Japan's 'love hotels' acced of anti-gay discrimatn | Japan | The Guardian

Contents:

• JAPANE MALE GAY AND BISEXUAL INTY
• THE 10 BEST TOKYO GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS TOKYO
• JAPAN'S 'LOVE HOTELS' ACCED OF ANTI-GAY DISCRIMATN
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• THE BOYS OF SHJU: IS TOKYO'S GAY DISTRICT DOOMED?

JAPANE MALE GAY AND BISEXUAL INTY

Their relatnships most likely varied greatly by suatn and across time perds, but a typil nanshoku pairg rporated many dimensns: mentorship and stewardship, platonic iendship, as well as physil acts of homosexual sex.

While historil pictns of Nobunaga and Ranma sometim fully portray them as gay lovers, we mt be reful to separate historic nanshoku and the figur there om LGBTQ issu today, and to avoid mornizg norms of that era to f our ncept of sexualy and romance. We n fer queer people have always existed, and that some practners of nanshoku—perhaps cludg Nobunaga and Ranma—might have self-intified as queer or gay if displaced to our morn time wh our morn fns, although we nnot know for sure. 15 plac sorted by traveler favorDner Theaters • Gay BarsWhat travelers are saygMiguelLos Angel, CA26 ntributnsExplorg the area I ma up my list and we had the Mcle Bar Black Nu on our list, the staff is very iendly and we had a nice eveng wh them and the other ctomers even if we don’t speak Japane, we drk, we sg and left happy!

Rints range om outrageoly out-there, alien, and genr-bent to culturally tradnal and polilly nservative (though 's worth notg that the past few years have seen LGBTQ activists elected to ernment offic cludg Kanako Otsuji, the first openly gay member of the Hoe of Reprentativ, and 2019, Taiga Ishikawa to Japan's Hoe of Councillors).

THE 10 BEST TOKYO GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS TOKYO

To w, some of the most popular genr of manga and anime are gay-themed "yaoi" and "BL" (short for "boylove") romanc, which sell like gangbters among Japane femal and have spired dozens of live-actn movi the same ve. A 10 or 15-mute walk om btlg Shju Statn brgs you to a quieter, more rintial feelg sectn of the cy lled Shju Ni-chome, which is home to at least a hundred LGBTQ bars and clubs, a sna plex, and gay-centric shops brimmg wh clothg, accsori, paraphernalia, and adult goods. Queer men n also get the si sop on Tokyo gay life, and possibly make a iend (or more), via the app 9Monsters: s chat functn nveniently to translat English to Japane and vice versa, and there's a b of Pokemon cutens to the way assigns a kd of creature (or Monster) to the er and the type of guy they seem to like.

GaijPot Travel, a webse for English-speakg expats (and would-be expats, also featur a helpful page of Tokyo LGBTQ plac to check out, om f to nightlife, pl Japane gay bar etiquette and other helpful cultural hts. In May this year, at the height of the ronavis’s first wave, two gay men livg together Amagasaki, wtern Japan, thought they would ease the boredom of the untry’s soft lockdown wh a vis to a love hotel, where upl pay for short stays to have rather than the reee time they had anticipated, the uple, their mid-30s, did not even get as far as the door to their room. Dpe risg awarens of LGBT rights, Japan is the only G7 untry that do not regnise same-sex marriag, and much of the untry’s multibilln-dollar love hotel dtry accepts only heterosexual Ishikawa, Japan’s first openly gay MP, timated that of 143 love hotels Tokyo’s Toshima ward, where he began his reer as an assembly member, 30 refed entry to same-sex expectatn that they will be rejected means many gay men have e to regard love hotels as off-lims, acrdg to one member of Tokyo’s LGBT muny, who told the Guardian: “Nothg dampens the prospect of a romantic eveng out more than a homophobic hotel policy.

”Akira Nishiyama, assistant executive director of the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislatn, said hotel rejectns of same-sex upl were mon, even though is illegal unr a 2018 revisn to the hotel bs law, which stat that hotels “should not reject guts on the basis of their sexual orientatn or genr inty” the rare ocsns that ctomers report a hotel for homophobia, thori simply offer the proprietors “admistrative guidance” – a measure mpaigners say lacks legal love hotels, so named after the first of their kd – Hotel Love – opened Osaka the late 1960s, origally tered to upl sperate to pe their extend fai, who tradnally lived unr one roof, for a few hours of a cle the young populatn, the rise sgle hoeholds, and the pre-panmic boost ternatnal tourism have prompted many to unrgo image makeovers to appeal to travellers, cludg sgle guts lookg for paratively cheap and fortable a rult, the number of hotels wh an overtly sexual theme has dwdled to ls than 10, 000 recent years, pared wh around 30, 000 two s ago. ”Although some webs have started listg “gay-iendly” love hotels, Matsunaka said Japan’s refal to fully accept the LGBT muny, exemplified by the ban on same-sex marriag, ma homophobia socially acceptable.

JAPAN'S 'LOVE HOTELS' ACCED OF ANTI-GAY DISCRIMATN

There has recently been much discsn the field of lbian and gay studi about Dennis Altman's theory of 'global queerg'[1] which outl the fluence of the Civil Rights' Movement the US and Europe on the velopment of lbian and gay 'inti' which then, through the 'globalisg' fluence of post-dtrial wage-based enomi, nsumerism, the mass media and tourism, turn beg to affect digeno unrstandgs of homosexualy societi where tradnally there has been no notn of a personal inty found on the genr of sexual object choice.

