How Japanese pop culture represents a fantasy image of homosexuality
Here is an essay I wrote for a sexuality course at uni, answering the following question:
What is distinctive about queer representation in Japanese pop culture [manga], and how have queer theorists made sense of this?
Queer representation in Japanese pop culture is distinctive because unlike other cultures, it is a fantasy image created and consumed by both gay men and heterosexual women. As queer theorists Mark J. McLelland and Thomas Baudinette argue and I observe, homosexual relationships in manga (Japanese comics) are influenced by both heteronormative values and the sexual and emotional repression of Japanese women and queer people. By examining the history and culture of the two main genres of queer manga — Shounen Ai and Bara — this essay will explain why queer representation in Japan is so flawed and not entirely considered an example of “gay text” by queer theorists.
Despite its homosexual text, queer manga was first introduced by heterosexual women in the 1960s. The bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II left a bleak cultural impact on Japanese society and the consciousness of its people (Ristola, 2017). Following the Americanisation of Japan, the country adopted conservative values from the United States and adhered to traditional ideas of femininity, marriage and sex. Mainstream Japanese pop culture defined a woman’s sexuality as limited by her ability to reproduce and marry, and portrayed women as shy, caring and financially dependent (McLelland, 2000, p. 13). Shoujo manga — that is, manga aimed at young girls — was thereby a form of escapism. Female writers began creating stories (shounen ai) about young androgynous men (bishounen) falling in love in romanticised fantasy settings: as eternally young vampires, high school boys experiencing love for the first time and tragic lovers at war (McLelland, 2000, p. 14). Due to the androgyny of these characters, sex between men in these texts is beautiful, slender and romanticised; the men are femininely built, passionately makeout and characterised for aesthetic appeal. As James Welker puts it, the bishounen “signifies both the female shoujo manga reader and the phallic power that, through him, she is able to transgress.” In this way, homosexuality in Shounen Ai or Boys’ Love manga is used as an escape for heterosexual women and consumed almost exclusively by them. It is for this reason that many queer theorists, including Thomas Baudinette, argue that yaoi manga (that is, Boys’ Love) should not be considered a reflection of queer representation (Baudinette, 2017, p. 60).
From here, a debate began between Japanese gay men and female BL writers in the 1990s as a discourse on the representational appropriation of homosexuality. An essay by gay writer Sato Masaki published in 1992 by the feminist magazine Choisir first introduced the idea that yaoi was an act of discrimination towards gay men, and that BL writers were “disgusting women who…have a perverse interest in sexual intercourse between men.” (Masaki, as cited by, Hitoshi, 2015, p. 214) BL writers quickly defended their trade, insisting that the boys in yaoi were not a reflection of homosexuality in real life. Writer Yaniga Ryoko responded to Sato’s claims: “what was most unexpected was the fact that you [Satō] considered yaoi to be something that had something to do with you.” (Hitoshi, 2015, p. 215) Sato further considered that the power-dynamic paradigms of the seme and uke in yaoi perpetuated a caricature of gay men as women (Baudinette, 2010): In yaoi manga, asides from the bishounen, the two men in the relationship are defined by masculine and feminine identities; the uke (taken from ukeru which means to receive) is slim and femininely built, submissive and dependent on the more masculine seme (the top or more dominant character). While this also completely discredits versatile sexually-identified gay sex, it also adheres to heteronormative roles of sexual intercourse. Yet, Ryoko and others continued to argue that these heteronormativity subjective roles were a means of appropriating gay sexuality and reforming female empowerment as women gave themselves a metaphorical choice of power, visualising themselves as the seme and uke (Hitoshi, 2015, p. 226–227). Even then, it’s hard to not admit that there is an incredible problem with the genre appropriating a marginalised group of people’s sexuality for personal satisfaction, as Masaki writes in Queer Studies ’96 that “yaoi representations of gay men leads to not only commodification but also to [the] stylisation of gay men’s sexualities in a way that heterosexualism prevails” (1996, p. 166) (Hitoshi, 2015, p.223–224).
