Out and about on Japan's gay net

Convergence

Volumn 6, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 16-33

  McLelland, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049233413     PISSN: 13548565     EISSN: 17487382     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/135485650000600303     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 195.
2. Dennis Altman, 'Rupture or Continuity? The Internationalization of Gay Identities,' Social Text 48, 14, no. 3, Fall (1996), p. 91.
3. For a discussion of the historical construction of homosexuality in Japan see Furukawa Makoto, 'The Changing Nature of Homosexuality: The Three Codes Framing Homosexuality in Modern Japan,' U.S.-Japan Women's Journal English Supplement, no. 7 (1994), pp. 98-126;
4. and Gary Leupp, Male Colors: The Historical Construction of Male Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
5. For a discussion of Japanese terms relating to homosexuality see Daniel Long 'Formation Processes of Some Japanese Gay Arot Terms,' American Speech, 71.2, (1996), pp. 215-224.
6. For a discussion of Japan's gay magazines see Wim Lunsing 'Japanese Gay Magazines and Marriage Advertisements,' in Gays and Lesbians in Asia and the Pacific; Social and Human Services, ed. Gerald Sullivan (Binghampton: Haworth Press, 1995).
7. One of Japan's most prominent gay activists who does this is Fushimi Noriaki in his book Puraibeeto gei raifu (Private gay life) (Tokyo: Gakuyoo shooboo, 1991).
8. I therefore use 'gay' and 'homosexual' simply as adjectives in this paper to describe Japanese men who are primarily sexually attracted to other men and to avoid the clumsy compound term 'same-sex desiring'.
9. See Furukawa (op. cit.) for a discussion of how 'sodomy' [keikan) came to be made illegal and was then subsequently removed from the penal code in Meiji Japan. The present situation is rather complicated. Although Pinketon and Abramson comment that 'there are no legal proscriptions of homosexuality in Japan, nor any laws concerning the practice of sodomy' (Steven Pinkerton and Paul Abramson, 'Japan' in Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality: a Multi-Nation Comparison, eds. Donald West and Richard Green [New York and London: Plenum Press, 1997], p. 67) a Japanese lawyer has informed me that there are regional laws concerning the age of consent which is explicitly stated to be thirteen for girls and implicitly understood to be the same for boys. However I have been unable to track down any of these provisions. It is certainly true that there are no national laws restricting sexual interaction between men and men or men and boys. This should not be surprising when it is recalled that western legal codes have usually ignored sex between women. Hence, in Britain, there is specific legislation aimed at men forbidding sexual relations between men in which one partner is under the age of eighteen as well as forbidding male homosexual interactions which involve more than two partners. However, this does not apply to sex between women.
10. Barbara Summerhawk et al. (eds), Queer Japan: Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals (Norwich: New Victoria Publishers, 1998).
11. Wim Lunsing, 'Lesbian and Gay Movements - Beyond Hard and Soft,' in Soziale Bewegungen in Japan, eds. Claudia Derichs and Anja Oziander (Hamburg: Mitteilungen der Vereinigung für Natur und Völkerkunde, 1998), p. 283.
12. These figures were given to me in an interview with staff of the gay magazine G-Men conducted in August 1998 but I have been unable to verify them. For a description of Japanese gay magazines in English visit the Tokyo-based Books Rose webpage at
13. Lunsing, 'Japanese Gay Magazines', p. 71.
14. SindBad Bookmarks at (8 December 1999).
15. Top 100 Gay Sites at (8 December 1999).
16. BOYS JAPAN at (8 December 1999).
17. Men's Top & Bottom SM CHAT at (8 December 1999).
18. From February 1997 until August 1998, I made several trips to Japan in order to gather information for my Ph.D. thesis on male homosexuality. During this time I interviewed a number of Japanese gay men who I had originally met through the internet. For an in-depth discussion of sixteen of these interviews, see chapters 7 and 8 of my book Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000).
19. Gay Net Japan at had received 4,228,861 hits as of 8 December 1999, but no inception date was given.
20. For a discussion of Japan's pervasive and extremely varied commercial sex industry, see Altbooks, SEX no arukikata: Tookyoo fuzoku kanzen gaido (How to find your way around sex: a guide to Tokyo's sex trade), (Tokyo: Mediawaakusu, 1998);
21. Nicholas Bornoff, Pink Samurai: The Pursuit of Politics and Sex in Japan, (London: Grafton Books, 1990);
22. and Peter Constantine, Japan's Sex Trade: A Journey through Japan's Erotic Subcultures (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle, 1993).
23. Shinji's Park's Heaven at (8 December 1999).
24. Train! Train! Noticeboard at ( 2 December 1999). Japanese trains in Tokyo during the rush-hour are packed to over 120 per cent capacity. Station workers wearing white gloves are employed to push as many passengers onto the trains as possible. Unfortunately, this provides great scope for male sexual harassment of women but also enables men to consensually grope each other. According to some internet sites specialising in commuter sex, if one wants to be groped, one should stand directly in front of the driver's or conductor's room on the first or last carriage and clearly display one's watch on one's right wrist.
25. Men's Net Japan at received 5,964,459 hits between January 1997 and December 1999.
26. Toshi's Page at
27. Hidetoshi's Private Image Club at (8 December 1999).
28. Although homosexual sex has never occasioned a moral panic in Japan (because it is largely ignored), schoolgirls who engage in 'compensated dating' with older men are often said to signify the nation's moral decline and are treated very negatively by the press whereas the role their older male clients play goes unmentioned. Some feminist commentators have suggested that this is indicative of Japan's double standard as regards men's and women's sexuality. For examples of rather moralistic and hysterical discussions of this topic see Kawai Hayao, 'The Message from Japan's Schoolgirl Prostitutes,' Japan Echo, June 1997, pp. 47-50;
29. and 'Japan's Dirty Secret, Schoolgirls Selling Sex: The New Teen Trade Raises Questions About the Country's Moral Values', Newsweek, 23 December 1996.
30. Boys Rush at received 23,443 hits between 1 August 1999 and 8 December 1999.
31. Midnight Cinderella at (December 1999).
32. Ruby in the Sky with Citrine at (December 1999).
33. lto Satoru and Yanase Ryuta, Otoko to otoko no ren'ai nooto (Notes for men who love men), (Tokyo: Tarojirosha, 1994);
34. lto Satoru, Dooseiai no kisoo chishiki (Basic information about homosexuality), (Tokyo: Ayumi shuppan 1996).
35. Sukotan Plan at (December 1999)
36. Mark McLelland, Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000).
37. Appadurai, 'Modernity at Large' p. 195.