“Kiss of the Rabbit,” short film, 2019 / © Andrew Thomas Huang

Happy Chinese New Year — only one week late — to all my loyal, rapidly aging followers!

It’s the Year of the Rabbit and that of course got me thinking: what or who exists at the intersection of China, gay sex, and rabbits?

And yes — there is an app for that.

Of course by “app” I mean a full-throated GOD of GAY that actual people actually worship in actual temples.

Ladies and queers, allow me to introduce you to Tu’er Shen, a little-known, but highly-demanded god of Chinese folk religion, who reigns supreme over male-on-male love, sex, and relationships.

Tu’er Shen (兔兒神) literally means “Rabbit God” in Chinese, so it feels pretty significant for homosexuals everywhere that this is the Year of the Rabbit.

Because there are no coincidences: as the literal app Co.Star reminds me every morning: our fates are scientifically determined by the stars, moon, and other meddlesome planets.

Which means you need to read on so you can figure out who this Rabbit God is, what he wants, and how you can secure his good favor in the (hopefully) fun-and-cum-filled year ahead.

Homosexuality: A Not-So-Ancient-Chinese-Secret

Imperial china – i.e. China before the end of the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century – was no stranger to the heavy, sensual petting of man on man.

Emperor Ai having his sleeve cut, so his lover Dong Xian could continue sleeping (and ruining the STATE) / Wikipedia

In the early empire, during the Han dynasty (200s BC to 200s AD), more emperors than not were said to have had male favorites.

One of the most famous was Emperor Ai of Han, who elevated his favorite (and lover) Dong Xian to never-before-seen heights of social status and political power. The couple coined the first euphemism for male homosexuality in China: “the passion of the cut sleeve”.

The story goes: the Emperor and his Dong 🍆 (can’t resist SORRY) were snuggling one day, and eventually the Emperor had to wake up and do some…Emperoring. Dong was asleep on His Majesty’s royal robe, so instead of telling the gorgeous twunk to get the hell up, Emperor Ai called for the Imperial Scissors Boy (actual name) to cut the sleeve off his robe. Ai slipped out most serenely and Dong went on snoozing and schmoozing his way to the top of the ancient Chinese empire. Until of course Ai died and Dong’s entire life came crashing down around him.

Fast forward a millennium and change: people were still talking about the passion of the cut sleeve. They’d even developed a few new words and phrases to refer to their homos, including “the bitten peach,” “the pillow tree,” and more derogatorily, “rabbit” (兔子).

(Let me interrupt myself here and be perfectly clear: There is nothing, NOTHING in the current culture stopping us from replacing “f@ggot” with “rabbit.” For example: “Wow, look at how that rabbit is slaying the house down” or “Oh yeah, bitch, you wanna be my little rabbit?” It just WORKS.)

In many parts of imperial China, and particularly amongst the upper classes, it appears male homosexuality was broadly tolerated. We know, because European visitors arrived in the Middle Ages and were immediately scandalized by the prevalence of that deliciously addictive pastime they called “sodomy.”

One Portuguese explorer from the 1500s, Galeote Pereira, noted in his letters back home that “the greatest fault we do find is sodomy, a vice very common.”

Hot boys from a new “danmei” (“boys’ love”) show in China called “Word of Honor”

In certain parts of China, more elaborate, formal systems of male homosexuality existed. This was especially true in Fujian province, a region in southern China just opposite the island of Taiwan. Here, male homosexual relationships were not only tolerated, but actively celebrated.

Li Yu (1611-1680), one of the great playwrights of the Ming dynasty (which lasted from 1368-1644), tells us that the practice of “bond brotherhood” (read: gay marriage) was widespread in Fujian province. In these arrangements, an older man (qi xiong “elder bond brother”) would court a younger man (qi di “younger bond brother”), and if the latter’s family agreed, pay a sort of bride price to take him into his household. (Virgins apparently – obviously – fetched higher prices.)

