of Representations Sexuality in Modern Japan
Sabine Frhstck
Homosexuality, Gay Activism &
Queer Identities
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
What kind of activism
in the absence of criminalization and church?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
prior to the 1980s:
effeminate male homosexuality associated with the
entertainment world
ordinary gay and lesbian lives were private lives
and only one kind of a number of sexual nonconformists
examples: corporate world, military
the organization of intimacy (public/private sphere)
their non-conformism was viewed in similar ways as
unmarried, cohabiting heterosexual couples and
women who gave birth out of wedlock
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
early (gay) activism of the 1960s:
Togo Ken
one of the rst gay men to politicize his sexual identity
cross-dressed and wore make-up
opposed sex-change operations because he considered
the tension created between the male anatomy and
the female appearance a particularly productive site
for personal transformation and social confrontation
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
the political challenge for gay men then:
distinguish themselves from the (effeminate) gay
men of the entertainment world and thus from
the association of homosexuality with the
entertainment industry
distinguish themselves from the transgender
paradigm with which homosexuality was
commonly conated
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
the emergence of a lesbian culture
in contrast to media coverage of male homosexuality,
lesbians typically only featured in media focusing on
eroticism and pornography (as a male pornographic
fantasy)
hence, lesbian was strongly associated with pornography
feminism mostly indifferent to lesbians
feminist critique of Japanese society focused on
patriarchy, less on heterosexist normativity
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
lesbians themselves became feminist critics of the
limitations of the female role in late twentieth-century
Japan
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
What changed in the 1980s?
HIV/AIDS
internationalization of social movements, including the
International Gay and Lesbian Association
1986 OCCUR (Japan Association for the Lesbian and Gay
Movement)
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Gay and lesbian activism in Japan is borrowing
strategies and techniques from sexual
traditions ...
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... such as, for instance, the Penis Festival and the
Naked Festival
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
1994 rst Tokyo Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade;
2006
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Tuesday, May 3, 2011
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the 1980 gay media boom: did it mainstream queer identities?
Television show, Waratte ii tomo, episode on Wearing female clothing/
Crossdressing paradise
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the current situation
there is no law that prohibits homosexuality among
consenting adults
there are no religious prohibitions against homosexuality in
the traditional religions of Japan, be it Shintoism, Buddhism
or Confucianism
since 2008 transgender people who have gone through sex
reassignment surgery can change their legal gender
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rich popular culture of queer sexualities
yaoi = male H typically featured in manga
yuri = female H typically featured in
animation
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
A Quick Review of the Requirements
First Test (May 4): 30% = 15 questions
800-word critical Film Analysis (by May 23): 20%
Second Test (June 1): 50% = 20 questions
You need to make points on both exams and the Film Analysis in
order to successfully complete this course.You will automatically
fail the course if you cheat or plagiarize on your exams. I will make
study guides with example questions available a week or so before
each exam.
Please note that I will use the following grading scale: 10088% A,
8775% B, 7465% C, 6455% D, 5445% E, 440% F.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
First Test Review Questions
There will be 15 questions on the exam. The questions will be graded according to percentage
points (course maximum: 100), 2 for a complete, concise and correct answer, 1 for half a correct
answer, and 0 for an incomplete and/or incorrect answer (rst test maximum: 30).
1. Identify and describe the work of one institution in late nineteenth-century Japan that
channeled the states intervention in the sex lives the of population.
2. Describe 2 characteristics of the discursive shift from the way of loving youth to
homosexuality.
3. Briey describe 3 features of the gay boom of the 1990s.
4. How did Yoshiya Nobuko express her same-sex desires?
5. Some scholars argue that the modern era has been marked by sexual liberation. What is
Michel Foucaults view on the matter?
6. Pick one of the three people portrayed in Shinjuku Boys and describe how s/he denes a
real man.
7. How is sex and gender delineated from one another in Miyatake Gaikotsus collection of
writings about hermaphroditism? (The collection is discussed in Teresa Algosos article).
8. What do the military, schools, and brothels have in common with respect to the modern
history of sex and sexuality in Japan?
9. List four reasons that scholars typically provide to explain the decreasing birth rate.
10. Why were children targeted by Japanese scholars as objects for sexual scrutiny in early
modern Japan?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
11. Describe one example of the medicalization of sexuality in modern and contemporary
Japan.
12. Abe Sada provided one of the rst case studies of a number of scholarly disciplines,
including psychiatry, criminology, and medicine more generally. Describe what kind of analysis
experts in at least one of these elds generated based on her fatal love affair.
13. What signicance did the introduction of physical exams for soldiers (1872) [and/ or] for
elementary school pupils (1903) have for the formation of the discourse on sexuality in
modern Japan?
14. Dene the term geisha and describe her profession.
15. Mark Mclelland asks (in one of his articles in the reader) whether there is a Japanese gay
identity. Summarize his answer to the question.
16. What does it mean to say that sexual identity is a modern concept?
17. While most western modernizing nation states have at some point criminalized same-sex
sexuality, modern/contemporary Japan has not except for a very brief period in the 1880s.
How do you think has the absence of such institutionalized criminalization impacted
individuals lives?
18. Who were the modern girls of the 1920s?
19. What did the new women of the 1920s stand for?
20. Explain what it means to say that sex and sexuality have a history.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
21. Why was male sexuality at the center of the Japanese states attention around 1900?
22. Speculate why most current-day debates on sex and sexuality in Japans public sphere
center on girls and women?
23. Describe the problems of conducting internationally comparative data on sexual
behavior.
24. How does the question of marriage gure in the lives of the onnabe portrayed in
Shinjuku Boys?
25. What kind of images of femininity emerge from the utterances of Shinjuku Boys?
26. (Review the results of the sex research presented in graph format in lecture) Make
three meaningful statements about this graph.
27. (Review all visuals uploaded on the course website) Describe this image and related
your description to the history of sexuality in modern Japan.
28. Why do you think is there so much more scholarship on male-male sexuality in Japan
available in English than on female-female sexuality? Provide two reasons.
29. Identify two current-day uses of quantitative research on sexual behavior in Japan.
30. Pick one type of femininity that was covered in the course, date it, and describe it in
social and political terms.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Guidelines for a critical film review
Core question: How does lm X represent aspect Y of sex
and sexuality in Japan?
Length: 800 words
Name the lm and identify the sequence, characters,
narrative aspects that you are analyzing.
Focus on the representation of some aspect of sex and
sexuality.
Tie your analysis to at least one article that is provided on
the Gauchospace course website.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
What the film review should NOT be:
A mere summary of the plot
A description of your personal feelings regarding the lm
A comparison to Northern America as you know it
A gross generalization of what a lm portrays and sex and
sexuality as it is lived and experienced in Japan at large
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011