As a result, heterosexual women who love yaoi self-identified themselves as fujoshi (rotten women) and united against Sato’s remarks. In the 1990s, as the divide between gay men and heterosexual women who liked yaoi grew, bookstores dedicated to yaoi and fan-created yaoi content about popular series — called doujinshis — appeared. While these stores gave a sense of place and community to these women, they further alienated gay men who believed the genre was profitising off their sexuality (Galbraith, 2011). The lack of female identity in these texts convinces fujoshis that yaoi is divorced from reality, allowing them to explore not only fantastical settings but taboo sexual themes in the lens of intimacy (Galbraith, 2011, p. 213). As Sharalyn Orbaugh writes, the issue of consent is embedded in most yaoi text: “rape is always motivated by the aggressor’s extreme love and desire for the victim” and “the victim eventually comes to accept and reciprocate the aggressor’s love” (Orbraugh, 2010, p. 181). Mizoguchi extends this observation, claiming that frequent rape scenes in yaoi are tied to “normal” aggressively masculine personalities (Mizoguchi, 2000). Fujoshis shared their understanding of same-sex desire while reading heterosexual relationships in popular manga for young boys (shounen) as what Patrick Galbraith defines as “transgressive intimacy.” (Galbraith, 2011, p. 213) As Galbraith continues, fujoshis interpret touches, words and looks between characters as signs of romantic intent, and devote their time to exposing and exploring said moments in art and fiction (Galbraith, 2011, p. 213). In response, entertainment companies began to create promotional content that while not explicitly stated, directly catered to fujoshi fans through imagery that appealed to them without officially confirming characters as queer in series canon. An infamous close-up of a character waking up from drowning in a pool moments before another male character begins to give them mouth to mouth CPR through a glamorous and sharply edited angle is perhaps one of the biggest examples of this. In this way and in conjunction with Sato’s argument, I agree that heterosexual women are fetising homosexuality by the commodification and characterisation of the fantasy of queerness in yaoi. This thereby substantiates the idea that what makes queer representation in Japanese pop culture so distinctive is its ability to serve as a fantasy for heterosexual women and gay men.
Another and perhaps just as significant component of queerness in Japanese pop culture that succeeded the 1992 Sato debate was the evolution of Bara (also known as geikomi) and its purpose to reclaim the image of homosexuality in mainstream Japanese media and pop culture. As Baudinette explains, Bara manga, which depicts hyper-masculine gay men with highly-muscular, hairy bodies, short hair and chubby features, emerged as an extension of a homo sub-culture originated by the niche gay magazine Badi (2016, p. 114) and the gay boom of Japan’s queer identity politics introduced by the North American queer rights movement (McLelland, 2005, p. 177). The valorised hypermasculinity illustrated in these texts served to challenge the typically assumed image in Japan of same-sex desiring men as crossdressers and stereotypically hyper-feminine (Baudinette, 2017, p. 63). While the sex in shounen ai is romanticised and soft and often implicitly shown, sex in bara manga is contrastingly more aggressive and rough and illustrated by explicit close-ups of anal and oral penetration (Baudinette, 2016, p. 118–119). Inspired by the SM content found in Badi, legendary Bara manga artist Gengoroh Tagame stylistically and thematically incorporated BDSM plot elements into his work (Baudinette, 2016, p. 118); and argues that the genre is a “realistic promotion of rough masculine gay desire.” (Tagame, 2014) Mainstream television programs and yaoi depict same-sex desiring men as confused and terrified of their own attraction; characters admit to each other that “they mustn’t” sleep with another man or commit such “disgusting” or “unholy” acts (Hitoshi, 2015, p. 217–218). Furthermore, homosexually-identified characters were coded as foreigners who didn’t understand societal norms, or sexually-deviant monsters who prey on the fragile and heroic heterosexual protagonist (Hitoshi, 2015, p. 217–218). As such, men in geikomi were unapologetically gay and interested in other gay men instead of identifying as heterosexual but ‘shockingly’ falling for a man (Baudinette, 2016). The worlds of geikomi, including Tagame’s Priapus which followed the adventures of the Greek God of fertility as he magically travelled across Japan sexually experiencing everyday Japanese gay men, depicted communities of homosexual men socially constructed in society. In this way, while Bara comics began as a backlash response to the attitudes of BL writers in the 1992 Sato debate, it quickly became a fantasy image of homosexuality in Japan for gay men.
