The Missed Connections of Xi'an Men: An Archive of Queer Desire in an Era of Moral Panic Available to Purchase

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, popular and scholarly accounts of contemporary China perceived a moral crisis on the nation's streets. Critics centered their analyses on the lack of trust between strangers in a society that privileges kinship, but their visions of civil society ignored subjects with different relational ethics. This article demonstrates how a focus on queer sociality can intervene in and trouble these conversations on the figure of the stranger and the orientations of Chinese urban life. The discussion turns to the now defunct website Xi'an Men, which once served as one of the major online communities in the inland city. On its bulletin boards, queer men posted personals describing fleeting moments of contact reminiscent of the “Missed Connections” page on Craigslist. Drawing on studies of queer archives and melancholia, this article considers how the entries indexed loss at a time of moral panic and urban renewal, recording not only possible lovers but also the former spaces of queer intimacy. Even though Xi'an Men served as a vital medium for performing and recording queer desire, it too came under attack by moralizing critics. Eventually, this archive was lost as gentrification extended from urban to online space.