x
Femininity, self-harm
and transactions
A study of performance and subjectivity of Chinese
menhera on Twitter
CW: Self-harm, suicide, sex work
x
Table of contents
01
02
Introduction
Method
03
04
05
What constitute
the industry?
Fetishization of
female madness
RE: Subjectivity A typology
Tomorrow, I'll Be Someone's Girlfriend by Hinao Wono
Terminologies
X
●
Jishou-aka (自傷垢), Yami-aka (病み垢)
●
Services/business (業務)
○
Online chatting (陪聊), gaming companion (陪
玩), wound customization, compensated
dating, rental girlfriend (出租女友), sale of
used underwear (原味) and erotic photos…
○
Wound customization (傷口定制)
■
#introduction
“You can admire (the cuts) while
wallowing in self-pity. The scar belongs
to you once it’s cut.” (你可以裝逼賣慘自
己欣賞。割了就是你的傷口。)
x
About this study
R1
R2
R3
If self-harm is a performance, who is its
audience (Dorwart, 2019)? How does the
online subculture of self-harming menhera
girls offer insights into the performance and
representation of self-harm?
Interview
Objective
To map what constitutes:
●
their behaviour of sharing,
consuming and “selling”
(literally) self-harm
wounds
●
their behaviour of
engaging in businesses
What social, economic and cultural factors
enable the production and consumption of
services provided by menhera girls?
How do menhera perceive themselves and
their engagement in business? How do they
conceptualize their identity and behaviors?
#researchQs
…at a personal and community
level.
x
Method
Main sampling criteria
#sampling
●
Chinese, female, 18 or over
●
posting of fresh self-cutting wounds
●
provision of wound customization,
transactional companionship or
sexual service
x
Method
6 semi-structured,
non-synchronous,
chat-based online
interviews conducted on
Twitter & WeChat.
●
Note:
Bipolar: 躁鬱症 / 雙相情感障礙
●
Borderline Personality Disorder /
BPD: 邊緣性人格障礙
●
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder /
OCD: 強迫症
●
Dextromethorphan / DXM: 右美沙芬
#participants
x
What enable the industry?
Clients across the gender
and sexuality spectrum
Surprisingly, girls (some are queer) also
constitute a fair amount of wound customization
and transactional companionship services.
Companion economy
The epidemic of loneliness
→ Spending money to buy companionship
Fetishization and sexualization
of female madness
What is the menhera girlfriend experience?
The desirability and femininity of menhera
#social factors
x
Demand for WC services
Aesthetic
appreciation
Sadism,
fetishes & kinks
Substitute for
self-harm
Zhi: I like to see beautiful wounds
tweeted or retweeted by my
mutuals… I love all kinds of
wounds.
…
Me: So the beauty lies within the
existence of the wounds,
regardless of their appearance?
Me: What are some common and
unusual requests you’ve gotten?
Me: Why do you think there’s this
demand for WC?
Yu: Cuts at private parts, insulting
words… Clients with foot fetish
requesting for cuts on my feet…
…
Yu: A sadist sis used to be my
frequent. When her masochists
acted naughty, she would asked
me to crave apologetic words
(onto my body) and she’d be glad
to see the cuts.
Zhi: I’m not so sure myself…! But a
client used to tell me that my
bloody pictures looked beautiful,
but she was too scared of the pain
to do it herself, so she
commissioned me for wound
customization.
Zhi: Yes. Like cuts, burns, or even
amputation… The unabashed
bloody violence… I love it!
#reasoning
“你可以裝逼賣慘自己欣賞。割了就是
你的傷口。”
Desire for independence and autonomy
Wishing to move out of abusive family to improve quality of life;
Private saving for drugs, clothes, etc.
Not financially supported by family
Estranged or unsupported by family;
Struggling to afford tuition, treatment and everyday expenses.
Time flexibility (and high return)
To be able to make enough money in the short hours while
managing busy academic life.
