The Dictionary of Homophobia (85 page)

That being said, indigenous homophobia began to develop at the end of the Tokugawa period (eighteenth to nineteenth century), when Japan adopted a policy of national isolation. Certain
shoguns
tried to forbid male prostitution, which they saw as a cause of social disorder associated with sympathetic suicide (too often, a lover would commit
seppuku
upon his beloved’s death) or crimes of passion (jealously often ended in a blood bath, as depicted in Nagisa Oshima’s 1999 film
Taboo
). Furthermore,Take, a woman who not only passed herself off as a man but also as a judge, was found guilty of the “corruption of public morals” in the 1830s and forced into exile. There is thus the impression that Japanese homosexual culture was already beginning to crumble by the time Western powers were forcing Japan to open up (1853).

Whether or not that is true, homophobia in Japan intensified with the arrival of Westerners and the imperial restoration of Meiji in 1868. Just like their sixteenth-century predecessors, nineteenth-century missionaries were scandalized by the spectacle of sexual behavior they discovered, and the casual attitude many Japanese displayed toward sodomy. As a result the imperial Japanese government, rather self-conscious with regard to the West, endeavored to adopt the morals of the large Western powers in order to make Japan respectable in the eyes of the world. Thus, homosexuality in Japan was then considered an archaic and unhealthy tradition that was best abandoned, as were mixed baths, which had so scandalized the British. The Meiji period (1868–1911) was marked by the adoption of strict sexual standards, and the promotion of absolute sexual identities (e.g., men must not have any feminine traits, and women must submit to the “good wife and wise mother” maxim). An 1873 law, reestablishing an 1841 prohibition, called for ninety days of
imprisonment
for anyone who committed the crime of “sodomy”; the law was relaxed in 1883 and the incrimination of sodomy was replaced, under the influence of the French, by the more vague category of “indecent assault”: for example, the seduction of a sixteen-year-old minor, regardless of gender, became punishable by two months of hard labor. Above all, social intolerance of homosexuality increased dramatically, as proven by a media campaign in 1899 against the “bad morals” of certain students at the University of Tokyo (with one newspaper reminding readers that “homosexual acts are punished as crimes in every civilized country” and demanded that it be the same in Japan). It was no surprise that the Meiji period saw the disappearance of the
samurais
, who transformed themselves into businessmen and administrators, and the decline of the
kabuki
tradition, limited to solely presenting an ancient repertoire. However, the westernized
armies
of Meiji, Taisho, and Showa (Hiro Hito) preserved a part of the
samurai’s
homosexual heritage. The best in Meiji’s army came from the province of Satsuma, whose warriors were particularly famous for their “Spartan” homosexual traditions, and the idea of the sympathetic suicide, often adopted by
kamikazes
attested to the survival or resurgence of a certain military love of men. To this day, a part of the nationalist intelligentsia in Japan has maintained nostalgia toward the
bushido
(“the way of the warrior”) and, in certain cases, its erotic content. Such was the case of author Yukio Mishima (1925–1970), who was much attached to a part of his paternal lineage, populated with
samurais
, and through it, to an ascetic and masculine ideal. His novel,
Confessions of a Mask
, loosely based on his own life, is representative of the taboo that became homosexuality in World War II-era Japan. In the book, the young hero’s trials are no less difficult than those of an adolescent “queer” in Great Britain during the same period. The American occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952 replayed similar mechanisms from the Meiji period: homosexuality was banned in the American army beginning in 1943, and once again the winner’s homophobia was imprinted upon the loser’s subconscious.

