Intimate Relationships Between Women As Romantic Love in Modern Japan1

chapter 8 Intimate Relationships between Women as Romantic Love in Modern Japan1

Kanako Akaeda

Abstract

This article reconsiders the categories of ‘friendship’ and ‘same-sex love’ as applied to relationships between women in modern, largely pre-war, Japan (1868–1945), with a special focus on the role of double suicides, viewed as an expression of the extremeness and seriousness of same-sex intimacy. While in contemporary Japan friendship and homosexuality are considered as different categories, in modern Japan ‘S’-relationships between schoolgirls, or of schoolgirls with their female teachers, were considered to be a form of homosexuality. This special kind of friendships is illustrated by contributions submitted to girls’ magazines. The semantics of terms describing such relationships provide a telling story as well. Most of the negative arguments on intimate relationships between women in these days were influenced by contemporary European sexology, interpreting homosexuality as ‘inverted sexuality,’ to be distin- guished into a ‘congenital’ (true), and an ‘acquired’ (temporary) type.

Introduction

Onna no Yuujou (女の友情, Friendship between Women) is a novel written by Yoshiya Nobuko,2 which was serialized in the women’s magazine Fujinkurabu (婦人倶楽部, Women’s Club) from January 1933 to December 1934 and published in book form in 1935. Yoshiya was a popular writer, who wrote many stories with the theme of intimate relationships between women. In Febru- ary 1933, at about the same time when the serialization of Friendship between

1 This article is based on Kanako Akaeda, “Women’s Intimate Relationships as Romantic Love: A Historical-Sociological Study of Women’s Friendship in Modern Japan,” Japanese Socio- logical Review 56.1 (2005): 129–46 (in Japanese); it has been largely modified for the present volume. 2 In Japanese, one’s surname comes before one’s first name. In this article, names of people are written according to this order.

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Women began, a student at a girls’ vocational school committed suicide by jumping into the crater of the volcano Mt. Mihara in Izu-oshima Island. Then another female student was found at the crater. At first, this incident was covered as a ‘double suicide’ attempt, which resulted in one dead and one alive. It later turned out, however, that this second student had been asked to watch her friend’s death. Moreover, she had accompanied another young woman to watch her suicide about a month before. This oddly entangled incident called the ‘Mt. Mihara Case’ drew much attention, and after that, suicide attempts at Mt. Mihara dramatically increased.3 One incident in June 1934 involved three women in a love triangle, including a woman who tried to kill herself in Tokyo as a result of the other two having gone to Mt. Mihara to die. The daily newspaper widely covered the incident,4 asking the question whether or not the core woman was truly a woman because she was dressed like a man. Intimate relationships between women in modern Japan,5 which Yoshiya’s works and these incidents represent, have not been sufficiently analyzed or discussed. These relationships have been arbitrarily called yuujou (友情, friendship), ai (愛, love) or douseiai (同性愛, homosexuality or same-sex love6). I would like to reconsider the basis of these categorizations. Subse- quently I shall argue that intimate relationships between women in modern Japan were a practice of romantic love.

Modern Terms for Intimate Relationships

While the works of Yoshiya still remain popular and are even more positively revaluated, same-sex double suicides as described above are almost forgotten in today’s Japan, being remembered only by those who lived in pre-war Japan. Intimate relationships between schoolgirls, like those portrayed in Yoshiya’s works, are being ‘rediscovered,’ yet people seem to hesitate to refer to these relationships as lesbianism, especially since in contemporary Japan friendship and homosexuality are considered as different categories. To name the

3 Kanou, Onnatachi no ‘Juugo.’ 4 For the details of those double suicides, see Robertson, “Dying to Tell.” 5 When Japan’s modern period began and when it ended is a controversial topic. In this article, ‘modern Japan’ refers to the Meiji, Taisho and pre-war Showa eras, that is: from 1868 to 1945. 6 Today, douseiai has almost the same connotations as ‘homosexuality’ in English. Same-sex love is the literal translation of douseiai, which was a shortened form of dousei no ai (同性の愛, love between the same-sex). In this article, when douseiai is used to refer to abstrac- tions or used as a sexological term, I have translated it as “homosexuality.”

