Speaker: Lennart Riedel, Institut für Sinologie (Institute of Chinese Studies), Universität Heidelberg (University of Heidelberg) - ResearchGate

Abstract: »In 2020, when Li Xingxing accused her foster father Mr. Bao of long-term sexual abuse, her legal counsel soon realized many of her statements were quotes from Lin Yihan’s Fang Siqi’s First Love Paradise. Some suspected Li of giving false testimony, but her legal counsel explained her motivation with the burden on women to prove their “perfect victim” status, especially when they appear to consent to a “romantic relationship” with the perpetrator. The novel itself explores victims’ struggles to articulate their experience within the inadequacies of existing cultural and linguistic frameworks. Lin Yihan personally highlighted this when she characterized Fang Siqi’s experience as “rape or seduction,” indicating a mix of both concepts that no existing term describes. As such experiences are absent from PRC law, and only narrated in fiction, victims’ deployments of Fang Siqi’s speech have become common in PRC courts and police interviews, given that the novel challenges prior androcentric stock stories in law, where rape always requires physical violence or threats and relationships between teachers and students aged 16 or above are called “romantic.”This paper highlights the factors that have enabled this 2017 Taiwanese novel to attain exemplary status since its 2018 publication in the PRC, thereby allowing victims to reference it when existing law is unfavorable. Through a close reading of the novel, Chinese Criminal Law, and case files, the paper explores subsequent changes to PRC Law and concludes by identifying the competing legal and cultural narratives that limit the novel’s discourse power.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of China / History of Taiwan (1945–present) | Fiction: Fictional victims of sexual assault | Law: Chinese law / Law of the People's Republic of China | Literature: Taiwanese literature / Lin Yi-han, Fang Siqi’s Legal Paradise | Sex and the law: Sexual Assault