to and critically engages with the work of Ken Plummer, the founder of this journal. A distinguished sociologist who taught at the University of Essex for thirty years, Ken died last November, at age 76. We conceived of this issue two years ago, long before we anticipated his untimely death. Answering our call, several scholars offered considerations of the significance of his work
“A very risky queer thing to do”
A conversation about the different generational experiences of LGBT academics and the changing status of sexuality and queer studies. Ken Plummer, Arlene Stein and Travis Kong, longtime colleagues and sociologists of sexuality, share their insights. They discuss how different generational contexts and geographic locations shape sexuality studies. They acknowledge the ways Ken's work, and the efforts of his generation of activist-scholars, played …
Disclosure as family practice
This paper examines the family dynamics between parents and gay sons after the latter's disclosure of their sexual orientation. Situated in the “doing family” and life course literature, the paper offers a sociological account of coming out and family dynamics in Hong Kong that presents the narratives of both gay sons and their parents, examining the changing moral and emotional economies of family life across two generations. Thirty‐five in‐dept…
An interview with Professor Stevi Jackson
Be a Responsible and Respectable Man
This article seeks a dialogue between masculinity studies and generational sexuality studies by comparing two generations of gay men in Hong Kong through in-depth interviews with 15 older gay men born before the 1950s and 25 young gay men born after 1990 using a life course approach. The article highlights the sociohistorical and political changes shaping male identity, practice, and culture in colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong, and identifies …
Toward a Transnational Queer Sociology
Western theories are often universalized, with non-Western experiences serving as empirical data for validation. The sociology of homosexuality suffers from this predicament. This article proposes a transnational queer sociology that challenges the dominance of the Western sociology of homosexuality, generates mutually referenced queer experiences that are often missing in the study of the globalization of sexuality, and engages sociology with qu…
Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong
The Paradox for Chem-Fun and Gay Men
Globally, there has been increasing public health and scholarly interest in chemsex, where the consumption of drugs is related to enhancing sexual pleasure, often in a group context, particularly among gay men or men who have sex with other men (MSM). Since the early 2000s, Hong Kong has witnessed the growth of a chemsex scene. In recent years, HIV/AIDs surveillance reports indicate that chemsex goers have contributed to the rise of HIV infection…
The pursuit of masculinity by young gay men in neoliberal Hong Kong and Shanghai
Recent debates in critical studies of men and masculinities center around the intricate relationship between neoliberalism and male identity formation. Drawing on narratives from in-depth interviews with young gay men aged 18–28 conducted in Hong Kong (n = 25) and Shanghai (n = 20) between 2017 and 2018, this article argues that young Chinese gay men negotiate neoliberal heteronormative values and accomplish masculine ideals in the spheres of edu…
Transnational queer sociological analysis of sexual identity and civic-political activism in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China
The sociology of homosexuality lacks engagement with queer theory and postcolonialism and focuses primarily on the global metropoles, thus failing to provide a plausible account of non-Western non-normative sexual identities. This research adopts the author's newly proposed transnational queer sociology to address these deficiencies. First, it critiques the Western model of sexual identity predominantly employed to elucidate non-Western, non-norm…
Tracking gay and lesbian/queer studies in Sexualities
Gay and grey
This article examines how a research project transformed into participatory action research (PAR) whose outcome was a self-help group for older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong. The overall process witnessed a change in the level of participation by both the researcher and researched, as well as the social transformation of the participants and production of knowledge on Chinese homosexuality. Most importantly, the morph into PAR can be seen as a proce…
Sex and work on the move
China’s reconfiguration of the state and the market in its reform era has created new spaces and opportunities that have attracted millions of rural migrants to urban centres in search of freedom, wealth and new identities. However, the new space and the self both remain constricted by post-socialist parameters and the market. Based on ethnographic research on the male sex industry in post-socialist China (2004–2014), this article studies one suc…
Sexual Cultures in Asia
This entry first provides a brief history of the study of Asian sexuality in sociology, followed by an examination of four major aspects of sexual cultures in Asia: changes in marriage, love and sexuality; homosexuality; the sex trade; and the HIV/AIDS situations in countries across Asia
Buying Sex as Edgework