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186 Akaeda relationships Yoshiya portrayed in her works, which were too intimate to be simply called ‘friendship,’ the term ‘S’ was found appropriate; in present-day research they are also explained by referring to the English concept of ‘romantic friendship.’ In fact, ‘S’ was used to describe the intimate relationships between young women in pre-war and even post-war Japan. Taken from the first letter of ‘sister,’ S—or, in its Japanese pronunciation, Esu (エス)—was commonly used from the early 1910s to denote that two girls or a girl and a female teacher, mostly in girls’ schools, had become very close. S was also a popular topic in girls’ magazines stories. At that time, however, S-relationships were considered to be a form of homosexuality. Moreover, they were not necessarily separated from the intimate relationships that resulted in double suicides: the concept of ai (love) connected S and homosexuality, which seem to carry different sets of connotations today. In early modern Japan, places where women, especially young and unmarried women, could foster intimate relationships with other women newly emerged and increased. A case in point were girls’ high schools called koutou- jogakko (高等女学校) founded for secondary education of women. For those who attended such institutions, intimate relationships with others were a new experience, and therefore a kind of experiment. Articulating such relationships was a product of trial and error. For a new thing, a new name is needed. Rabu (ラブ), the Japanese pronunciation of the English word ‘love,’ was such a word, which was introduced in early modern Japan and eventually replaced by the originally Japanese words ai (愛) and ren’ai (恋愛).7 These terms were first used mainly to refer to heterosexual love relationships; the latter was used to signify a romantic relationship between a man and a woman in particular, as it is today. The point at issue was not only the use of the word, but also the subjects of ‘love’-relationships: the newly emerged middle class women, most of them educated at girls’ high schools.

7 In pre-modern Japan, the words ai (愛) and koi (恋, affection/love) were in use, and the latter and the former characters were combined to form ren’ai. However, in this period the meaning of ai was negative, as it suggested sticking to something or someone, and koi—as in the case of jou (情, affections/loving-kindness) and iro (色, eros)—connoted relationships involving sexual intercourse. Or, more precisely, in pre-modern Japan there were no notions to distinguish physical relationships from emotional or spiritual ones. The shift from iro to ai in modern Japan is examined in detail and convincingly by Saeki Junko, ‘Iro’ to ‘Ai’ no Hikakubunkashi. It seems likely that ai with a positive connotation and ren’ai prevailed by male educators and writers using the words around the 1890s.

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The concept and term douseiai (同性愛, literally ‘same-sex love’) surely derived from Western sexology, and thus one might imagine the word to carry negative or even stigmatizing connotations. This was not necessarily the case in pre-war Japan, because the term included ai, which had a positive connotation. It is well known that the concept of douseiai prevailed during the 1920s.8 Intimate relationships between women at girls’ schools were also popular in the same period. How were these concepts harmonized at the time? In the following pages, I hope to explain what the intimate relationships between young women entailed, and examine how their values have changed, by investigating the discourse on the intimate relationships in pre-war Japan.

Girls’ Schools and Intimate Relationships

In this section I shall discuss three contributions submitted to girls’ magazines, illustrating how intimate female-female relationships were viewed at the relatively early stages of modern Japan.

“Cursed Life in the Dormitory”9 Yoshiko, who is telling this story, complains about her life in the dormitory, saying “who can be satisfied, being deprived of young women’s freedom and captured in this small world during what should be a joyful adolescence?”10 Then, she expresses her yearning to “throw away all the gloss, show the inner beauty of one virgin’s mind to another,” and to have “a beautiful commitment which includes sharing bosom secrets.”11 While leading such a frustrating life, she feels a curious emotional longing only for Kyoko, a woman of the same dormitory. However, Yoshiko feels that getting close only to Kyoko is considered ‘sinful’ and to destroy the harmony of the group—in a place like a dormitory, where individual freedom is not per- mitted, and sharing a deep commitment with someone is not allowed. Never- theless, she swears to bear any hardship if only Kyoko would accept Yoshiko’s loyalty to her.12

8 See Furukawa, “Ren’ai to Seiyoku no Daisanteikoku” for a discussion of the prevalence of douseiai in the 1920s. 9 Mihono, “Norowaretaru Ryousha-seikatsu.” 10 Ibid., 113. 11 Ibid., 114. 12 Ibid., 115–16.

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“Ex-teacher”13 The writer of this contribution describes how a young woman is visiting her alma mater, and on seeing her ex-teacher, she recalls her anger as, at the time, she was forced to break up the relationship with this teacher, who changed her mind after having promised their eternal companionship as ‘sisters.’ The status of being the teacher’s deiyaa (デイヤー, ‘dear one’) that the woman had cherished, had been attained by another girl named Matsuno. The following excerpt is the scene in which she noticed the change of her teacher’s mind.

Teacher Tanaka came out to go home, accompanying Matsuno of the same grade. At that time, doubt arose and I stared at Matsuno with fierce eyes. The teacher said, smiling at me, “Kimura. Good bye, Kimura,” with a powerful voice with a bright tone. At that moment, I felt humiliated more than ever before, and a flame of fury burned inside me.14

“Dormitory”15 The third contribution relates how a schoolgirl in a ‘sister’-relationship is to leave school and the dormitory. The conversation below is held in the evening before their farewell.

