同性恋婚姻出问题
Jul 17th 2012, 6:43 by The Economist | SHANGHAI
甄爱（音）女士发现她丈夫那些“公差”的真相用的是一个很普通的方法。她登录了丈夫的电脑。但当时怀孕已有3个月的甄女士找到的东西远远超过了她的想象。她看到丈夫和另一个男子在中国一些风景最秀丽的地方，像是西藏、杭州和云南省拍下的照片。他们两人在床上的照片尤其让人崩溃。
使用假名接受采访的甄女士现在30岁。她是中国嫁给同性恋男性的异性恋女性之一，据估计中国现在有大约1600万此类女性。学者张北川估计中国的同性恋男性中有超过七成娶了异性恋妻子。利用2011年的人口普查数据，张先生估计中国15岁以上男性中有介于2%到5％的人，即1100万到2900万人是同性恋。嫁给他们的女性在中国被称为同妻，翻成英文可以写作 “homo-wife”，用“homo-”表示“同”。
在中国主要城市里对同性恋的容忍程度开始上升。上海在6月举行了第四次同性恋节。这个月初中国卫生部宣布女同性恋可以进行捐血。
但是对同性恋的偏狭看法依然广泛存在。中国卫生部直到2001年才停止把同性恋视为一种精神疾病。在农村地区，认为同性恋是一种可治疗的病症这一看法依然非常普遍。
虽然有各种迹象，但甄女士之前并没意识到她的丈夫会是同性恋。她回忆两人看电影约会时她不小心把手放在他的胳膊上。她说：“当时我感觉到他要缩手，不过他忍住了。”虽然对于他不喜欢肢体亲密感到奇怪，她还是觉得自己很喜欢他体贴的个性。她本希望在求婚后对方的热情会有所增长。但接下来等待她的却是冰冷的婚姻，频繁的出差和敷衍了事的性生活。
在发现这些照片后，甄女士在一个网上同妻支持团体的帮助下获得了暂时的安慰。但命运还是和她作对。这个月，她和50名其它会员联合签署了一封公开信，谴责“同妻家园”网站（tongqijiayuan.com）诈骗会员总计9万元人民币。甄女士自己损失了2千元。联合公开信上这么写道：“我们意识到该网站的网主是在利用我们脆弱的感情和低下的社会地位。”
中国的同性恋男性要对其家人出柜尤为困难。传宗接代至关重要的传统观念遍布社会各个层面，这样的观念把同性恋看作不孝。上海一位专攻同妻案件的律师杨绍刚提到他去年给5个被丈夫染上艾滋病的女性提供过专业咨询。他指出要避免这类悲剧再落到这样的女性头上，唯一的方法就是呼吁社会对同性恋更为容忍，这样男同性恋一开始就不会被迫结婚。
最近几年社会上冒出了某种算是解决这个问题的方法。中国形式婚姻网（Chinagayles.com）是一个注册会员达15万3千人的网站。该网站帮助同性恋男性和女性相识结婚。会员各自会上载一些个人细节，像是月收入、兴趣爱好、星座等等。有人会进行无性接触的同居。另一些则想要个孩子。
上海一位30岁的会计师庄翔（音）在17岁时理解了为什么他会受到其他男孩子吸引。当时他在一家店里翻看一本同性恋漫画书时有一种恍然大悟的感觉。他在2004年结识了男友。之后他在2009年和一位同性恋女士结婚。夫妻两人并不住在一起，但每周会一起拜访双方父母。庄先生甚至在家中摆放了一些妻子的衣服，以防有客人突然到访。
庄先生认为自己非常幸运，可以住在像是上海这样的大城市，才能享受到这样的解决方法。但他还是想要住在一个同性恋被广泛接受的国家里。他的父母已经开始催促要抱孙子了。庄先生和他的妻子可能会想办法搞到一份伪造的不育证明。他说要想保住婚姻的表象就像是在打一场永不休止的战役。但有时候谎言比真相要更为明智一些。
(Picture credit: ChinaGayLes.com)
（照片取自：中国形式婚姻网）
http://www.ecocn.org/article-3051-1.html
原文
Attitudes towards homosexualityGay marriage gone wrong
Jul 17th 2012, 6:43 by The Economist | SHANGHAI
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ZHEN AI used a conventional method to uncover the truth about her husband’s “business trips”. She logged on to his computer. But what Ms Zhen, who was three months pregnant at the time, found was beyond her imaginings. She saw photos of her husband in some of China’s most exotic settings—Tibet, Hangzhou and Yunnan province—with another man. The pictures of them together in bed were particularly devastating.
Ms Zhen, who is now 30 years old and prefers to use a pseudonym, is one of an estimated 16m straight women who are married to gay men in China. Zhang Beichuan, a scholar, estimates that more than 70% of gay men marry straight women. Using census data from 2011, Mr Zhang estimates that somewhere between 2-5% of Chinese men over the age of 15 are gay, or between 11m and 29m. The women who marry them are known as tongqi, which might be translated as “homo-wife”, using “homo-” for same.
Tolerance is on the rise in major cities. Shanghai had its fourth Pride festival in June. Earlier this month the national ministry of health announced that lesbians will be permitted to donate blood.
Yet intolerance still prevails. Homosexuality was only removed from the health ministry’s list of mental illnesses in 2001. In rural regions, the belief that homosexuality is a treatable disease is still widespread.
It did not occur to Ms Zhen that her husband could be gay, though there were signs. She recalls inadvertently resting her hand on his arm during a movie date. “I felt him flinch, but he endured it”, she says. Though confused by his lack of intimacy, she found his considerate nature to be endearing. She hoped the passion would grow after he proposed. What followed instead was an icy marriage, frequent business trips and a perfunctory sex life.
After finding the photos, Ms Zhen found temporary solace in an online tongqi support group. Luck again abandoned her. This month, her signature joins 50 others on an open letter accusing the website tongqijiayuan.com of scamming its members out of 90,000 yuan ($14,000) in total. Ms Zhen lost 2,000 yuan. “We’ve realised [the site’s] owners were taking advantage of our fragile emotions and low social status,” the joint letter reads.
It is especially difficult for Chinese men to come out to their families. Traditional beliefs about the importance of maintaining bloodlines permeate society, which regards homosexuality as unfilial. Yang Shaogang, a Shanghai-based lawyer who specialises intongqi cases, counselled five women last year after they contracted HIV from their husbands. The only way to prevent this sort of tragedy from befalling such women, he says, is calling for more tolerance so gay men won’t feel forced to enter marriage in the first place.
In recent years some have found a solution, of sorts. Chinagayles.com, a website with some 153,000 members, helps gay men meet lesbian women for matrimonial purposes. Individuals upload personal details, such as monthly income, hobbies and Zodiac signs. Some seek cohabitation without sexual contact. Others want children.
Zhuang Xiang, a 30-year-old accountant from Shanghai, came to understand why he was drawn to boys when he was 17. On flicking through a gay comic book in a shop, he had his great “a-ha!” moment. He met his boyfriend in 2004. And then he married his lesbian wife in 2009. He and his wife don’t live together, but they visit each other’s parents once a week. Mr Zhuang even keeps some of her clothes on display at home, in case of unannounced visitors.
Mr Zhuang says he is lucky to live in a big city like Shanghai, where such a solution is possible. But he wants to live in a country where gay men are accepted. His parents have started to talk about a grandchild. Mr Zhuang and his lesbian wife will likely get a forged certificate of infertility. Keeping up the appearance of their marriage feels like a never-ending battle, he says. But sometimes lies are more sensible than the truth.
(Picture credit: ChinaGayLes.com)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/07/attitudes-towards-homosexuality