SHENG JIA first came across danmei fiction five years ago when she was a journalism student at Shanghai University. She was looking for escapism; a friend recommended “Silk Trousers”, a story about a handsome, womanising nobleman who falls in love with a male celebrity of Chinese folklore, the fox king, who can swap between human and animal forms (the book’s cover is pictured). It ends in heartbreak.

Ms Sheng became instantly hooked on the homoerotic tale with its subtle portrayal of a form of sexual desire that is rarely discussed openly in China (homosexuality was considered a mental illness until 2001). She found the novel more appealing than the saccharine love stories popular among other heterosexual Chinese women like her.

Danmei, meaning “indulgence in beauty”, is China’s version of what is often called “slash” fiction in other countries. The genre takes its English name from the slash sometimes used in synopses of such works to separate the names of often well-known protagonists: Kirk/Spock, or in this case fox king/nobleman (the men, despite their attraction to each other, are portrayed as straight). The genre sometimes explores taboos: incest, intergenerational sex, or sex with a character who is disfigured. It is also inspired by Japanese manga comic books with their whimsical illustrations (the word danmei was originally a Japanese term: tanbi). The genre is only available online in China—no state-owned publisher would dare print such works, for fear of violating laws against pornography.

Among younger Chinese women and teenagers, danmei is proving remarkably popular: websites devoted to it have large followings. Katrien Jacobs, an expert on Chinese online pornography at the University of Hong Kong, estimates that in every high school or university class, there is at least one fan of danmei. If so, that could mean a readership in the hundreds of thousands. Ms Jacobs says danmei attracts readers by creating “a sense of rebellion” against a culture in which women are often expected to be obedient and conventional. Readers delight in enjoying the forbidden.