Then you, anesama [elder sister], will not think of me as imouto [little sister] anymore, will you? Please, please, anesama, let me call you anesama forever. You are so mean. Namiko, no, Princess. I will pray to God and Buddha every night and day from the remote countryside that you will be able to advance your career. I have been called anesama until now, to my delight, because I am senior and older… Tomorrow, I will be a humble country girl. You are a venerable princess.16

This narration closes with the statement, “No place is more egalitarian than the school.”17 As shown in these contributions, women at girls’ schools were eager to have pair relationships. The eagerness could have led to disharmony in the

13 Nakano, “Kyuushi.” 14 Ibid., 53. 15 Asaeko, “Kishukusha.” 16 Ibid., 47–50. 17 Ibid., 50.

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Relationships between Women as Romantic Love in Modern Japan 189 communal life. The reason why such relationships were eagerly sought after is that, in these young women’s eyes, this kind of relationship could be constructed on the basis of the autonomy and equal status of the two. It implied the re- alization of the modern ideals of freedom and equality. It was due to the girls’ schools that, in early modern Japan, women could form such a relationship. The Western notion of romantic love was introduced into early modern Japan as intimate relationships based on a combination of spiritual and physical ties—with great value placed on the former—, and a pair relationship based on spiritual ties were emphasized. By approximately the middle of the Meiji Era (1868–1912) this notion had spread among male intellectuals in particular. However, the disparity in gender status was enormous at that time, and as regards sexuality a double standard applied. Whereas men could enjoy substantial polygamy, including having concubines and going to brothels, the sexuality of women, especially those of the new middle class and the upper class, was closely linked to procreation in the context of marriage and fam- ily. Therefore, the practice of romantic love between a man and a woman was certainly no common matter. However, at places like girls’ schools, where women became separated from blood ties and community ties, they were freed from being someone’s daugh- ter and could become jogakusei (女学生, female students or schoolgirls) or shoujo (少女, girls),18 and could form intimate relationships in the relatively equal same-sex circles. For women at that time, pressure to get married was ab- solute, and marriages were usually arranged by parents. Marriage realized under such circumstances was nothing but an obligation, whereas the intimate relationships of the schoolgirl years were experienced as the purest form of romantic love: in sharp contrast to marriage, these were platonic and equal, pro- viding space for a woman to become an agent, and promising to last eternally. As said above, such relationships were sometimes called ‘love relationships,’ and sometimes ‘sister relationships.’ The term ‘shimai’ (姉妹, sister) was not new; it was probably a familiar term, and could be appropriated when referring to a close but platonic relationship between women. It also implied a relationship between two women whose ages were not the same—by an older and a younger sister. Its English counterpart ‘sister’ was also included in their vocabulary, with its Japanese pronunciation shisutaa (シスター).

18 Shoujo in Japanese could include teenagers. Therefore, those referred to as shoujo may be older than ‘girls’ in English.

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Critical Comments on Intimate Relationships between School Girls

These intimate relationships at girls’ schools and dormitories were certainly not accepted without criticism. In his essay “Evil Tendency among Schoolgirls,” the writer Itou Gingetsu expressed the view that this tendency was quite common among schoolgirls at dormitories and characterized this kind of relationship as a close equivalent to the mutual affection of ren’ai (romantic love).19 In newspaper articles entitled “Fearful Romantic Love Sickness” and “Symp- toms of Clients Suffering from Romantic Love” (May 1911), journalist Matsuzaki Tenmin qualified intimate relationships at girls schools as “sister fever” and “sisters in love.”20 Matsuzaki criticized such relationships as “a kind of imagi- nary romantic love sickness,” a horrible epidemic that had prevailed among younger schoolgirls and that was going unnoticed. He said it could bring them down to various depravities.21 From July 1911 onwards, after what may have been the first case of this kind— a double suicide in Niigata Prefecture by graduates of a Tokyo girls’ school—, intimate relationships between women attracted more attention, and they were discussed much more widely.22 Then, the word douseiai (同性愛) began to be used to refer to intimate same-sex relationships. According to the sociologist Furukawa Makoto, ‘homosexual’ and ‘homosexuality’ in foreign literature were first translated as dousei kousetsu (同性交接, same-sex intercourse), douseiteki shikijou (同性的色情, same-sex lust), douseikan seiyoku (同性間性慾, same-sex sexual desire) and so on.23 Furukawa argues that homosexuality between women led to the introduction of the term douseiai since the translations mentioned above had a strong physical connotation, and thus were not suitable for referring to intimate relationships between women, which were considered to be emotional or spiritual. The term douseiai now also replaced terms like nanshoku (男色, male eros), syuudou (衆道, way of male adolescents) or keikan (鶏姦, literally ‘rooster adultery’),24 which had been exclusively used to refer to intimate relationships between men, inevitably including sexual intercourse. To Furukawa, then, the importance

19 Itou, “Jogakuseikan no Akukeikou,” 93–4. 20 Matsuzaki, “Ren’ai-kanja no Shoujou,” 5. 21 Matsuzaki, “Osorubeki Ren’ai-byo,” 5. 22 Also before this incident, double suicides by young women occurred. However, most of them were not schoolgirls, but factory workers and housekeepers. 23 Furukawa, “Douseiai-kou.” 24 This is a literal translation of the Chinese characters, and keikan has nothing to do with roosters. In its connotation, it is similar to sodomy.

