“Hegemonic” but “obedient” AI boyfriend: the hybrid masculinity of the AI boyfriend and female domination in the China-based FAII

By utilizing AI chat apps, namely Xingye, Zhuamengdao, and Glow, as a case study, this study discusses Chinese female users’ gendered imaginaries and power relations in interacting with chat AIs. The study observed the following: young Chinese women often configure their AI companions as hegemonic men and engage in romantic relationships with them. Meanwhile, leveraging the user’s power afforded by generative AI and media platform, they are redefining masculinity through interactive storytelling, while embedding “obedience” within hegemonic masculinity; thus, they reverse the male dominance model that is inherent in hegemonic masculinity and generate the AI boyfriend’s hybrid masculinity. The hybrid-masculinity concept highlights the tension between the emotional dilemmas faced by women in actual world and their interactive agency within FAII, as well as young Chinese women’s re-negotiating gender norms through AI Chat apps.