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Abstract

This performance of a family history is about women’s agency in love, sex, and marriage. Decent women are supposed to keep their virginity until they get married, and this norm influences all the three generations of women in this performance. Women with premarital sex have to pass as virgins in order to be respected. The burden to keep their sexual life private is almost all on the women because being sexually active before marriage only affects the women’s reputation. This performance is about how the forced silence renders women helpless and the women’s physical and emotional disaster caused by their sexual shame throughout their relationship. Finally, this piece is also about the strength of women as survivors.

Keywords

performance ethnography Chinese women history women’s family history virginity loss sexual shame

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Love,Sex,Marriage

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