The redefinition of sexual identities in Japan, established during the Meiji-era 1870s remains largely intact to this day; it can be at least partially attributed to the conservative traditions of Japan’s imperial governments. Thus, although the notion of sin has never taken root in Japan, social constraints against homosexuality have become even more prevalent than in the West. Family pressure in favor of
marriage
, regardless of the participants’ sexual orientation, is considerable: in general, Japanese gays and lesbians bow to this un-written rule, placing themselves under the socially protective umbrella of heterosexual marriage. Since the Meiji Restoration, and notably since the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890,
school, family
, and society in general teach that “all Japanese are similar” and therefore must all be alike. Accordingly, homosexuality is not bad for moral or religious reasons, but because it is different from the norm (for example, according to Japanese law, it is not a sexuality, but rather a “simulacrum of sexuality”). It is understandable that under these conditions, coming out is quite difficult. For one, anyone “accused” of being a homosexual is often ridiculed, although the physical manifestation of gay bashing remains rare; additionally, openly declaring oneself as different, is to break with the fabric of daily “normalcy” and aspire to an individualism that is totally foreign to traditional Japanese culture. Homosexuality is also often something which no one speaks about openly in Japan. To shed light on the pervasiveness of this taboo, it should be noted that even if Japanese law does not forbid gays and lesbians from serving in the armed forces (the Self Defense Force, established in 1954), no Japanese military personnel ever dared reveal his or her homosexuality before 1998.

In the 1990s under the influence of the West, the plight of homosexuals in Japan began to change. Some courageous gay and lesbian groups, the most important being OCCUR, have been leading a fight for legislative change in Japan. In 1997, after seven years, OCCUR won a court case against the Metropolitan Government of Tokyo, which had excluded gays and lesbians from getting rooms at the Tokyo Youth Hostel. Today, the fight against homophobia in Japan centers on a critical revision of the moral code set up at the end of the nineteenth century, which will improve the lives of women as well as gays and lesbians.

—Pierre Albertini
Leupp, Gary P.
Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan
. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1995.

McLelland, Mark.
Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities
. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 2000.

Pflugfelder, Gregory. “Strange Fates: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Tonkaebaya Monogatari.”
Monumenta Japonica
, no. 47 (1992).

Saikaku, Ihara.
The Great Mirror of Male Love
. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990.

Suvilay, Bounthavy. “Le Héros était une femme: le travestissement dans le manga.”
ProChoix
, no. 23 (2002).

Watanabe, Tsuneo. “Une hypothèse sur l’attitude anti-homosexuelle spécifique aux sociétés modernes.”
Research Report of Kochi University
30 & 31 (1981–82).

———, and Junichi Iwata.
La Voie des éphèbes, histoire et histoires des homosexualités au Japon
. Paris: Trismégiste, 1987. [Published in the UK as
The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality
. London: GMP, 1989.]

—Buddhism; China; Comic Books; Korea; Southeast Asia.

JUDAISM

Jewish reprobation of homosexuality is based on three passages from the Torah: Leviticus 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination”), Leviticus 20:13 (“If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death”), and Deuteronomy 23:18 (“There shall be no temple harlot among the Israelite women, nor a temple prostitute among the Israelite men”). The first Jewish interpretation of biblical laws stems from the Targum, an ancient Aramaic paraphrase or interpretation of the Hebrew Bible read in Palestinian synagogues at the beginning of the Common Era. Leviticus 18:22 is interpreted literally, while Leviticus 20:13 specifies only that stoning is a suitable punishment. However, the Targum of Deuteronomy 23:18 does away with the obsolete terminology of sacred prostitution; one of its critical revisions (
onkelos
) reformulates the interdict this way: “None of the sons of Israel shall take a serf for a wife.” In short, these sources speak briefly to what they consider to be a Canaanite or Egyptian
vice
that has nothing to do with Israel. Moreover, according to Jewish legend, when the Bible refers to the Egyptian named Putiphar as a “eunuch,” it is because he acquired Joseph for sexual purposes, and was emasculated by a divine miracle (Targum PsJ Gn 39:1 and LvR § 86).

During these ancient times, the episode involving the city of
Sodom
(Gn 19) was originally not connected to Palestinian ideas of “sodomy.” The city’s vice was mainly the result of brazen greed due to its riches, which led to the poor treatment of travelers there, as indicated in Ezekiel 16:49 and Flavius Josèphe.