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Relationships between Women as Romantic Love in Modern Japan 191 of intimate relationships of women was largely limited to its giving rise to the term douseiai, which according to him became predominant since it left unspecified the gender of the actor. I want to argue, however, that intimate female-female relationships not only influenced the introduction of the term, but also the ways in which douseiai was actually practiced; douseiai in pre-war Japan was surely a feminized notion. Significantly, most of the negative arguments on intimate relationships between women in these days were influenced by contemporary European sexology, such as Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard von Krafft-Ebing25 and Sex- ual Inversion by Havelock Ellis.26 The journal Shinkouron (新公論, New Public Opinion) published a feature issue on seiyoku (性慾, sexuality) in September 1911, which is said to have “opened the door to sexuality studies” in Japan.27 It included an essay by Kuwatani Teiitsu, “Horrible Sexual Inversion among Women,” ostensibly based on the works of Krafft-Ebing and Ellis.28 This essay lists different types of behavior that show “differences between homosexual passion and ordinary friendship between schoolgirls.” However, even when presented this way, the differences do not seem to be quite striking. The list is as follows:

(1) Their exchanges of letters become very frequent. (2) They want to see and talk with each other, and do various things, for example, holding hands when they meet. (3) Their talk becomes longer, and they mutually indulge themselves in dreamlike imaginations. (4) They experience frequent strong feelings of jealousy. (5) They compliment each other’s character excessively. (6) They write the other’s name anywhere. (7) They do not feel envy of the other’s qualities. (8) They overcome everything that presents itself as an obstacle against showing their love. (9) They want to show off their closeness. (10) They are conscious of engaging in something forbidden. (11) They feel the pleasure of triumph.

25 Krafft-Ebing, Hentaiseiyokusinri (Japanese translation of Psychopathia Sexualis); see also n.31 below. 26 Ellis, Sexual Inversion. 27 Furukawa, “Ren’ai to Seiyoku no Daisanteikoku.” 28 Kuwatani, “Senritsu subeki Joseikan no Tentouseiyoku.”

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This list is almost the same as the one that was included in Ellis’s “The School- Friendships of Girls,” in which he describes intimate relationships at girls’ schools in Italy and Britain, and notes that in Italy these were called ‘flamma’ (flame), and in Britain ‘raves’ or ‘spoons.’29 European sexology had an enormous impact on the shift in the way intimate relationships between women were understood. According to Lillian Faderman, as sexological knowledge prevailed in society, romantic friendship came to be looked upon as an abnormal homosexual relationship, and it eventually disappeared in the United States.30 Its impact in Japan was likewise enormous, although quite different in form. Several years after Ellis published “The School-Friendships of Girls” as an appendix to Sexual Inversion,31 the double suicide by the graduates of a girls’ school—mentioned above—took place. By that time, intellectuals and the mass media had already acquired the conceptual framework with which to explain the incident. Apart from the fact that such an incident was rare at that time, the fact that a suitable explanation was available contributed to its signif- icance: otherwise the incident might have been forgotten as a once-only, odd case. In these circumstances, it was recognized as an extreme but representa- tive case of intimate relationships between schoolgirls. Curiously enough, in Japan the appendix in Ellis’ book did not have the effect of bringing an end to this kind of relationships. In combination with actual instances of the phe- nomenon, it did serve to spread the notion of ‘karino-douseiai,’ which literally means ‘temporary homosexuality,’ thereby contributing to the construction of new gender norms in modern Japan. However, not all homosexual relationships between women in modern Japan were explained as temporary homosexuality. Observers were inclined to distinguish two types of female homosexuality. One was ‘karino’ (仮の, temporary) homosexuality, and the other ‘shinno’ (真の, true) homosexuality. The latter type was thought to be congenital and more serious than the former. Although one would expect that discussions about homosexuality centered on this ‘true homosexuality’ rather than on the ‘temporary’ type, it was the

29 Ellis, Sexual Inversion. 30 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 41. 31 Ellis published this book in 1897 as part of his series Studies in the Psychology of Sex, but this Appendix (“Appendix B”) became included by 1908, when the second edition was published. Sexual Inversion was translated by Masuda Ichiro in 1928 as Seiteki Tousaku: Joron/Kenkyuu. However, as is obvious in view of Kuwatani’s “Senritsu Subeki Joseikan no Tentouseiyoku,” at least specialists and intellectuals who were interested in intimate relationships between women must have read or heard about the original at a much earlier stage.

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temporary type that attracted a greater deal of attention, and was enthusiasti- cally discussed in pre-war Japan.