There would even be a traditional ceremony and as Li Yu notes:

"They do not skip the three cups of tea or the six wedding rituals – it is just like a proper marriage with a formal wedding."

Tea-spilling, organized rituals, and special outfits? Yeah…sounds gay. I’m in.

These unions could last for a decade or two, until both men were eventually expected to take wives and procreate. It’s unclear whether the relationships were always sexual, but the age difference and whole “bride price” thing doesn’t exactly smell like roommates to me. #YouDecide

Tu’er Shen: A God is Born

Out of this absolutely faggocious utopian dreamscape in Fujian province arises the hero of our story: Tu’er Shen. But! He wasn’t always the god of gay.

It all started when Hu Tianbao – who may have been a real dude – fell in love with a dashing new imperial official. This hot, educated, rich bureaucrat (why am I hard already?) had come to the province to root out corruption. Hu Tianbao immediately fell head over balls with him, and made no secret of staring longingly as the object of his lust went about his day.

The imperial censor was a bit confused by the unabashed ga(y)zing, but he had a job to do. Some smitten little rabbit wasn’t about to stop him. Until things went a little too far one day:

Not long afterward, the censor went to inspect another county, and Hu followed him. Along the way, he secretly hid in a toilet to peek at his buttocks. The censor, more suspicious than ever, summoned him for questioning.
At first Hu remained silent, but after three strokes of cane he confessed:
“The truth is I was taken by His Excellency’s good looks, and could not get you out of my mind. I realize you are heavenly cassia, out of bounds for common birds. But my heart already runs away, so without meaning to, I have behaved so improperly."
Hearing this, the censor flew into rage. He immediately ordered his subordinates to kill Hu Tianbao beneath a dead tree. (Translated by Nathaniel Hu)

And they didn’t just kill him dead under a dead tree (bit overkill, innit?). The imperial fuckboy had Hu Tianbao savagely beaten to death because he had offended a person of higher rank. (Note how the crime is not being gay itself, but rather overstepping class boundaries.)

So poor Hu Tianbao dies for his love, but all is not lost! A month later he visits an elder from his village in a dream – in the shape of a rabbit, OBVIOUSLY, keep up! – and lets him know that things are actually pretty sweet in the Afterlife.

The gods of the Underworld, including their ruler King Yama, have determined that as a crime rooted from love, Hu’s crime was actually no crime at all. In recompense, the gods decide to appoint Hu the Rabbit God (“Tu’er Shen”) so that he may watch over the amorous affairs of men evermore.

Hu also casually tells the elder that he’ll be needing a temple in order to do this very important job, so everyone should get to steppin’ and buildin’ and fundraisin’.

An extremely hot print of divine dom daddy Dragon King / Wikipedia

This tragicomic story was preserved by a scholar-official named Yuan Mei (1716-1798) in his work, Zi Bu Yu or Things the Master Did Not Say. It’s a collection of supernatural and folk tales, which was part of an ambitious and somewhat radical project to collect Chinese folk culture through social and oral history. Yuan was an accomplished scholar and imperial bureaucrat, but had retired early from his posts to pursue painting and poetry. (Yes, king.)

By preserving the things the “Master” (i.e. Confucius) did not say, he was broadening the scope of literature and history, including peripheral matters of love and sex that traditional Chinese learning loved to ignore. The story of Hu Tianbao comes down to us in large part thanks to this anti-establishment, bohemian king.

The Qing dynasty was famous in this period for corruption in all its forms – financial, bureaucratic, and of course, moral. In fact, a real-life imperial official, Zhu Gui (1731-1807), eventually toured Fujian province in 1765 and tried to standardize the morality of the common folk by outlawing what he called “Licentious Cults”.