Ancient Judaism
The ancient texts preceding the time of the Mishnah and the Talmud offer some interpretations of homosexuality. Ancient texts produced in Eretz-Israel (land of Israel from biblical times) purport that homosexuality was a non-Jewish tradition, and instead originated among those who also resorted to prostitution and composed hymns to the glory of sodomy (LvR
ad
Gn 18:3–4). The texts also state that certain pagan kings took themselves for gods and, as punishment, God cursed them to sexual submission
modo foeminarum
(like that of a woman). However, some believe, on the basis of the word “abomination” in Deuteronomy 32:16, that the Israelites of the desert also succumbed to this “vice,” as they too yielded to idolatry. In the same vein, some sages judge that God had condemned their ancestors to exile from Babylon for four inseparable crimes: idolatry, social injustice and violence, sodomy, and adultery. There are three interpretations to be taken from this: for one, homosexuals existed elsewhere other than among the nation of Israelites; for another, if homosexuals did exist among them, they are subject to punishment for a range of sins against the social and sacred “order” established by the Creator; and finally, the unity of ancient Judaism held more to “orthopraxis” than to orthodoxy, and more to a concern for correct action than to fair and just thought. Based on these facts, the texts condemn the act of homosexuality, but ignore the rights of the individual.

Further, ancient Jewish writings in Greek, stemming from the Diaspora, reveal a dread of the Hellenic
tolerance
of homosexuality.
Letter of Aristae,
Section 152 (second century BCE), likens relations between men to incest, and concludes, “But we have remained apart from such things.” This literature reflects a Judaism that, by mixing in many Greek moralists and claiming ethical superiority, intended to reform morality. This is present in the
Sibylline Oracles
(Sib Or 3:185), which pronounce Jews to be unscathed by this deviation (Sib Or 3:596; 5:430). It is suggested by Pseudo-Phocylides
,
a contemporary Jewish moralist of St
Paul
: “A boy should not grow curls on his head, should not braid his hair, and should not tie his locks into a bun; do not grow long hair on a man, it is only fit for pretty women. Of a young boy, keep watch on his adolescence, for many passionately search for male love” (v. 210–14; v. 3. 190–94). This text, like Apuleius’s
Metamorphoses,
confirms the importance of hair in the sexual excitement of Antiquity (1 Co 11:1–16). And Joseph confirms the Jewish condemnation of homosexuality, in the name of the
Bible
(AJ 3:275; 4:301; CA 2:199, 215, 273); he likens the homosexual to those who choose castration: both, refusing to procreate, are “murderers of children” (AJ 4:291).

Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE–50 CE), in his monumental commentary on the Hebrew Bible, does not deal much with the problem of homosexuality. But for him as well, the homosexual act, because it is
sterile
, infringes on the commandment of procreation, “Go forth and multiply” (Gn 1:28). His other arguments relate to stoicism, and to the principle of “nature,” whereby pederasty forces the male into feminine conformity. Evoking Greco-Roman banquets, he mocks the clothing, hairstyles, makeup, and perfumes that identify the “
favorites
” (Szesnat). Further, he states that the (active) pederast corrupts youths, and that his immoral passions drive him to ruin, both financial and in the loss of interest in civic life.

The Talmud & Its Ancient Interpreters
Often neglected, the preceding testimonies are the matrix of the Talmudic age. The Mishnah (Sanh 7:4), the first written recording of the Oral Torah of the Jewish people, places homosexual acts among the crimes punishable by stoning, and among the thirty-six transgressions punished by “spiritual excision” (Ker 1:1), a phrase that resulted in divergent judicial interpretations. The Talmud renews the link between homosexuality (incest!) and two other capital crimes: idolatry and homicide (Sanh 74a). If sodomy is “
against nature
,” then the interdict applies to everyone, not only Jews (Sanh 58a); but with this issue, minors escape all penalties (Sanh 54a) and, as the Bible makes no mention of lesbian relations, lesbians are subject only to flagellation. Thus, the motive behind the reprobation of homosexuality is the concept of “nature” and the defense of the family order and other social structures with afflicted subjects at risk of resorting to idolatry, that is, in danger of subverting the order of creation imposed by the one God. For his part, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135–1204) makes the distinction between active and passive homosexuality (
Sefer Hamitzvot
[The Book of Commandments]
,
in the 350th Negative Commandment). In the centuries since, the
responsa,
the collection of opinions establishing jurisprudence with regard to all aspects of Jewish life, has also endeavored to determine responsibilities in this matter.