Homosexuality of Women in European Sexology and its Japanese Reception

This classification of homosexuality into two types was derived from Euro- pean sexology, which interpreted homosexuality as being ‘inverted sexuality’: one type was ‘congenital’ (true), and the other was ‘acquired’ (temporary). Although the explanation of the difference between congenital and acquired homosexuality was related to heredity and the brain, there was no persuasive scientific evidence supporting this rather arbitrary and ambiguous differentia- tion. This concept of homosexuality was introduced into Japan and applied in interpretations of same-sex intimacy. In European sexology, female homosexuality was not necessarily related to sexual acts or sexual desire. Krafft-Ebing problematized indications of acquired homosexuality in women, and he designated masculinization as the most significant mark of congenital female homosexuality. Ellis also pointed out that ‘truly sexually inverted women’ showed some trace of masculinization. Dressing like men was seen as an understandable mark of sexual inversion. Furthermore, unlike male homosexuality, homosexuality among women was seen as an extension of warm feelings or sympathy:

Generally speaking, normal boys completely separate emotional feelings such as infatuation or sympathy toward another from physical sensation, and they do not feel delight in kissing, rubbing against, or engaging in sexual behaviors with a close friend… In contrast, among normal girls, it is not rare that warm feelings, infatuation or sympathy are expressed in kisses, hugs and loving gestures, which consequently arouse physical interest.32

In the 1910s, when such sexological knowledge was relatively new, and thus likely to have been unfamiliar to ordinary people, it is supposed to have spread by being associated with existing situations or remarkable events. One such event was double suicides between men or women: now a double suicide was seen as an expression of the extremeness and seriousness of same-sex intimacy.

32 Forel, Seiyoku Kenkyuu, 311.

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Sawada Junjirou and Habuto Eiji, two of the three researchers having popularized European sexology in Japan, explained abnormal sexuality in their Hentaiseiyokuron (変態性慾論, Theory of Abnormal Sexuality, 1915), relying on Krafft-Ebing’s classification of sexual inversion, illustrated by various cases from many different countries. In a chapter entitled “Congenital Homosexual- ity of Women,” they discussed double suicides of women. They argued that some double suicides of women were cases in which women became victims of relationships entangled with feelings of Giriai (義理合い, mutual obligation and loyalty). However—they went on—even if there were such Giriai, for them to be willing to throw away their lives, they must have had a special relationship and specific reasons for their feeling that they could not be apart. Tanaka Yuukichi, the third researcher mentioned above, in his Danjo no Seiyoku Kenkyuu (男女の性慾研究, Studies on Sexuality of Men and Women, 1912) brings forward as a factor of acquired homosexuality in women, that when women share each other’s company and love each other, their feelings— as he argued—become stronger and stronger, leading to a relationship like a conjugal one, and they think of sharing sorrows and joys. In extreme cases this tragically leads to double suicide. Tanaka Yuukichi then cites the double suicide in Niigata of the previous year, as well as other cases. These researchers accepted the concepts of European sexology, including the distinction between two types of homosexuality and the view that female homosexuality could be seen as an extension of sympathy and friendship. In Japan, this was received along with the idea that same-sex double suicides were a sign of homosexuality. Then, in the 1910s, newspaper articles were published explaining that double suicides occurred not only among schoolgirls but also among working class women such as factory workers and nurses; these, too, were attributed to homosexuality.

Same-Sex Love as Gender Norms

Between the 1910s and the 1920s the concept of homosexuality became familiar through its being applied to double suicides and same-sex intimate relationships at girls’ schools. As shown above, according to the original theory of Krafft-Ebing, sexual acts and sexual desire were not necessarily an issue in women’s homosexuality. Also in Japan, in this period the concept of homosexuality, especially of the acquired or temporary type, contributed not to regulate women’s sexual conduct, but to the construction of modern gender norms. The following excerpt from an article by Kawamura Risuke, who was president of Choufu Girls’ High School in Tokyo, helps us understand what

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‘temporary homosexuality’ as a gendered category implied, and why it was not banned rigidly at girls’ schools:

Women, who have emotions which are much more delicate than men’s, feel unsatisfied unless they feel loved. Especially, during the period of virginity, when they are about 15 or 16 years old, those who begin to be awakened to delicate emotions, intensely seek love and to be loved. Then, as a result that they seek love objects among their friends and they fall in love, and they fall into so-called same-sex love… Since I travel around the country almost the whole year and have ample opportunity to see schoolgirls at girls’ high schools, I always try to carefully observe young virgins’ mentality. I have found the surprising fact that as many as 70–80 percent of schoolgirls fall into this same-sex love.33

Although men are also supposed to experience this temporary homosexuality, it becomes clear that it is related to gendered norms regarding women. We see Kawamura recommending ‘training in love,’ intent to lead this temporary homosexuality, which ‘occurs instinctively and unconsciously’ and is ‘inferior, unpurified and selfish love,’ onto the right path:

Throwing a small self away leads to attaining a greater self eventually. I advise young women that training in love is to just throw oneself away and to do every kindness for another person. Throw your self away. Attain nirvana, become liberated from the slavery of selfish aiyoku [love and physical desire]. Then, you will discover a much higher stage of and much greater love.34

If we state, like Kawamura, that women should serve others, and assert that same-sex love is a preliminary step toward leading such an existence, then it is more desirable to experience such relationships than not to experience them. Moreover, for a woman this is a type of love that should be naturally experienced. This broad notion of homosexuality is derived not only from Japanese reception of the Western notion of homosexuality, but also from the under- standing of friendship at that time. This view of intimate relationships between young women as temporary homosexuality was not limited to male writers. Female writers also supported intimate relationships between women using the terms douseiai (同性愛,

33 Kawamura, “Douseiai ni Ochiireru Jogakusei ni Tsugetaki Koto,” 138. 34 Ibid., 141.

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196 Akaeda same-sex love) or dousei no ai (同性の愛, love between the same-sex). It seems that they preferred using these terms rather than the term ‘friendship,’ or valued same-sex love and love between the same-sex over friendship. While the term friendship was surely a good-enough word, it was gender-neutral and might have sounded a bit weak. In contrast, terms that include ai must have sounded more positive and feminine. In other words, while ‘friendship’ was something understandable and manageable for men, love was something that women themselves chose and constructed actively.

Women’s Comments on Intimate Relationships between Women

Same-sex love between women was supported in essays by the less well-known author Watanabe Tamiko, in which she upheld its merits. She said in her “Love between the Same-sex” that “so-called love between the same-sex among women” was “purely platonic.”35 She stated that “[a]n adoration for something most superior and infinite is shared with someone on earth, and it becomes a longing for her,” and that such “pure friendship overflows as a result of one being moved by eager emotion, which then emerges as luscious sentiment which is akin to affection.”36 Female supporters of such ideas emphasized that same-sex love between women was platonic. That a relationship is platonic does not necessarily mean that the relationship is weak. Yosano Akiko, a famous poet and writer, mentioned in her essay “Love between the Same-sex” that such relationships were accompanied by more intense emotions than romantic love between a man and a woman.37 Yoshiya Nobuko was a most powerful supporter of intimate relationships between women. Her novels Yaneura no Nishojo (屋根裏の二処女, Two Vir- gins in the Attic, 1920) and Hanamonogatari (花物語, Flower Tales, 1916–1925)38 have been popular among women since their publication. Although both of them depict intimate relationships between young women or girls, sometimes between an adult woman and a girl, the characters in Two Virgins in the Attic are older, and the story is said to be based on Yoshiya’s own experiences. She not only supported intimate relationships between women indirectly in her

35 Watanabe, “Dousei no Ai,” 1920, 22. 36 Ibid., 23. 37 Yosano, “Dousei no Ai,” 1917. 38 Flower Tales was serialized in girls’ magazines and later published as three books. It con- sists of short stories titled with the names of various flowers.

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Relationships between Women as Romantic Love in Modern Japan 197 fiction, but also made supportive comments on them directly. In her essay, “Dousei wo Aisuru Saiwai” (Happiness in loving the same-sex),39 she expresses homosexuality as a practice of love. This essay begins with:

Love is a beautiful flower of the soul that blooms on the wilds of life. When there is no love, when we have lost love, and when we cannot encounter love, how much we agonize, grieve, and cry insanely with loneliness! During girls’ school days, very intimate yuuai [friend love] occurs, and it becomes powerful and grows… This love among friends—if it occurs between an older girl and a younger girl or between a teacher and a student, is very beneficial from the educational point of view, and its value is immeasurable. Oh, educators for girls and moralists call even this pure friend love, which wells like a pearl fountain of beautiful humanity, as unnatural and the beginning of depravity and condemn it. Then, they assume that this intimate and hot love between girls sinks to something with a shabby dark side. What a careless way to think and shameful imagination this betrays!… As a result, hyacinthine girls have doubts about her own love, and kill its beautiful heart blessed by god. What a sad thing! This leads them to be unable to seriously understand the meaning of love, and to be tempted into low-grade and cheap romantic love. Love should be the most important, serious and great form of conduct as a life activity. The rudiments of love should be perfectly nurtured even at the risk of our lives.40

Yoshiya emphasized that intimate relationships between girls were the practice of love. It is difficult to distinguish yuuai (友愛, fraternity/camaraderie) from yuujou (友情, friendship)41 and explain their differences even in Japa- nese.42 They have almost the same connotation. Also in this essay, the term yuuai could be interchangeable with yuujou. Hence, we can see that Yoshiya must have wanted to emphasize the word ai (love) by using the term yuuai.