Journal Article Buying Sex as Edgework: Hong Kong Male Clients in Commercial Sex Get access Travis S. K. Kong Travis S. K. Kong * *Travis S. K. Kong, Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong , Rm 917, The Jockey Club Tower, Pokfulam , Hong Kong ; [email protected] . Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 56, Issue 1, January 2016, Pages 105–122, https://doi.org/…
Social Media in Rural China
for inviting me to present and receive feedback on
The Sexual in Chinese Sociology
Through a meta-literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homosexual subject under major socio-economic and political changes. Chinese sociology of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western knowledge production and the political ideology of…
Romancing the boundary
This paper draws on 24 in-depth interviews and 2 focus-group discussions conducted since 2012 with Hong Kong heterosexual men who buy sex in order to examine men's level of physical and emotional engagement with sex workers under two dominant sexual scripts in contemporary Hong Kong. Torn between companionate sexuality, with its companionate model of relationships, and recreational sexuality, with its promiscuous model of sexual pleasure, Hong Ko…
The fourth wave? A critical reflection on the tongzhi movement in Hong Kong
This chapter looks at the tongzhi movement in Hong Kong. Tongzhi , which literally means ‘common will’, is an adaptation of the Chinese term ‘comrade’. As a former British colony, Hong Kong’s tongzhi movement has its own distinctive path different from Taiwan or China due to its colonial governance, religious influences, and the adaptation of Chinese families in such an environment. The chapter discusses three key sites of dominance that constrai…
Welcome from Feona Attwood, Roisin Ryan-Flood and Travis SK Kong
Men who have sex with men
Gay and Lesbian Subculture in Urban China
The Sexual in Chinese Sociology
Through a meta-literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homosexual subject under major socio-economic and political changes. Chinese sociology of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western knowledge production and the political ideology of…
What It Feels Like for a Whore
This article seeks to investigate the complexity of the working experiences of female prostitutes in Hong Kong, using an oral history approach. Based on 13 in-depth interviews, I depict my respondents as performing the skilled emotional labour of sex in exchange for their client's money. Looking at the ways in which the women manage the job, the self and the business, I argue that their major problem is not with the commercial transaction (that i…
Transnational queer sociological analysis of sexual identity and civic-political activism in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China
The sociology of homosexuality lacks engagement with queer theory and postcolonialism and focuses primarily on the global metropoles, thus failing to provide a plausible account of non-Western non-normative sexual identities. This research adopts the author's newly proposed transnational queer sociology to address these deficiencies. First, it critiques the Western model of sexual identity predominantly employed to elucidate non-Western, non-norm…
More Than a Sex Machine
Situated in the masculinity and deviance literature, this article examines a "deviant" masculinity, that of the male sex worker, and presents the ways men who engage in sex work cope with the job. Based on in-depth interviews of Chinese male sex workers (n = 18) in the Hong Kong sex industry, I argue that the stigma management techniques these men employ are simultaneously gender strategies they use to accomplish masculinity. It is through this p…
Buying Sex as Edgework
Journal Article Buying Sex as Edgework: Hong Kong Male Clients in Commercial Sex Get access Travis S. K. Kong Travis S. K. Kong * *Travis S. K. Kong, Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong , Rm 917, The Jockey Club Tower, Pokfulam , Hong Kong ; [email protected] . Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 56, Issue 1, January 2016, Pages 105–122, https://doi.org/…
Sex and work on the move
China’s reconfiguration of the state and the market in its reform era has created new spaces and opportunities that have attracted millions of rural migrants to urban centres in search of freedom, wealth and new identities. However, the new space and the self both remain constricted by post-socialist parameters and the market. Based on ethnographic research on the male sex industry in post-socialist China (2004–2014), this article studies one suc…
Be a Responsible and Respectable Man
This article seeks a dialogue between masculinity studies and generational sexuality studies by comparing two generations of gay men in Hong Kong through in-depth interviews with 15 older gay men born before the 1950s and 25 young gay men born after 1990 using a life course approach. The article highlights the sociohistorical and political changes shaping male identity, practice, and culture in colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong, and identifies …
The pursuit of masculinity by young gay men in neoliberal Hong Kong and Shanghai
Recent debates in critical studies of men and masculinities center around the intricate relationship between neoliberalism and male identity formation. Drawing on narratives from in-depth interviews with young gay men aged 18–28 conducted in Hong Kong (n = 25) and Shanghai (n = 20) between 2017 and 2018, this article argues that young Chinese gay men negotiate neoliberal heteronormative values and accomplish masculine ideals in the spheres of edu…
