Homosexual love has a long and poetic pedigree in the middle kingdom. Emperor Ai of the Han dynasty, who ruled for a few years just before the birth of Christ, adored his male lover so much (so the story goes) that he cut the sleeves off his imperial robes rather than disturb his napping companion when he fell asleep on top of them.

在“中央王国”，同性之爱有着久远而诗意的历史。在公元元年前曾执掌中国多年的汉哀帝（据说）好男风，甚至曾为了不惊扰身旁熟睡的男宠而割断了被他压在身下的龙袍之袖。

Things went downhill after that. The “passion of the cut sleeve”, as male homosexuality was elegantly known after Emperor Ai’s time, was declared first illegal and later a mental illness. Then, 2,000 years after Emperor Ai trimmed his robes, Beijing decided homosexuality was “normal” again — and in the 15 years since then, Chinese parents, employers and society at large have slowly been getting used to the idea.

自那以后，同志的境遇每况愈下。“断袖之癖”（自汉哀帝之后男同性恋便得了这个雅号）先是被宣布为非法，而后被认定为精神疾病。在汉哀帝“断袖”2000年后的2001年，中国将同性恋移除出精神疾病名单——而这之后的15年里，中国的父母、雇主和整个社会一直在缓慢地习惯这个概念。

These days they are getting so used to it that, in the past couple of years, Chinese companies have started targeting advertising — especially on the wildly hot social media platforms — at the new “pink yuan” market. Taobao, Alibaba’s eBay-like online marketplace, hosted a Valentine’s day contest last year that sent seven gay couples to California to get married since they can’t do that at home. Their trips were paid for by a bedding merchant.

如今，中国人对同性恋已习以为常，近年来中国企业已开始针对这个新的“粉红经济”市场进行广告营销——特别是在各大流行社交媒体平台上。去年，阿里巴巴旗下与eBay类似的在线市场淘宝网(Taobao)做了一场情人节选拔，选送了7对同性伴侣前往美国加州结婚，因为他们无法在中国结婚。7对伴侣加州之旅的费用由一家床上用品制造商赞助。（上图为去年11月香港举行的女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋及跨性别者群体(LGBT)游行）

Since there are more annual active buyers in Alibaba’s online Chinese marketplaces than there are people in the US, this was a landmark: a campaign that celebrated gayness in a very mainstream way. China’s gay millennials may trail behind their western counterparts in the range of pink products they can choose from. But they have more consumer freedom now than at any time since Emperor Ai woke up from his nap.

由于淘宝网的年度活跃买家数量超过美国人口数量，这一活动具有里程碑式的意义：这是一场以非常主流的方式庆祝同性爱情的活动。在同性类产品的选择范围方面，中国的千禧一代同性群体或许落后于西方的千禧一代同性群体。但是，眼下却是自汉哀帝断袖以来中国的同性群体消费最自由的时候。

Companies are finally waking up, too, to the fact that pink buyers often have higher disposable income than the average consumer because their households usually have two wage earners and no children.

企业也终于觉醒，意识到了同性恋者的可支配收入往往高于普通消费者，因为同性伴侣通常两人都有收入而且没有孩子。

Assuming — as most experts do, though many people don’t make their homosexuality public — that between 3 and 5 per cent of the population in China is gay, this could mean 40m to 70m people (about as many as the total UK population) willing to spend pink renminbi on dating, travel, marriages of convenience and even surrogate parenthood.

假设如大多数专家推测（尽管很多人并未公开自己的同性恋身份）的那样，中国总人口中有3%-5%的人为同性恋者，这可能意味着有4000万至7000万人（差不多相当于英国总人口）愿意在同性交友、旅行、形婚、甚至代孕方面进行消费。

The biggest Chinese gay dating app, Blued, has 27m registered users, 7m of whom log in each day, according to its founder, former policeman Geng Le. He says more and more small entrepreneurs are developing pink products and services, mostly in the area of “micro-plastic surgery, male intimate wash and whitening skincare”.

Blued是中国最大的同志交友应用。据其曾经当过警察的创始人耿乐称，Blued拥有2700万注册用户，其中有700万用户每天都登陆。他称，越来越多的创业者正在开发面向同性群体的产品和服务，主要围绕“微整形手术、男性私密部位洗液和美白护肤品”。

A survey of more than 18,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender respondents in China — conducted by WorkForLGBT, an activist coalition — found gay households’ average income was more than Rmb10,000 ($1,500) a month, at the upper end of incomes in big cities where most gay people live.

同志维权组织WorkForLGBT对中国逾18000名女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋及跨性别者群体(LGBT)进行的调查发现，男同家庭平均月收入超过1万元人民币（合1500美元），这在大城市属于中上等水平。多数同性恋者都生活在大城市。

“There’s been an explosion of LGBT advertising in the past two-to-three years,” says Steven Bielinski, founder of WorkForLGBT. He says the country’s companies, especially in the tech sector, are more active in branding their company as gay-friendly even than foreign ones.

WorkForLGBT的创始人史蒂文•比林斯基(Steven Bielinski)称，“过去两三年，针对LGBT群体投放的广告呈爆炸性增长。”他称，中国的企业，特别是科技企业，在标榜自己的企业对同性群体友好方面比外国企业还要积极。

“These days you won’t get arrested or fired for being gay,” says Mr Geng. “I have even been interviewed by state-owned media — that would have been unimaginable in the past.” But, within families, hurdles remain, he says. “It’s Chinese tradition to have a son to carry on the family name.”

“如今你不会再因为同性恋身份而被逮捕或被解雇了，”耿乐称，“我甚至接受过国有媒体的采访——这在过去是无法想象的。”但是，他称，在家庭内部，仍然存在牵绊。“传宗接代是中国的传统。”

Most parents are still far from thrilled if their only child declares they are gay. So one of the most active areas in the pink market is overseas surrogacy services, says Mr Bielinski. What many parents want most of all is a grandchild but surrogacy is illegal in China, prompting some gay people to use businesses that provide the service in the US. “There are hundreds of babies being gestated right now in the US for gay Chinese couples,” says Mr Bielinski.

如果唯一的孩子出柜，多数中国父母仍然会心情沉重。比林斯基称，因此“粉红市场”最活跃的领域之一是海外代孕服务。很多中国父母最想要的是孙子或孙女，但是代孕在中国是不合法的，这促使部分同性恋者寻求在美国提供代孕服务的企业的帮助。“此时此刻，在美国有数百个孩子正在孕育中，它们是为中国的同性伴侣孕育的，”比林斯基称。

But many more gay people choose to satisfy their parents by conducting marriages of convenience with people of the opposite sex — and there are new pink businesses to help with that, too. The health of the Chinese economy may be giving the rest of the world sleepless nights — but, whatever gay people are doing with their money, there is no sign that they will stop spending soon.

但是，更多的同性恋者选择与异性组成形式婚姻来让父母满意——也有很多服务同性恋群体的新公司帮助他们实现这一点。中国经济的健康状况或许令世界其他地区夜不能寐——但是，不管同性恋者正在把钱花到何处，目前没有迹象表明他们会很快停止花钱。