39 This essay was originally appeared as “Aishiau Kotodomo,” included in the article “Same-Sex Love Seen by Two Women,” in the journal Shinshousetsu (January 1921). 40 Yoshiya, “Dousei wo Aisuru Saiwai,” 1923. 41 In literal translation: yuuai is ‘friend love’ and yuujou is ‘friend affection.’ 42 However, yuuai sounds more formal than yuujou, and yuuai is not used very often in everyday life.

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By doing so, she emphasized at the same time that the subjects did not trans- gress conventional boundaries of gendered behavior. If the subjects of such relationships were schoolgirls, who were assumed to be innocent on the topic of sexual conduct, it was not very problematic to de- fend their intimate relationships. However, too much emphasis being placed on their being schoolgirls could lead to the idea that such relationships were limited to the period of school days of women, and this would make it difficult to advocate intimate relationships between adult women. Even Yoshiya, in one of her novels written around the same time as the essay above, depicted a female teacher’s love towards women as ‘unnatural passion’ and ‘abnormal’43 — despite the fact that she herself had a female lifetime partner at that time.

Weakening of Intimate Relationships between Women

Thinking of an intimate relationship between schoolgirls as a practice of love was not necessarily something imposed by male educators and media. Wom- en, who must have experienced such relationships themselves, emphasized that intimate relationships between women were platonic while involving intimacy, and therefore admirable. Such relationships were difficult to acquire, therefore longed for. Up to the mid-1920s, this positive evaluation of same-sex love between women outweighed a negative evaluation. An examination of the discussion of the subject in women’s magazines in the last part of the 1920s, however, gives the impression that the negative evaluations surpassed the positive ones. In addition to the stigmatization of homosexuality by the prevalence of sexology, other reasons for negative evaluations were adduced. Intimate relationships between schoolgirls became so prevalent that they reached a saturation point and became cheap. As the intimate relationships between women prevailed among the younger generation, the value of these relationships de- creased, since younger people were not considered as full-fledged agents. In contrast, heterosexual relationships emerged as something fresh. The magazine Reijokai (令女界, Lady-girl World), which was directed at schoolgirls and graduates of girls’ high schools as its readers, accepted readers’ letters, which featured in a column called “Letters of Clover.” This column was so popular that some of the other girls’ magazines adopted its format. In this column, so many letters addressing S-relationships were received that the editor advised readers not to send such letters that simply talked about courting

43 Yoshiya, “Aru Orokashiki Mono no Hanashi,” 1925, 21.

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Relationships between Women as Romantic Love in Modern Japan 199 a ‘sister’ or giving a sugary lamentation of a sister’s change of heart.44 However seriously the readers might be worrying about their respective relationships, the editor’s advice indicated that the magazine was being satiated with such letters. Another example of the saturation of intimate relationships between young women was the fact that Yoshiya’s Flower Tales became so popular that many similar but inferior stories appeared in girls’ magazines. S as a fashion could invite a kind of formalization of intimate relationships between women. S came to be considered to pertain to schoolgirls, and, therefore, it was thought of as childish, too sweet and far inferior to heterosexual relationships. Schoolgirls were expected to ‘graduate’ from S after their gradu- ation from a girls’ school, even if they had sworn that their relationship would last forever. Popularized and formalized S, which was considered as suitable for younger schoolgirls, did not have enough strength nor scarcity value anymore. It was unlike the idealized same-sex love that Watanabe Tamiko and other female writers had supported. In addition, the ideal of platonic love ceased to be limited to women. Al- though the depiction of heterosexual relationships was taboo in girls’ magazines in modern Japan, Reijokai began to carry a heterosexual romantic serial from 1924 despite readers’ objections that it was not ‘pure’ for a boy to appear in a story. In 1925, it also carried a short story “Road to Eternity” by Jou Shi- zuka that dealt with a same-sex double suicide,45 and Yoshiya’s “Unreturnable Day” in 1926, which depicted an intimate relationship between schoolgirls.46 After these stories, however, prominent same-sex love stories were not seen anymore in Reijokai. In real life, heterosexual relationships before marriage were still prohibited, and it is in the post-World War ii period that they came to be recommended by educators and the media.47 However, in his research on S published in 1951, Kimura Toshio shows that S was still popular among schoolgirls at that time, and that they thought S involved pure and beautiful relationships.48

44 Reijokai 4, no. 11 (1925). 45 Jou, “Kuon eno Michi.” 46 Yoshiya, “Kaeranu Hi.” 47 See Koyama, Akaeda, Imada (eds), Sekushuarithii no Sengoshi. 48 Kimura, “Jogakuseikan ni okeru S Kankei ni tsuite.” Kimura is thought to be the only person who studied S seriously. In his 1951 article, he said “S, even if it meant friendship, is friendship in the form of love.” Here he first disagreed with the view that S was a deeper form of friendship, which he said was the general opinion among schoolgirls themselves and teachers, and also disagreed to view S as a form of homosexuality, which he said was common view among scholars. However, Kimura did not completely reject these defini- tions. He said that S was “homosexuality which is particular to schoolgirls,” or “a special

