脫去警服，建造一個中國同性戀者的網(wǎng)絡(luò)王國

北京

MA BAOLI was accustomed to secrets.

以前的馬保力習(xí)慣于與秘密為伴。

By day, he was a police officer in northern China with a wife and a knack for street chases. By night, he led a life as a gay man, furtively running a website for gay people across China at a time when many were viewed as criminals and deviants.

白天，他是中國北方的一名已婚警察，深諳街頭追捕的訣竅。晚上，他以一名男同的身份生活，在很多同性戀者被當(dāng)成罪犯和異端的年代，秘密運營著一家面向中國各地同性戀者的網(wǎng)站。

For 16 years, Mr. Ma kept his secret, worried that coming out would mean expulsion from the police force and estrangement from his family. Then in 2012, his superiors at a police department in Qinhuangdao, a coastal city in Hebei Province, uncovered his website and he resigned.

馬保力在16年間保守著自己的秘密，擔(dān)心一旦出柜就會被清理出警察隊伍，并遭到家人的疏遠。到了2012年，他在河北省沿海城市秦皇島一家警察局的上司發(fā)現(xiàn)了他的網(wǎng)站，于是他辭去了公職。

His job lost, his family struggling to accept his sexuality, Mr. Ma set out to turn his passion for connecting gay people into an empire. He created Blued, now China’s most popular gay dating app with an estimated value of $600 million and more than three million active daily users, about as many as Grindr, a popular gay dating app in the United States.

馬保力一直滿懷熱情，想要把同性戀者連結(jié)起來。丟掉了工作、性取向難以得到家人認(rèn)同的他，開始致力于把這份熱情轉(zhuǎn)化成一個王國。他創(chuàng)辦了Blued，眼下是中國最受歡迎的同性戀約會應(yīng)用程序，估值為6億美元，日活躍用戶超過300萬人——與美國廣受歡迎的同性戀約會應(yīng)用程序Grindr的用戶數(shù)相當(dāng)。

Mr. Ma, 39, said he saw his mission as working to legitimize same-sex relationships at a time when gay people, especially in China, still face discrimination.

現(xiàn)年39歲的馬保力說，他認(rèn)為自己的使命是在當(dāng)下這個同性戀者——尤其是中國的同性戀者依然受到歧視的時代，致力于讓同性關(guān)系得到接受。

“In the past people wouldn’t even talk about homosexuality because they thought it was dirty, it was filthy,” he said. “The internet can help support gay lifestyles, to make people know they are not alone and that their feelings are genuine.”

“過去大家避談同性戀，因為他們覺得同性戀很丑陋很骯臟，”他說。“互聯(lián)網(wǎng)對于同性戀的生活方式給予了不少支持，也使得很多人了解到他們并不是獨孤的，他們的感情也是真摯的。”

Mr. Ma also sees a lucrative business opportunity in China’s so-called pink economy, as more people look to spend money on gay-themed social networking sites, entertainment and travel. The spending power of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China is estimated at $460 billion per year, making them the largest market in Asia, according to LGBT Capital, an investment management firm.

此外，當(dāng)更多人有望把錢花在以同性戀為主題的社交網(wǎng)站、娛樂和旅游上的時候，馬保力在中國的所謂粉色經(jīng)濟中看到了一個有利可圖的商業(yè)機會。投資管理公司LGBT資本(LGBT Capital)稱，據(jù)估計，中國女同性戀、男同性戀、雙性戀和跨性別人群每年的消費能力為4600億美元，在亞洲位居榜首。

But translating Mr. Ma’s instincts into an enduring business model has proved challenging. Like many popular technology start-ups in China, Blued is only beginning to make a profit; most of its services, including chat, live-streaming and a news feed, are free. Attracting advertising remains difficult, with some companies reluctant to be associated with a business that caters to gay people.

但事實證明，把馬保力的直覺變成可持續(xù)的商業(yè)模式是一個充滿挑戰(zhàn)的過程。像中國的很多頗受歡迎的科技初創(chuàng)公司一樣，Blued才剛剛開始盈利;它的大多數(shù)服務(wù)，包括聊天、實時流媒體、信息流，都是免費的。廣告客戶依然難于招攬，因為一些公司不愿意和一個為同性戀者服務(wù)的企業(yè)扯上關(guān)系。

Mr. Ma has set his sights on foreign markets, hoping to take on established players like Grindr and Hornet. While Blued now dominates in China with more than 80 percent of the gay dating market, analysts said it would probably be difficult for the company to build a large following overseas.