The cult of the Rabbit God, which was already established by 1765 in the province’s capital of Fuzhou, became the target of Zhu’s anti-corruption crusade. The Prohibition of Licentious Cults effectively amounted to one of China’s first-ever laws explicitly targeting gay people and sex. We have evidence from Zhu’s writing that explains what the cult of the Rabbit God was like in 18th century Fuzhou:

The [cult] image is of two men embracing one another; the face of one is somewhat hoary with age, the other tender and pale. [Their temple] is commonly called the small official temple. All those debauched and shameless rascals who, on seeing youths or young men, desire to have illicit intercourse with them pray for assistance from the plaster idol. Then they make plans to entice and obtain the objects of their desire. This is known as the Secret Assistance of Hu Tianbao. Afterwards they smear the idol's mouth with pork intestine and sugar in thanks.

After making his proclamation, Zhu had the plaster idol smashed to bits and thrown in the river. The cult was forced to go underground at that point, though we know it survived well into the 19th century – because the Qing government never stopped persecuting it.

Awakening the Faggot Rabbit God

What I imagine Tu’er Shen might have been wearing in 2005 © Shiy De-Jinn / BBC

Although the cult of Tu’er Shen was eventually abandoned, the Rabbit God would one day rise again.

That day finally came in 2005, when a gay Daoist priest named Lu Weiming announced he would open a shrine in Taiwan for gay believers to come worship at the shrine of Tu’er Shen.

Taiwan lies just off the coast of Fujian province, and there are strong ancestral and cultural ties between them. Taiwan also has a much more progressive track record when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues. It’s possible that some of Tu’er Shen’s worshippers emigrated to the island and preserved his memory – not to mention Fujian’s lenient attitude to queer men.

In any case, the shrine is now located in New Taipei, and 9,000 pilgrims visit each year to pray to Tu’er Shen to help them find partners. Lu Weiming has also started performing gay love ceremonies for partners looking to affirm their commitment to one another.

According to Lu Weiming’s temple:

The Rabbit God is … an affable deity who is willing to assist his followers in every aspect of life. Since he works for Cheng Huang (城隍), the City God, he has both the erudition and social network in the spiritual world to solve any problem mortals have.

Are you even surprised that our girl is a fucking INFLUENCER in the spirit world?! (Jesus could never.)

The temple is truly a breath of fresh air for the LGBTQ+ community in Taiwan. Although the island is more progressive than many Chinese-majority societies on the issue of homosexuality, Lu Weiming believes gay life in these regions is still an incredibly lonely experience. He started the cult so that gay Chinese people would “understand that there are still so many gods in the world who love and care for them.”

We could learn a thing or two from that kind of thinking.

Look! Even white gays are worshipping at the altar of Tu’er Shen / © Nomadic Boys / Facebook

Visitors to the temple are invited to pray before the shrine of Tu’er Shen and address him as “Da Ye” or “Master.” You can write names, addresses, birthdays, and prayers on little bits of paper and then burn them so they reach the Rabbit God. Some believers throw jiao bei – divination moon blocks – to see if their wishes will be granted.

And even more importantly: you can bring any item for Tu’er Shen to bless. Some pilgrims bring skin care products, because the blessing makes them more effective in creating beautiful, poreless, boyfriend-quality skin. (I wonder if he does Grindr profiles…)

The Rabbit God also appeared in a popular Taiwanese show about matchmaking and much more interestingly, in this incredible short film by queer director Andrew Huang. It’s a beautiful meditation on coming to terms with your sexuality, and Tu’er Shen appears in the sexiest, Gen-Z, underworld-influencer get-up you could ever imagine.

(Watch “Kiss of the Rabbit God” here and please share the film!)

Thankfully, things are changing in China for gay people: 67% of Chinese people support gay marriage (compared to 61% of Americans). But media remains a target of censorship and Pride celebrations are routinely canceled or shut down without explanation.

If we all focus a little more on the message of love and spirituality that Tu’er Shen represents, maybe this Year of the Rabbit will bring all the world’s gays a little more fortune.

Or at the very least: a nice, pork-intestine-and-sugar-smeared dicking.