「分桃」或いは「断袖」 - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

Jack Smith “5,000 years of mystery” TimeOut Shanghai July 2016, pp.46-47

クィアな中国史。
さて、中国の雅語で（特に男性の）同性愛のことを「分桃」*1或いは「断袖」*2というが、その語源について。「分桃」の出典は『韓非子』。衛の霊公と弥子瑕の話；

(…) Legalist philosopher Han Fenzi recounts the tale of Mizi Xia, who shared a sweet peach with is beloved, Duke Ling of Wei, an act which made the term fengtao(分桃), or 'bitten peach', a longstanding euphemism for same-sexlove. (…) (p.46)

「断袖」は前漢の哀帝と董賢の話から；

(…) Historian Sima Qian*3 documents how, while sharing a bed, Ai's male lover Dong Xian once fell asleep across the Emperor's sleeve, which the Emperor elected to cut off rather than risk waking his beloved, an action which gave rise to a new fashion trend at court(short sleeves), and the term duanxiu(断袖), or 'cut sleeve', a poetic allusion to same-sex love. (ibid.)

清朝における反同性愛（行為）の開始；

It is under the Qianlong Emperor *4 that the first statute outlawing non-commercial same-sex sex is introduced. Same sex sexuality increasingly becomes viewed as an unsavoury predilection of the demi-monde--the fear among conservatives is that moral degradation will doom the nation, and thus homesexual affairs are risky for all but the most powerful. Exclusive homosexuality is at first satirised by writer such as Pu Songling*5, and later condemned by the ultra-conseevative neo-Confucianists. As the Qing dynasty's foundations begin to crack, scholars start to turn to Western thought as a solution to China's problem,with many embracing contemporary Europe's institutional homophobia. Ironically, it is homophobia, amd not homosexuality, that the Great Powers introduced to China―with the worst punishments meted out to residents and the colonies of Hong Kong and Maxau. (p.47)

ところで、中国におけるゲイの交流サイトは『分桃網』という*6。