The intimate relationship advice industry in modern China reveals insights about neoliberalism, self-surveillance, emphasis on choice and empowerment, individualism, market-oriented principles, the science of successful sex and relationship, and the revitalization of Confucian conservatism and patriarchy. But it has long been neglected by previous scholars conducting studies on reconceptualization and reconstruction of emotional experiences and subjectivities in China context.
Ayawawa is regarded as one of the renowned writers of bestsellers in mainland China for the intimate relationship advice industry. This paper will use her anthology “The cultivation of Love” as the research object by adopting Fairclough’s Critical discourse analysis method and regard postfeminism as a sensibility or a critical subject instead of as an analytic viewpoint. Specifically, this research aims to answer: (1) how she mobilized rhetorical devices and cultural resources to present a seemingly scientific method of managing intimate relationships; (2) what kind of intimate relationship and sexual subjectivity are established.
This research argues Ayawawa established an intimate sexual relationship model with give-a-birth-to-child as its center and commercial rationality as its dominant logic. Meanwhile, Ayawawa also refashioned traditional gender subjectivity to reflect market rationality, individualism, and neoliberalism. In western self-help culture, males are deemed as hedonists merely longing for “a shag”, while in Ayawawa’s book, males asses not only the appearance of females but also risk investment returns ratio of a relationship, in particular, the women’s potential as a child-bearer and child-rearer.
Moreover, females in China are required by this new regime of modern relationship advice to put reproduction at the heart of a re-modeled subjectivity in a way that involves both physical labor and ongoing psychological work. The current society has witnessed numerous changes in contemporary neoliberal subjectivity. To be specific, the traditional female virtues advocated by Ayawawa, 'gentleness and courtesy ', are no longer the requirements imposed on women by the outside world. But based on Ayawawa’s advice, men's requirements on women's reproductive value, appearance, and age should be internalized as desirable goals for women to pursue. “Good women” show a willingness to safeguard a man’s self-esteem and a sense of superiority and give priority to man’s feelings. Neoliberalism has been increasingly interpreted as shaping individuals into rational, sophisticated and self-regulating entrepreneurs. According to Ayawawa, females could take advantage of their sexy bodies, seeking financial and emotional support from others in an intimate relationship.
By way of conclusion, successful intimacy is embodied in dramatically increasing the intensity of self-surveillance as a form of regulation for women. The extensiveness of surveillance over an entirely new life and intimacies includes the focus on psychology, and the requirements to transform oneself and reshape one’s deeper inner life. Women are constantly monitoring their looks and reproduction capability when they encounter unequal treatment in the intimate relationship, they first think of monitoring themselves and self-adjustment, instead of paying attention to the fact that men and women are unequal in the intimate relationship.