馬保力已經(jīng)把目光投向了海外市場，想要和Grindr、Hornet等老牌玩家相抗衡。Blued目前在中國同性戀約會市場上居于主導(dǎo)地位，占據(jù)著超過80%的市場份額，但分析人士稱，該公司可能很難吸引大批海外追隨者。

“Culturally, people work differently,” said Paul Thompson, a co-founder of LGBT Capital based in Hong Kong. “It’s much easier to build up this real concentrated drive in one marketplace than it is to do it in lots of places.”

“從文化角度看，大家的行事方式各不相同，”總部位于香港的LGBT資本聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人保羅·湯普森(Paul Thompson)表示。“集中力量深耕單個市場要比同時進軍很多個地方容易得多。”

Growing up in northern China as the son of a factory worker and a housewife, Mr. Ma hoped to go to college and become a teacher. But his parents thought his dreams were too costly, and he was sent to the local police academy instead.

馬保力在中國北方長大成人，父親是工廠里的一名工人，母親是家庭主婦。他曾經(jīng)希望進大學(xué)讀書，然后成為一名老師。但父母認(rèn)為他的夢想花費太高，將他送進了當(dāng)?shù)氐囊凰！?/p>

It was there, he said, in a macho culture that revolved around talking about women, that he realized he was gay.

他說，正是在那里，在一種聊天圍繞女性展開的硬漢文化中，他意識到自己是同性戀者。

At the time, in the mid-1990s, gay sex was considered a crime in China and homosexuality was classified as a psychological disorder. At the police academy, Mr. Ma took courses on criminal psychology where cadets were told that gay people should be viewed suspiciously because they were more likely to commit crimes.

當(dāng)時是上世紀(jì)90年代中期，同性性行為被視為犯罪，同性戀被列為一種心理障礙。馬保力在警校學(xué)過犯罪心理學(xué)，學(xué)員在課堂上被告知，應(yīng)該以懷疑的眼光看待同性戀者，因為他們更有可能從事犯罪行為。

“When I realized I was different from other people,” he recalled, “I thought I was ill.”

“當(dāng)我意識到我和其他人不一樣的時候，”他回憶道，“我以為自己病了。”

Mr. Ma turned to the internet for advice. But instead of finding a supportive community, he found rants describing gay people as lunatics and perverts. On health websites, he was bombarded with recommendations to seek medication and electroshock treatment.

馬保力曾到網(wǎng)上尋求建議。但他沒能找到一個可以帶來幫助支持的社區(qū)，而是發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些把同性戀者描述成瘋子和變態(tài)的發(fā)泄言論。在健康網(wǎng)站上，他看到了太多關(guān)于求醫(yī)以及接受電擊治療的建議。

After becoming a police officer, Mr. Ma was inspired in 2000 to start his own website, Danlan.org, Chinese for “light blue,” evoking the clear coastal skies of his childhood. The site offered chat forums and advice on reducing the risk of H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases. Danlan soon became a popular way for gay men in China to connect in an age when many had been resorting to scrawling meeting dates and places on bathroom stalls, worried about the stigma of coming out.

受此觸動，馬保力當(dāng)上警察以后，于2000年創(chuàng)辦了自己的網(wǎng)站淡藍(Danlan.org)，這個名字來自他小時候沿海地區(qū)澄澈的天空。網(wǎng)站上有聊天論壇，還提供降低感染HIV及罹患其他性傳播疾病風(fēng)險的建議。在此前的中國，由于擔(dān)心出柜所帶來的恥辱，很多同性戀者都是在公廁座位間內(nèi)草草寫下會面的時間和地點，而淡藍很快就成了深受男同歡迎的聯(lián)絡(luò)平臺。

At work, Mr. Ma chased burglars, filed incident reports and recorded public service announcements. In his spare time, he raced to the keyboard, writing essays for Danlan and chatting with friends under the pseudonym Geng Le.

在本職工作中，馬保力要追捕竊賊、給事件報告歸檔、錄制公共服務(wù)宣傳片。在業(yè)余時間里，他會迫不及待地敲擊鍵盤，以耿樂這個化名為淡藍寫文章、跟朋友聊天。

Mr. Ma kept up the routine for more than a decade. He married, under pressure from friends and family. But when his supervisors confronted him about his website in 2012, he offered his resignation. His family was devastated.

馬保力就這樣日復(fù)一日地生活了十多年。在來自親友的壓力下，他結(jié)了婚。但在2012年，當(dāng)上司就其網(wǎng)站質(zhì)問他的時候，他遞交了辭呈。他的家庭遭受了毀滅性的打擊。

“Both of his parents were very traditional, and they thought their kid had a really good job,” said Wu Guoxin, 38, a friend from the police academy. “There was nothing he could do.”

