Aestheticizing Masculinity in Hongloumeng

This chapter argues that in the 18th century, male bodies were a legitimate human form upon which to display beautiful clothing and accessories. Moreover, an elaborately decorated male body connoted power, high status, and strength—superior masculinity was a decorative performance. I build this argument through an analysis of the Hongloumeng ’s descriptions of clothing, dress, accessories, and fabric. Through Cao Xueqin’s 曹雪芹 novel, we see that masculine bodies were the preferred aesthetic form. His detailed descriptions of clothing, dress, and accessories are not focused on the many young women who populate the novel—rather, the reader’s aesthetic eye is invited to roam primarily over the male protagonist, Jia Baoyu, and two masculine female figures, Wang Xifeng and Shi Xiangyun. All three of these characters are known for their rejection of strict gender-sex norms and for the fluidity of their expressions of yin 陰 (female essence, subordinate, passive, and shaded) and yang 陽 (male essence, dominant, active, and bright). I show that Cao’s particular attention to the beauty of their dress serves to amplify their masculinity in this interplay of yin and yang . Although the novel focuses primarily on the lives of women, the descriptions of clothing focus primarily on characters manifesting yang attributes.