Homosexuality and Manliness in Postwar Japan
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Homosexuality and Manliness in Postwar Japan Japan’s first professionally produced, commercially marketed and nationally distributed gay lifestyle magazine, Barazoku (‘The Rose Tribes’), was launched in 1971. Publicly declaring the beauty and normality of homosexual desire, Barazoku electrified the male homosexual world whilst scandalizing mainstream society, and sparked a vibrant period of activity that saw the establishment of an enduring Japanese media form, the homo magazine. Using a detailed account of the formative years of the homo magazine genre in the 1970s as the basis for a wider history of men, this book examines the rela- tionship between male homosexuality and conceptions of manliness in postwar Japan. The book charts the development of notions of masculinity and homo- sexual identity across the postwar period, analysing key issues including public/ private homosexualities, inter-racial desire, male–male sex, love and friendship; the masculine body; and manly identity. The book investigates the phenomenon of ‘manly homosexuality’, little treated in both masculinity and gay studies on Japan, arguing that desires and individual narratives were constructed within (and not necessarily outside of) the dominant narratives of the nation, manliness and Japanese culture. Overall, this book offers a wide-ranging appraisal of homosexuality and manliness in postwar Japan, that provokes insights into conceptions of Japanese masculinity in general. Jonathan D. Mackintosh is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. His research interests include gender/sexuality in postwar Japan, masculinities and the body, and historical East Asian diasporic identities. 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Mackintosh First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Jonathan D. Mackintosh All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mackintosh, Jonathan D. Homosexuality and manliness in postwar Japan / Jonathan D. Mackintosh p.cm.—(Routledge contemporary Japan series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Gay men—Japan. 2. Homosexuality—Japan. 3. Masculinity—Japan. I. Title HQ76.2J3M33 2009 306.76'62095209047—DC22 2009008438 ISBN 0-203-87166-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-42186-1 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-87166-9 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-42186-7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-87166-9 (ebk) Contents List of illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix Note on Japanese names and translation x Introduction 1 Part I Producing homo 25 1 Homo ‘movings’: Rentaikan and Shiminken 43 2 White dreams: the coming and going of porn Americana 94 Part II Confessions: the buntsūran and the body 135 3 Eroto-morphemic revolutions of the everyday 149 4 Age differentiation and the redemption of men 184 Conclusion: modernity and the contradictions of certainty 213 Notes 219 Bibliography 240 Index 255 Illustrations Figures 1 Growth of Barazoku – number of pages and photo inserts (1971–5) 4 2 Growth of buntsūran (number of ads) in the first seven numbers of each magazine 136 3 Personal ad layout 140 Tables 1 Number and percentage of men in each age bracket according to magazine 142 Acknowledgements I am indebted to a great many people whose encouragement and assistance have made this book possible. It is with deep gratitude that I thank my doctoral super- visor Mark Morris. The things I have learned and skills I have acquired owe much to his counsel. His knowledge of ideas and enthusiasm for them is inspiring; I have found myself taking many unexpected and wonderful adventures of discovery. I have been extremely fortunate to meet many who have taken time to guide and assist me. With thanks to the tutors and staff of the Japan Centre, Cambridge, and Peterhouse. Special thanks must go to Timon Screech. Were it not for his encouragement, the journey that has culminated in this book would have never commenced. Special mention must be made of a number of individuals who generously shared their knowledge, insights and time with me. Thanks must go to the people who provided me with materials and much to think about: Itō Bungaku, Ōtsuka Takashi, Nakagawa Shigemi, Kago Keitarō, Brian Turner and Alain Delfosse. I am grateful for the invaluable advice, assistance and encouragement of many new and old friends: Tracey Gannon, Elizabeth Chapman, Song Hwee Lim, Nicola Liscutin, Naoko Shimazu, Chris Berry, Mara Patessio, David Bonnitcha, Hirohama Tetsuo, Brid Murphy, Ōnishi Hitoshi, Akiko Sakai, Alwyn Spies and Rina Ueda. I am grateful for the support and assistance of a number of organizations: The Japan Centre, Cambridge; the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge; the Overseas Research Student Scheme; the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust; the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee; Peterhouse; and the European Association for Japanese Studies. An earlier version of the section Rentaikan: Itō Bungaku and Barazoku in Chapter 1 appeared as ‘Itō Bungaku and the solidarity of the rose tribes [Barazoku]: Stirrings of homo solidarity in early 1970s Japan’ in Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, 12 (January 2006). An earlier version of the section ‘Seriousness – work and the ethical field of meaning’ in Chapter 3 formed the basis of the chapter entitled: ‘Embodied masculinities of male–male desire: The homo magazines and white-collar manliness in early 1970s Japan’, in AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities (2009), edited by Fran Martin, Peter A. Jackson, Mark McLelland and Audrey Yue (Chicago: University x Acknowledgements of Chicago Press). Thanks must to go the various readers who provided me with valuable suggestions and advice. Finally, there is that boundless and bountiful source of well-being, support, encouragement and love. Thank you to my family – Mom, Dad and Grandma, Pat and Myriam – and, most of all, S. Note on Japanese names and translation Japanese names that appear in this book follow the standard order of family name first, followed by the given name. Translations of texts are mine unless otherwise indicated. Introduction I run a small publishing house by myself called Dai ni shobō under the ‘catch- phrase’ of a heretical publishing company. I make homosexual books for the world’s ‘homo tribes’. Itō Bungaku (Itō 1971b: 4) Acutely attuned to everyday modernity in Lisbon in the 1920s, the modernist poet Pessoa marked the distance between the dull, routine monotony of everyday life, filled with minutiae, and the lofty reflections that everydayness inspired, between the past and the now of the present. Aware, moreover, that in modern life no real difference separated the individual life from the streets … he was nevertheless convinced that this world of ‘tedium’ defined the terrain of experience and deter- mined the conditions for all reflection. Harry Harootunian (2000: 1) Really, nothing of great significance happened in 1587, the Year of the Pig … Can we therefore omit that year from history books: Not quite. Ray Huang (1982: 1) Setting – everyday Japan Shōwa 46, 1971. For the Japanese, it was a year of no great significance when many significant things happened. As they viewed their colour TVs over break- fast and in the newspapers they read on the commuter trains, they did see that for some it was truly a momentous year.