Therein, I argue, lies the reason why homosexuality discourse in Japanese society is still so discrete and why queer representation is so distinctive. These varying depictions of homosexuality are flawed polar opposites that when linearly defined, can be characterised as hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine, depicting homosexuality as an unnatural soft temptation of secrecy and indecency, and a violent, rough expression of same-sex attraction. In a series of Vox Populous interviews with Japanese people, YouTuber Asian Boss (2017) discovered that when asked if they knew any LGBT people, most Japanese people admitted confused and unsure. Additionally, same-sex couples weren’t legally allowed to adopt in Japan until last year (Kyodo, 2017) and sexual health in regards to same-sex sexual intercourse is unheard of, as evident by several STDs unbeknownst to male sex workers in the recent documentary Boys for Sale (Boys for Sale, 2017). Surprisingly, there is no legislation pertaining to sodomy in Japan (Baudinette, 2018), and yet, there is still an element of discomfort towards LGBT and sexuality (Gaycation, 2016). During a series of interviews Baudinette had with six Japanese gay men, where he asked them about their sexual activity and interaction with gay comics, he concluded that the attitudes towards gay manga from the perspective of homosexual men is varied and strikingly different to that of western queer theorists (Baudinette, 2017). While theorists such as himself, McLelland, Welker and Hitoshi consistently discount the homosexuality of shounen ai and only consider the hyper-masculine portrayals of geikomi as ‘gay manga’, many of the informats admitted that the genres reflect two different sides of same-sex desire (Baudinette, 2017). According to Haruma, a 24 year old research assistant and avid fan, “BL comics promote romansu (romance) [whereas] geikomi promote erosu (erotic)” (Baudinette, 2017, p. 65). The six also shared the view that both genres were an example of pornography for gay men, with several admitting to using them when masturbating (Baudinette, 2017, p. 67). That being said, Marcio and Haruma insisted that they found the men in geikomi more attractive to those in yaoi because they reflected the physical appearance of men they would find attractive in real life (Baudinette, 2017, p. 67), reflecting the desired appeal geikomi has with McLelland and Baudinette. Therefore, while theorists and the creators of queer Japanese pop culture see a divide between the feminised and masculated fantasies of yaoi and bara respectively, the general queer public of Japan are entertained by both. This realisation while questions the relevance of the original 1992 debate, also highlights the distinctiveness of Japanese queer pop culture in serving more than queer appeal.
As explored in this essay, what makes queer representation in Japanese pop culture so distinctive is that it is a fantasy for more than just queer people. The history of queerness in Japanese pop culture can be attributed to both the liberation of female sexuality as well as the counterculture and homosexual subculture that sparked from the debates of the authenticity of yaoi as queer appropriation in the 1990s. Through examining the context and discourse of yaoi and bara, one can conclude that same-sex desire in Japanese comics is widely recognised and consumed by both homosexual and heterosexual people, and this understanding has allowed for this genre to evolve and continue. In reflection, I share similar concerns of the commodification and stylisation of homosexuality in yaoi as Sato Masaki, and recognise that the “transgressive intimacy” of fujoshis is in part why LGBT sexuality and identity is still a taboo in the non-religious nation of Japan.
Bibliography:
Asian Boss, 2017, “How do the Japanese feel about LGBT? | Asian Boss,” Japan.
Boys for Sale, 2017, motion picture, Itako, Japan.
Gaycation, 2016, “Life in the closet of Japan (GAYCATION — Japan Clip)”, VICE, Japan.
Fujimoto Yukari, 1998, “Where do I belong? The shape of the heart reflected in shōjo manga”, Gakuyō shobō, Tokyo, p. 143.
Kyodo, 2017, “Osaka the first city in Japan to certify same-sex couple as foster parents”, The Japan Times, April 6, accessed on 20 May 2018.
Mark J. McLelland, 2000, “The Love Between ‘Beautiful Boys’ in Japanese Women’s Comics”, Journal of Gender Studies, 9:1, 13–25, DOI: 10.1080/095892300102425.
Mark J. McLelland, 2006, “Why are Japanese girls’ comics full of boys bonking?”, Refractory: A journal of entertainment media, University of Wollongong, p. 1–14.
Mark J. McLelland, James Welker, Ishida Hitoshi, Tomoko Aoyama, 2015, “An Introduction to “Boys Love” in Japan”, “A Brief History of Shounen Ai, Yaoi and Boys Love”, “Representational appropriation and the autonomy of desire in Yaoi/BL”, “Queering the Cooking Man: Food and Gender in Yoshinaga Fumi’s (BL) Manga”, Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture and Community in Japan, University Press of Mississippi.
Patrick Galbraith, 2011, “Fujoshi: Fantasy play and transgressive intimacy among “rotten girls” in contemporary Japan”, SIGNS, Autumn.
Satō Masaki, 1994, “I wish all yaoi dead”, Choisir yaoi ronsō gappon I: Irokawa Nao, Self-published, Japan.
Satō Masaki, 1996, “Shōjo manga and homophobia”, Queer Studies ’96, Tokyo, p. 166.
Thomas Baudinette, 2016, “An evaluation of physicality in the Bara manga of Badi magazine”, Manga Vision, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Australia.Thomas Baudinette, 2017, “Japanese gay men’s attitudes towards ‘gay manga’ and the problem of genre”, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 3, no. 1, p.
Thomas Baudinette, 2018, “‘Finding the law’ through creating and consuming gay manga in Japan”, Law and Justice in Japanese Popular Culture: From Crime Fighting Robots to Duelling Pocket Monsters, p. 155–167