The Seduction of the Golden Boy
This article investigates the embodied identities of Hong Kong gay men in two different `sites of desire', namely London and Hong Kong. In London, Hong Kong gay men have constantly encountered the intertwining relationships between race and sexuality in the constellation of the Western construction of body/desire/masculinity. By contrast, Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong tend to place more emphasis on issues of family and culture. The main site of …
Statement on the Importance of Sexuality and Gender Research
Gay and grey
This article examines how a research project transformed into participatory action research (PAR) whose outcome was a self-help group for older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong. The overall process witnessed a change in the level of participation by both the researcher and researched, as well as the social transformation of the participants and production of knowledge on Chinese homosexuality. Most importantly, the morph into PAR can be seen as a proce…
Toward a Transnational Queer Sociology
Western theories are often universalized, with non-Western experiences serving as empirical data for validation. The sociology of homosexuality suffers from this predicament. This article proposes a transnational queer sociology that challenges the dominance of the Western sociology of homosexuality, generates mutually referenced queer experiences that are often missing in the study of the globalization of sexuality, and engages sociology with qu…
Social Media in Rural China
for inviting me to present and receive feedback on
Disclosure as family practice
This paper examines the family dynamics between parents and gay sons after the latter's disclosure of their sexual orientation. Situated in the “doing family” and life course literature, the paper offers a sociological account of coming out and family dynamics in Hong Kong that presents the narratives of both gay sons and their parents, examining the changing moral and emotional economies of family life across two generations. Thirty‐five in‐dept…
Queering the Interview
The Seduction of the Golden Boy
This article investigates the embodied identities of Hong Kong gay men in two different `sites of desire', namely London and Hong Kong. In London, Hong Kong gay men have constantly encountered the intertwining relationships between race and sexuality in the constellation of the Western construction of body/desire/masculinity. By contrast, Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong tend to place more emphasis on issues of family and culture. The main site of …
Queering the Interview
What It Feels Like for a Whore
This article seeks to investigate the complexity of the working experiences of female prostitutes in Hong Kong, using an oral history approach. Based on 13 in-depth interviews, I depict my respondents as performing the skilled emotional labour of sex in exchange for their client's money. Looking at the ways in which the women manage the job, the self and the business, I argue that their major problem is not with the commercial transaction (that i…
Sexual Cultures in Asia
Sexual cultures in Asia refer to the ways of sexual life – the shared beliefs, values, meanings, and practices – that are common to members of Asian societies
Sexualizing Asian male bodies
What comes to your mind when you think about Asian men? The Kung Fu masters Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, famous for their martial art skills? Or those who excel professionally such as Yo Yo Ma (a cello player), Michael Chang (a tennis player) and Yao Ming (a basketball player)? What about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's who plays the grumpy, almost hysterical Japanese landlord who constantly shouts at Audrey Hepburn? Or William Hung, the in…
To determine factors in an initiation of a same-sex relationship in rural China
The sexual behaviour and HIV risks among Chinese MSM in rural areas are grossly under-researched. The aims of this study were to explore the process and formation as well as the factors in an initiation of sexual relationship or act in among MSM in this cultural setting. Twenty-four in-depth interviews and observation were conducted in Dali prefecture in two field visits in 2004 and the data were analysed using grounded theory and an ethnographic…
More Than a Sex Machine
Situated in the masculinity and deviance literature, this article examines a "deviant" masculinity, that of the male sex worker, and presents the ways men who engage in sex work cope with the job. Based on in-depth interviews of Chinese male sex workers (n = 18) in the Hong Kong sex industry, I argue that the stigma management techniques these men employ are simultaneously gender strategies they use to accomplish masculinity. It is through this p…
Transnational Queer Labor
Research Article| March 01 2011 Transnational Queer Labor: The "Circuits of Desire" of Money Boys in China Travis Kong Travis Kong The University of Hong Kong [email protected] Travis S.K. Kong is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches sexuality, queer theory, media, and cultural studies. His research interests include Chinese homosexuality and masculinity, prostitution in Hong Kong and Chin…
Men who have sex with men
Chinese Male Bodies