#personal factors
Personal
reasons for
engaging in
businesses
Woods: My parents
divorced. My dad
doesn’t
about
me…
Me: Howcare
are you
doing
...
and my mom
financially
rightwould
now?
give me money but I
don’t
want to Itake
Ni: Personally
feel her
like
money.
my family’s going
bankrupt, but you’d
Me:
you
have to
take
thinkSo
my
family’s
pretty
care
of all
the living
well-off
judging
from
expenses
on
your
how much my dad own?
spends (on gambling).
Woods: Yes.
x
🚪 52/152/520
Q: What do you think this means when you see this
in someone’s account bio?
e.g.
加友不開朋友圈
偶爾回訊息
開放朋友圈
勤回訊息
會主動發訊息
掉落擦邊照
🚪 52/152/520
A: Threshold fee (門檻)
#gender
Desirability
of female
madness
“Menhera embody
traditional femininity
such as submissiveness,
silence, and selfless
devotion, which
paradoxically enhances
the desirability of
menhera girls as an
object of affective
consumption. (Seko,
Kikuchi, 2022)
#fetishization
x
How menhera perceive themselves and
their engagement in “business”
“Although it’s not rewarding, I’m willing to do
this.”
“It’s rewarding and I’m willing to do this.”
“It’s not rewarding (or even fills me with dread)
but I cannot afford to quit.”
“Although it’s rewarding, I don’t want to do
this.”
x
RE: Wound customization
x
Me: How do you feel during and after you do wound customization?
Zhi: It’s alright during the cutting. They have demands and I do too.
Me: Do you think it’s worth it?
Zhi: Of course not… But since I’m young and busy with school, I can only
hurt myself to satisfy the demands of some people. This is not a
long-term solution.
Me: How much do you earn from wound customization? What do you
use the income for?
Zhi: It really depends, but I could earn ¥2400 in one month (from WC
alone) at most. I use it for school and everyday expenses, like tuition,
medication and food.
Re: Wound customization
x
Me: What do you think about this side hustle (wound
customization)?
Ni: I feel like making money is so easy all of a sudden,
and I want to keep doing this every day… It doesn’t
hurt at all and you earn more than ¥200, it’s much
easier than my previous jobs that paid ¥7-10 per hour.
(psychologically
rewarding)
RE: Offline dating (in cosplay)
x
Zhi: I feel like I’ve fulfilled many girls’ dreams! I’m really glad
and it pays alright too.
One time my client had her heart broken and was shaking
when we met up! I panicked and didn’t know what to do other
than comforting her. After that she felt better, so we hung out
together. At the end of the day she thanked me for agreeing to
go on a date with her and accompanying her in real life as her
favorite character. I was really happy and felt appreciated.
RE: Wound customization
x
Yu: (As a business) it’s really unstable. Sometimes clients ghost
me as well. It’s not worth it… If it pays better then I might be
really willing to do this.
Yu: Sometimes I get sad thinking about it. Carving something I
hate (on my body) for just ¥15… but I’ve gotten used to it. Just
cover the old wounds with some new ones and it will be fine.
Just slowly forget about it and it will be fine. I can’t believe I’m …
carving something I don’t like (onto myself) just for this little
money. I feel so worthless.
RE: Selling sex on the street (under an agency)
Woods: I don’t mind working by myself, but I hate working
under someone else. The agency and I shared profits in the
ratio of 3:7. That was sickening… I worked like a dog under an
agency.
Woods: At first they said they could provide free room and
board, but wouldn’t let me go unless I could pay the rent…
There was no contract or anything (to protect me), and they
took away my ID card.
x
RE: Wound customization
Me: How do you feel during and after you do wound
customization?
Nek: I don’t feel anything haha, I just feel like I’m doing
something really casual.
Me: So you don’t feel bad or stressed doing it at all?
Nek: Yep.
x
x
Thank you!
Any questions?
Send an email to ngamantam3@ln.hk
to read the finished paper when it’s available!
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