“他的父母都是很傳統(tǒng)的人，覺得自己的小孩有一份很不錯的工作。”馬保力念警校時交到的朋友吳國新說。“他自己也挺無能為力的。”

Mr. Ma’s relationship with his wife soon dissolved. His mother was stricken with cancer and Mr. Ma worried that his decision to come out had contributed to her illness. The family agreed to never speak about his sexuality again.

馬保力和妻子的婚姻很快便土崩瓦解。他母親患上了癌癥，他擔(dān)心自己的出柜決定是導(dǎo)致母親生病的因素之一。全家人一致決定，再也不談?wù)撍男匀∠蛄恕?/p>

IN his new life as a high-powered technology executive, Mr. Ma still goes by the alias from his Danlan days, Geng Le. In meetings with business partners, he retains the deliberative demeanor of a police officer, nodding his head intently in silence, as if interviewing a witness at a crime scene.

作為一名位高權(quán)重的科技企業(yè)高管，馬保力在新生活中仍以淡藍網(wǎng)時代的化名耿樂示人。會見商業(yè)伙伴時，他的言行舉止依然帶有當(dāng)警察時的審慎做派，會安安靜靜、心無旁騖地點頭，仿佛正在犯罪現(xiàn)場詢問目擊證人。

In a sprawling office in central Beijing, where portraits of scantily clad men hang on the wall, Mr. Ma leads a team of about 200 employees. In one corner, workers scan Blued posts for illegal pornography. In another, a team adds Chinese subtitles to a movie that Blued produced in Thailand.

在位于北京市中心的龐大辦公室里，馬保力領(lǐng)導(dǎo)著約由200名員工構(gòu)成的團隊。辦公室的墻上掛著一些衣著暴露的男人的圖像。一個角落里，工作人員正在掃描Blued上的帖子，搜尋非法色情內(nèi)容。另一個角落里，一個團隊正給Blued在泰國制作的一部電影加上中文字幕。

The company is trying to increase its revenue by expanding into gay travel and entertainment.

該公司正試圖把業(yè)務(wù)拓展到同性戀旅游和娛樂領(lǐng)域，以增加收入。

Mr. Ma also hopes to bring more advertising to the app, and he sees potential for growth in live-streaming features, a wildly popular form of communication in China. Blued has more than 200,000 hosts who broadcast around the clock on a variety of topics — music, dating, fitness and cooking. Some earn up to $15,000 a month in tips paid by users, the company says, with Blued taking a share of each payment.

馬保力還希望給這個應(yīng)用程序拉到更多廣告，他從實時流媒體功能中看到了增長的潛力。在中國，實時流媒體是一種頗受歡迎的通訊方式。Blued上逾20萬名主播，會全天上傳與音樂、約會、健身、烹飪等多種話題有關(guān)的內(nèi)容。該公司稱，有些主播每個月收到的用戶打賞多達1.5萬美元，Blued能從每筆打賞中獲得分成。

As he works to build his business, Mr. Ma said he was also looking for ways to improve the lives of gay people in China. Blued offers free H.I.V. testing at clinics in Beijing, and the company has helped pay to fly same-sex couples to the United States to be married.

馬保力說，他一邊致力于創(chuàng)辦企業(yè)，一邊想方設(shè)法地改善中國同性戀群體的生活。在北京的一些診所里，Blued提供免費的HIV檢測，該公司還幫助一些飛往美國結(jié)婚的同性情侶籌集了相關(guān)費用。

Mr. Ma said he was optimistic that long-entrenched stereotypes were fading in China and that within two decades, the country would embrace ideas like same-sex marriage.

馬保力說他樂觀地認(rèn)為，在中國，長期存在的刻板印象正在淡化，不出20年，這個國家將會接受同性婚姻一類的觀念。

He quoted his idol, the Alibaba.com founder Jack Ma, in describing both the challenge of building a successful start-up in China and the struggles of the gay-rights movement.

提及在中國打造一家成功的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)所面臨的挑戰(zhàn)，以及開展同性戀權(quán)利運動所遇到的困難，他引用了他的偶像、阿里巴巴創(chuàng)始人馬云的話。

“When I’m at my most painful moments,” he said, “I remember what Jack Ma said: ‘Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.’ ”

“我最痛苦的時候，”他說，“總會想起馬云的一句話：‘今天很殘酷，明天更殘酷，后天會很美好。’”