What comes to your mind when you think about Chinese men?1 Would he be the notorious Dr. Fu Manchu of the ‘Yellow Peril’ tradition at the turn of the twentieth century or the contemporary triad ‘big brother’ of many gangster movies, which signify either the ‘evil dictator of the East’ or hyper-masculinity with violence? Would he be a Kung Fu master like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Jack Li, with a particular taste of Zen asceticism, such as Shang-ch…
Relationship type, condom use and HIV/Aids risks among men who have sex with men in six Chinese cities
This study is the first to examine the role of partner type in sexual practices of men who have sex with men (MSM) in China. Using cross-sectional self-administered questionnaires (N=692) with MSM in six Chinese cities (Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xi'an, Dalian and Beijing) in 2008, this paper examines MSM's sexual practices, particularly condom use with different male and female partner types. We categorise sexual partner relationships into f…
A fading Tongzhi heterotopia
Modern heteronormativity in Hong Kong has been produced via British colonialism, land developers, and the family, and maintained through post-colonial administration. Together, these factors have resulted in a heterosexual culture of intimacy with rigid public/private distinctions. Homonormativity has emerged with the rise of tongzhi (synonym for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) space in Hong Kong since the 1990s, but has had the effect…
Welcome from Feona Attwood, Roisin Ryan-Flood and Travis SK Kong
The fourth wave? A critical reflection on the tongzhi movement in Hong Kong
This chapter looks at the tongzhi movement in Hong Kong. Tongzhi , which literally means ‘common will’, is an adaptation of the Chinese term ‘comrade’. As a former British colony, Hong Kong’s tongzhi movement has its own distinctive path different from Taiwan or China due to its colonial governance, religious influences, and the adaptation of Chinese families in such an environment. The chapter discusses three key sites of dominance that constrai…
Romancing the boundary
This paper draws on 24 in-depth interviews and 2 focus-group discussions conducted since 2012 with Hong Kong heterosexual men who buy sex in order to examine men's level of physical and emotional engagement with sex workers under two dominant sexual scripts in contemporary Hong Kong. Torn between companionate sexuality, with its companionate model of relationships, and recreational sexuality, with its promiscuous model of sexual pleasure, Hong Ko…
Buying Sex as Edgework
Journal Article Buying Sex as Edgework: Hong Kong Male Clients in Commercial Sex Get access Travis S. K. Kong Travis S. K. Kong * *Travis S. K. Kong, Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong , Rm 917, The Jockey Club Tower, Pokfulam , Hong Kong ; [email protected] . Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 56, Issue 1, January 2016, Pages 105–122, https://doi.org/…
Social Media in Rural China
for inviting me to present and receive feedback on
The Sexual in Chinese Sociology
Through a meta-literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homosexual subject under major socio-economic and political changes. Chinese sociology of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western knowledge production and the political ideology of…
Sex and work on the move
China’s reconfiguration of the state and the market in its reform era has created new spaces and opportunities that have attracted millions of rural migrants to urban centres in search of freedom, wealth and new identities. However, the new space and the self both remain constricted by post-socialist parameters and the market. Based on ethnographic research on the male sex industry in post-socialist China (2004–2014), this article studies one suc…
Sexual Cultures in Asia
This entry first provides a brief history of the study of Asian sexuality in sociology, followed by an examination of four major aspects of sexual cultures in Asia: changes in marriage, love and sexuality; homosexuality; the sex trade; and the HIV/AIDS situations in countries across Asia
Tracking gay and lesbian/queer studies in Sexualities
Gay and grey
This article examines how a research project transformed into participatory action research (PAR) whose outcome was a self-help group for older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong. The overall process witnessed a change in the level of participation by both the researcher and researched, as well as the social transformation of the participants and production of knowledge on Chinese homosexuality. Most importantly, the morph into PAR can be seen as a proce…
Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong
The Paradox for Chem-Fun and Gay Men
Globally, there has been increasing public health and scholarly interest in chemsex, where the consumption of drugs is related to enhancing sexual pleasure, often in a group context, particularly among gay men or men who have sex with other men (MSM). Since the early 2000s, Hong Kong has witnessed the growth of a chemsex scene. In recent years, HIV/AIDs surveillance reports indicate that chemsex goers have contributed to the rise of HIV infection…
Sociology (32 obras) · Gender Studies (26 obras) · Psychology (20 obras) · Political science (18 obras) · Human sexuality (15 obras) · Sex work and related issues (12 obras) · China (11 obras) · Gender Studies (11 obras) · Law (11 obras) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (10 obras)