HKU Bulletin October 2012 (Vol. 14 No.1)

Books Thirty years ago Dr Petula Ho Sik-ying, Associate Professor of Social Work, met the young and handsome Anthony Wong while volunteering for a Christian organisation. They quickly became friends and a few years later he confided his deepest secret to her: he was gay. “After he told me, I came to understand that in this world there is such a thing [as being gay]. This strange, new, unfamiliar thing was very much around me all the time but I just wasn’t aware of it,” she says. “In the 1980s ‘gay’ wasn’t a popular word and there wasn’t much discourse on homosexuality. It was still illegal and although there was some discussion about decriminalising it, it wasn’t on the agenda.” Dr Ho was curious to find out more and decided to make homosexuality the focus of her master’s and PhD theses, against the advice of many others. Being gay was largely regarded as a mental illness or aberration at the time and Dr Ho saw an opening to look at the issue in terms of how people under such pressure create a sense of personhood. The small things in life The result has been a body of work that is focused on sexuality – in particular the sexual and erotic attitudes and practices of gay men and middle-aged women in Hong Kong – in the context of identity. “Sex is a small thing you do in your life, it’s a pleasure of being human. You could live without it, but in other ways it’s also a big deal. You can use it as an entry point to look at family institutions, marriage, the legal system, politics, and how these make certain people do certain things,” she says. The small things in life are important here because they enable people to establish their identities. They can be anything from painting, dancing to having sex – things she says others might regard as ‘useless’ but which a person can take pride in. “People can use their erotic energy to express themselves as human beings,” she says. “Gay men also have to manage with prejudice and stigma. I look at how people transgress boundaries in civil, social, political and personal ways, and how those who are not in privileged positions regain a sense of identity. If you are homosexual, you have to repackage your identity, you have to find people to identify with.” This applies to heterosexuals too, as another focus of Dr Ho’s research has been middle- aged women. “I call it the queer art of normal heterosexuals. We’re all queer in some way because we have our own personal histories and ways of expressing ourselves,” she says. Space to choose Dr Ho recently released a collection of 13 previously published articles that she wrote with Dr Tsang Ka-tat of the University of Toronto, called Sex and Desire in Hong Kong . The articles have been translated into Chinese for the first time and she hopes they will encourage a wider audience to think more deeply about sexuality, identity and relationships. She identifies Wong as her inspiration in the book, after securing his permission. Wong publicly came out as gay this year at an anniversary concert for the Tat Ming Pair. “I told him, if I can put a name there, I can document my 30 years of friendship with him and how it facilitated the development of gay studies in Hong Kong,” she says. “My whole academic career has a personal story behind it which is something I had wanted to share but was not able to share [when he was in the closet]. The underlying theme of my studies has been to open up space for people to choose their relationships and be able to be honest about them.” Dr Ho has no qualms about baring her heart in an academic sphere which is typically stringent about cool objectivity. She has a complex relationship with gay men, from her friendship with Wong to having a former boyfriend come out as gay. This was the most traumatic experience for her and heightened her interest in devoting her career to sexuality studies. “The implication is that the personal is theoretical and the theoretical is personal,” she says. “I feel my work is telling people my story. You may think it’s self-indulgent but it can be helpful. It encourages people to work out issues through academic endeavours.” Sex and Desire in Hong Kong , by Dr Petula Ho and Dr Tsang Ka-tat, is published by the Hong Kong University Press. M When the Personal Is Professional Dr Petula Ho’s friendship with singer Anthony Wong Yiu-ming of the Tat Ming Pair was a catalyst to her career-long focus on sexuality and identity. The underlying theme of my studies has been to open up space for people to choose their relationships and be able to be honest about them. ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¢ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¡ ¢ © ª ¡ ¢ ¦ « ¥ ¬ ¥ ¢ ¦ ¡ ® ¤ ® £ £ ¨ ¯ ¢ ¥ ° ¤ ¥ © ± ² ¨ ¥ ¢ ¦ ³ ¡ ® ¤ ¨ ¥ ´ µ ¶ ¶ ¶ · µ ¶ ¶ ¸ ¹ 37 October 2012 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin