Fiction and reality entangled: Chinese ‘coupling’ (CP) fans pairing male celebrities for pleasure, comfort, and responsibility

ABSTRACT Pairing two male celebrities in both fictional and real-world intimate relationships has become a significant way for Chinese fans to consume celebrities especially over the last decade. Based on unobtrusive observation and semi-structured interviews, this research explores the entanglement and separation of fiction and reality in three CP fandoms pairing actors Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, Jun Hu and Ye Liu, and Yunlong Zheng and Ayanga. The findings show that after first analysing and judging the celebrities’ potential real-world queer relationship as ‘not real’, ‘real but over’, and ‘real and ongoing’ (respectively), CP fans produce further fantasied creations and reality-based discussions centred on enjoying their own pleasure, gaining comfort from their celebrities’ experiences, or fulfiling the responsibility to support their celebrities. As fans increasingly emphasise celebrities’ real-world queer relationships, their CP practices not only reinforce fan-celebrity connections on a personal level but financially benefit their celebrities. Unlike the Western RPS genre that features purely fictional homosexual pairings, Chinese CP fandoms show increasingly prevalent reality-focused variations in celebrity consumption, which have been catered to by the entertainment industry and criticised by the Chinese public.