In this theory, the US is often assumed to be somehow advance of the rt of the world and the mols pneered that untry for creasg the social space acrd to lbian and gay liv are generalised as suable mols for lbians and gay men other untri to adopt. Until recently, was impossible to answer this qutn for, even five years ago, there was practilly no rmatn available English about homosexualy morn Japan and there was only one book and a handful of amic papers ncerng Japan's well-attted historil tradn of male homosexualy.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

[2] Today, there are a number of books which al wh the historil background of male homosexualy Japan nsirable tail and others which look at homosexualy morn Japan om bgraphil, cultural, lerary or anthropologil perspectiv. Unfortunately, spe the new rmatn that has recently been ma available, some rearchers still sist on viewg 'homosexualy' Japane society through wtern ey and evaluatg the suatn facg lbians and gay men acrdance wh wtern mols of what means to be 'a lbian' or 'a gay. [5] Summerhawk plas of the 'difficulti' Japane gay men have 'the inty-velopment procs' (emphasis me) as if there ever uld be a sgular, universal 'gay inty' and suggts that Japane gay men who do not wish to exprs themselv terms of this imported termology are 'nial of their own opprsn.

What I wish to do the prent paper is strs how reprentatns of (primarily male) homosexual love and even sex permeate Japane popular culture to an extent that would be unimagable the US or Europe and that 'homosexualy' Japan is therefore very differently nceptualised. However, I mt pot out that the visibily of 'homosexualy' Japane media such as ic books, women's magaz, TV dramas and talk-shows, movi and popular fictn has not created the space for dividuals exprsg lbian or gay 'inti' to e out actual life. Yet, as recent rearch has shown, [8] the notn of 'g out' is seen as unsirable by many Japane gay men and lbians as necsarily volv adoptg a nontatnal stance agast mastream liftyl and valu, which many still wish to endorse.

THE BOYS OF SHJU: IS TOKYO'S GAY DISTRICT DOOMED?

Although Japan has had a wi range of vobulary for scribg the partners volved male homosexual teractns, some of which date back hundreds of years, there has been a marked change the nature of the terms the morn perd. Durg the Tokugawa perd (1600-1867), the nanshoku (sometim transcribed as danshoku and meang 'male eroticism') ntaed a wi variety of terms for scribg the partners volved homosexual acts pendg upon such factors as age (their junr or senr role), stat, genr inty, and the ntext which the acts took place.

However, durg Japan's rapid mornisatn the Meiji perd (1867-1912), this unrstandg of homosexualy as one 'Way' [doo] of enjoyg sex began to be displaced by wtern sexologil terms such as dooseiaisha (the Che-character translatn of 'homosexual, ' lerally 'same-sex-love person') which suggted that homosexual sire was characteristic of a certa type of person: the homosexual. However, the dissematn of this ia throughout society was extremely uneven and, as will be scribed later, the exprsn of same-sex sire today do not necsarily mean that a person will be nomalised as 'a homosexual' terms of that sire. The tradnal unrstandg of homosexualy as a particular style or 'Way' of enjoyg sex is still fatly discernible certa media texts which speak of homosexualy as a 'hobby' [shumi] or a kd of 'play' [asobi / purei].

This film, starrg the famo Japane transvte actor Peter, is shot documentary style and giv an tertg acunt of Tokyo's late-60s unrground gay scene where 'normal' adult men mataed relatnships wh younger transgenred men who worked Japan's mizu shoobai ['water tra' or entertament bs]. One further term nnected wh the 'pot' metaphor is the word okoge which is lerally the burnt rice which sticks to the bottom of the pot and is a term for 'fag hag' (straight women who like to hang around gay men) but this is not generally unrstood, spe the popular 1992 movie of that name (which I discs later the paper).

The ia that same-sex attractn necsarily volv some kd of transgenrism or sire to be like or even bee the oppose of one's blogil sex is nstantly rerced by Japane media which discs homosexualy and transgenrism the same ntext. ' Also fed are lezubian ['female homosexual'], nonke (a gay slang term for 'straight, ' meang lerally 'no feelg, ') is fed as 'heterosexual' [iseiaisha], toransekha ('transsexual, ' or persons who want to change their blogil sex through an operatn), toransujendaa ('transgenr, ' or persons who exprs themselv through the genr oppose to their blogil sex but do not want an operatn), toransubuutao ('transvte, ' or persons who want to drs as the oppose sex bee of a 'fetish'), and nyuuhaafu (male-to-female transsexuals or male-to-female transgenred dividuals who have 'e out' [kamu to] and work the sex dtry [fuuzoku]. The boys who cross-drs profsnally as part of their stage act [scribed as imeeji kei, or 'image group'] state that their cross-drsg has nothg to do wh same-sex sire and the uple scribed as an onabe and a nyuuhaafu are not 'homosexual' but transsexual.

Th, Japane gay men who want to e out about their sexual preference are faced wh a problem when to choosg a term to scribe themselv, as most of the terms currently available tend to nflate homosexual attractn wh cross-drsg and transgenrism. In the remar of the paper, I shall look at var reprentatns of 'homosexual' men a variety of Japane media and show how the pervasive media associatn of same-sex sire wh transgenrism works agast the velopment of a personal inty based upon sexual-object choice for those gay men who exprs 'normal' genr inti. From the very begng the manga picted 'bed scen' [beddo shiu] where homosexual sex was implied and the late 70s saw women wrers bee creasgly dac their reprentatn, not simply of homoerotic attractn, but of homosexual sex.

However, I would scribe the romantic and sexual relatnships the stori as 'homosexual' ployg the verted mas to show that what is beg scribed here is a very specific nstctn or, better, 'fantasy' of what male homosexual love means.