I guess the idea behind this term is not really knew. After all, the western term, "dinks, (double income, no kids" must be at least 30 years old. But what really surprised me was this paragraph:
"These days, there are more and more online services to match men and women who want children, but not to have a relationship or to get married. People on these websites sign a contract with each other, stating whether they want to co-parent or raise the child on their own."
In the west, its more likely that people in that situation (in Australia, anyway) will use an invitro method to re-produce, however I guess passing a vial of semen is also an often used method. Anyway here's the article, and the link is: http://services.globaltimes.cn/epaper/2015-03-23/MB03.htm?l=0
Recently, a new term has become popular on China's microblogs and social media feeds:"reproduction-oriented."
As in, the next time you're mocked by the hetero-normative mainstream for being a "leftover woman" or a diaosi ("loser") or a lesbian or a queer, you can turn the tables by ridiculing your would-be persecutor by telling them that they are merely reproduction-oriented.
Indeed, the term reveals the pathetic logic behind why and how most people in China are pressured into conforming to hetero-normative relationships. It's in order to have children, to placate one's parents.
The reason it's common for gay people in China to get married is so they can have a child to fulfill the sacred duty of reproduction.
For straight people, it is a similar story, with many agreeing to loveless marriages for the sole purpose of rearing a child for their parents' sake. In China, whether you claim to be heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual, most of us are in fact, reproduction-oriented.
As a bitter spinster of many years, I can finally blame my depression and miseries on the reproduction-oriented society. It all makes sense now.
While it's true that China has come a long way since the days of arranged marriages, many people are still forced by social pressure to get married even when they don't want to.
Underlying this is the pressure for young people to reproduce for their elders. It is for this reason that the nuclear family remains the norm in society.
I despise the kind of people who insist that I need to be married before I'm 30 years old. Like most people in their 20s, I find the idea of getting married purely in order to have children to be repugnant and ridiculous.
But after reading up about our society being reproduction-oriented, I've gradually realized that the influence of this kind of thinking is so ubiquitous that there's no way I can fight it.
I can't help but feel the pressure coming from my friends and my cousins, when I see them happily raising their own chubby little devils. Whenever I turn on the television, there is a constant stream of advertisements telling "leftover women" to join a dating site of some sort, and to get married as soon as possible, in order to fulfill their sick grandmother's dying wish.
Some of my friends, who used to tell me that they would rather die alone than marry men they aren't into, are now married with men they aren't into. I can feel them looking down on singletons like me as if we were weirdos.
The reproduction-oriented rule the world. Rebellious, young and naive people like me can't help but be sucked into its vortex.
People in the country are not even trying to hide the fact that it is a reproduction-oriented society anymore.
These days, there are more and more online services to match men and women who want children, but not to have a relationship or to get married. People on these websites sign a contract with each other, stating whether they want to co-parent or raise the child on their own.
It's interesting that there are such options outside of marriage.
But I can't help but feel that being reproduction-oriented is a virus that will take all of us down in the end.
This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.
Posted in: Twocents-Opinion