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In the 1920s, discussions of romantic love became animated, the most famous and influential of which was Kindai no Ren’aikan (近代の恋愛観, Modern Views on Romantic Love) by Kuriyagawa Hakuson, and love was popularized more than ever before, at least in the media. Although schoolgirls interpreted romantic love as a relationship between women as well as between women and men, and new terms were invented to refer to such relationships between women, romantic love—Kuriyagawa asserted—was a relationship that should lead to procreation. Thus, in the 1920s, love became ubiquitous, but platonic love was degraded. Schoolgirls were also required to graduate from platonic love by graduating from S. In the 1930s, Wasurenagusa (わすれなぐさ, Forget-me-not) by Yoshiya Nobuko and Otome no Minato (乙女の港, Harbor of Virgins) by Kawabata Ya- sunari were serialized in a girls’ magazine Shojo no Tomo (少女の友, Friend of Girls). These are considered as being among the most popular S-romances. The views on homosexuality became prevalent that female homosexuality was after all a girls issue, and that girls’ parents, especially mothers, could divert their daughters’ love toward a girl or a woman onto a proper path and prevent it from becoming serious.49 Hence, homosexuality among women was positioned as a ‘normal’ stage that would lead to ‘normal’ heterosexuality. In other words, homosexuality was considered as love and affection women experienced in the transition from a stage of narcissism to a stage of loving others, and therefore it was not a disease. However, if one did not advance to heterosexual love and became fixated at the stage of homosexuality, such a person was condemned as being mentally abnormal.50 This type of homosexuality was viewed as a kind of pediatric disease hindering the development of girls’ body and soul.51 Whereas temporary homosexuality represented by S came to prevail and be considered as inseparable from schoolgirls, the use of ‘true homosexuality’ became more limited in meaning, suggesting more abnormal behavior. If a schoolgirl would not graduate from her intimate relationship with another

friendship which is particular to schoolgirls.” Elsewhere he said that S was “very platonic, and beautified and imaginative homosexuality which, although [a girl] has yet to know relations with the opposite sex, the S relations could possibly be shifted to heterosexual love.” Kimura heavily depended on Ellis’s appendix B, “The School-friendships of Girls,” in Sexual Inversion. For about forty years, this appendix had a great influence on the way intimate relationships between women in modern Japan were defined. 49 See Chiba et al., “Joshi no Douseiai wo Kataru Zadankai”; Yoshida, “Musume no Ren’ai/ Douseiai to Haha” for a discussion about what mothers should do as to their daughters’ same-sex love. 50 Sugita, “Dousei wo Aisuru Kokoro.” 51 Koura, “‘Josikyouiku to Douseiai’ no Mondai.”

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Relationships between Women as Romantic Love in Modern Japan 201 girl or woman, she was to be criticized harshly, as ‘temporary homosexuality’ was seen as a step towards heterosexual relationships. And after marriage, women were expected to turn their love away from their same-sex lover to their husband and children. One was only included in the category of true homosexuality when one remained unmarried, tried to maintain intimate relationships with women, and/or dressed and acted like a man. However, it must have been difficult for most women at that time to remain unmarried and yet achieve economic independence. Looking like men could also be temporary and changeable. Therefore, this ‘true homosexuality’ was a kind of empty category, but it was required for the construction of the opposite category, which was temporary homosexuality.

Conclusion

The concept of homosexuality was not necessarily introduced to criticize and eliminate same-sex intimacy; it rather served to interpret and classify intimate relationships between women. As a consequence, it supported the construction of a new set of gender norms. In modern Japan, women were expected to have intimate relationships. It was also a reflection of the wishes of women themselves, who were attracted by new modern ideals and aimed to become modern subjects. Intimate relationships between women in modern Japan were not necessarily consistently named or categorized. Whereas some media critics called it ‘temporary homosexuality,’ schoolgirls preferred the term ‘S’ derived from “sister,” inventing also numerous other terms. Both groups used terms familiar to them, introducing new concepts and terms from Western countries. Women considered such relationships as the practice of love. It would be better to call it romantic love, for they did not see such love as equal to maternal love or love for all humanity. The relationships they sought were pair relationships based on platonic ties between two people, in which they were relatively equal, and they hoped the relationships would last forever. These relationships did not correspond to the expectations of educators and parents, who considered such relationships as changeable not only to heterosexual love but also to relationships with their mother and future children. These intimate relationships were considered as being a continuation of friendship, but to be distinct from ‘mere’ friendship. Or rather, it could be said that as the concept of temporary homosexuality became prevalent, the concept of ‘mere’ friendship became clarified, as something different from temporary homosexuality. The reception and prevalence of the concept of ‘temporary

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202 Akaeda homosexuality’ was a product of the era when ‘love’ was an extremely attrac- tive notion but not ubiquitous, and therefore longed for; it left the notion of friendship between women indefinite and socially unspecified.

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