This book is the first to look at the wide range of contrasting images of the gay male body in Japanese popular culture, both mainstream and gay, and relate these images to the experience of an interview sample of Japanese gay men. In so doing, it touches on a number of important issues, including whether there can be a universal 'gay identity' and whether or not strategies developed for increasing gay and lesbian visibility in western countries are appropriate to the social situation in Japan
Looks at the wide range of contrasting images of the gay male body in Japanese popular culture, both mainstream and gay, and relates these images to the experience of an interview sample of Japanese gay men.
Tokugawa Japan ranks with ancient Athens as a society that not only tolerated, but celebrated, male homosexual behavior. Few scholars have seriously studied the subject, and until now none have satisfactorily explained the origins of the tradition or elucidated how its conventions reflected class structure and gender roles. Gary P. Leupp fills the gap with a dynamic examination of the origins and nature of the tradition. Based on a wealth of literary and historical documentation, this study places Tokugawa homosexuality in a global context, exploring its implications for contemporary debates on the historical construction of sexual desire. Combing through popular fiction, law codes, religious works, medical treatises, biographical material, and artistic treatments, Leupp traces the origins of pre-Tokugawa homosexual traditions among monks and samurai, then describes the emergence of homosexual practices among commoners in Tokugawa cities. He argues that it was "nurture" rather than "nature" that accounted for such conspicuous male/male sexuality and that bisexuality was more prevalent than homosexuality. Detailed, thorough, and very readable, this study is the first in English or Japanese to address so comprehensively one of the most complex and intriguing aspects of Japanese history.
Queer Voices from Japan examines the wide range of queer voices in Japan, and the longevity that these minority communities have enjoyed in society. Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker bring together historical and contemporary narratives that contribute to the study of sexual identities in Japan. These essays trace the evolution of queer voices in Japan with analyses of the presence of homosexuality in the Japanese Imperial Army, the development of Japan's first gay bars, and same-sex experiences in the pre- and post-war periods. This book offers a variety of perspectives including a range of male-to-female and female-to-male transgender voices and experiences. The broad scope of this volume makes it an invaluable text for understanding the development of Japanese sex and gender categories in the twentieth century. Queer Voices from Japan is a compelling read that will appeal to those interested in Asian studies and human sexuality.
Boys Love Manga and Beyond looks at a range of literary, artistic and other cultural products that celebrate the beauty of adolescent boys and young men. In Japan, depiction of the “beautiful boy” has long been a romantic and sexualized trope for both sexes and commands a high degree of cultural visibility today across a range of genres from pop music to animation. In recent decades, “Boys Love” (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women. This genre was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s by a group of female artists who went on to establish themselves as major figures in Japan's manga industry. By the late 1970s many amateur women fans were getting involved in the BL phenomenon by creating and self-publishing homoerotic parodies of established male manga characters and popular media figures. The popularity of these fan-made products, sold and circulated at huge conventions, has led to an increase in the number of commercial titles available. Today, a wide range of products produced both by professionals and amateurs are brought together under the general rubric of “boys love,” and are rapidly gaining an audience throughout Asia and globally. This collection provides the first comprehensive overview in English of the BL phenomenon in Japan, its history and various subgenres and introduces translations of some key Japanese scholarship not otherwise available. Some chapters detail the historical and cultural contexts that helped BL emerge as a significant part of girls' culture in Japan. Others offer important case studies of BL production, consumption, and circulation and explain why BL has become a controversial topic in contemporary Japan.
In this important contribution to international queer studies, sixteen people, spanning generations from pre-war to newly out young activists, tell their stories.
Scholarship on Japan has recently broadened to include minority perspectives on communities from marginal workers to those whose sexuality has long been overlooked. This volume, with its combination of fieldwork in the gay and lesbian communities and the use of historical sources such as journals and documents, breaks important new ground in this field. It examines gay life in the Japanese Pacific War, addresses transgender and lesbian as well as gay issues, examines the interface of queer society with the U.S. occupation and the international community, contests major interpretations of contemporary queer society, and introduces readers to the development of lesbian, transgender, and gay communities in postwar Japan.Queer Japan from the Pacific Age to the Internet Age provides a historical outline of the development of sexual-minority identity categories and community formation through a detailed analysis of both niche and mainstream publications, including magazines, newspapers, biographies, memoirs, and Internet sites. The material is also augmented with interview data from individuals who have had a long association with Japan's queer cultures.Including a wealth of images from the "perverse press," this book will appeal to students and general readers interested in modern and contemporary Japan and in gender studies and sexuality.
"A remarkable and sorely needed synthesis of the best of traditional historiographical documentation and critically astute analysis and contextualization. Cartographies complements and, frankly, exceeds any of the English language monographs on similar topics that precede it, and it represents significant contributions to several fields outside of East Asian history, including literature, gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, and cultural studies."—Earl Jackson Jr., author of Strategies of Deviance: Studies in Gay male Representation and Fantastic Living: The Speculative Autobiographies of Samuel R. Delany
Winner of the 1990 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. ---------- "A welcome opportunity for wider comparison of the literary traditions and sexual conventions of Japanese and Euro-American cultures."--Journal of Japanese Studies
How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World. Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of sodomites in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.
