cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/737765

Pictured: Poster for the first Japanese–Philippine propaganda film Dawn of Freedom (Ano hata o ute korehidōru no saigo). Although presumably about a friendship, some analysts (e.g. Jennifer Robertson & Markus Nones) noted that certain scenes came across as suspiciously homoromantic.

There is so little talk about homosexuality in early Shōwa Japan that this may well be the first time that you have encountered any. I’ve had trouble finding books and articles on this subject (not even Wikipedia has much to say about it), and the few works that I did find discussed it within a more general context. I thought that the number of works on the LGBT+ community in Fascist Italy was awfully small until I looked into Imperial Japan!

Nevertheless, I likely have enough information to provide you with an overview. The good news is that was no conscious, direct effort to oppress gay folks within the Japanese Empire, partly due to the category of homosexuality being unknown at that time. Quoting from Mark McLelland’s Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age, page 47:

The […] Japanese attitude [was] that homoeroticism is a widespread response to be expected in homosocial environments and not a pathology particular to specific individuals. Indeed, Pflugfelder suggests that Japan’s “relatively benign” stance toward male–male sexuality during wartime was a result of “the greater compatibility of male–male erotic behavior with hegemonic masculinity within the prevailing gender system”.

Unlike policies enacted by Japan’s ally Nazi Germany, there was no organized campaign to eradicate homosexuality from society; unlike the situation in the United States, there were no campaigns directed at removing “sexual deviants” from the armed forces. In fact, male–male sexual interaction remained unregulated by law throughout Japan’s years of militarism; postwar accounts of homosexual relations during wartime suggest that certain modes of homosexual interaction were tolerated within the military, particularly between senior and junior men.

The bad news is that heteronormativity only intensified after the invasion of Manchuria, making long‐term same‐sex relationships difficult—if conceivable at all. Pages 37–8:

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, the government’s pronatalist policies and its support for registered prostitution resulted in sexuality becoming increasingly heteronormative for both men and women. Lower‐class women were recruited to staff Japan’s many brothels, while women from “good families” were allowed no sexual activity outside of marriage.

Men too were caught up in debates about the proper deployment of sexuality. Family planning and advertisements for contraceptive devices were banned, but the authorities tolerated advertisements for medicines purporting to increase male potency or cure such common ailments as nocturnal emissions and premature ejaculation.

These advertisements often featured female faces or other body parts, reinforcing the assumption that “men’s sexual desire was to be shared with women”, particularly wives, whom husbands were encouraged to dutifully impregnate. Condom advertisements were also permitted, although it was their “hygienic” potential that was stressed, not their contraceptive function, suggesting that they were intended for extramarital activities.

In the homosocial environment of the armed forces especially, Japanese men were encouraged to express themselves heterosexually through government‐sponsored military brothels, euphemistically known as “comfort stations” (ianjo), in which women from Japan’s colonies were forced to serve as prostitutes.

(Emphasis added in all cases. In addition to these examples, there was a crackdown on materials discussing or referencing homosexuality—among other sexual matters—further reinforcing heteronormativity.)

Page 31:

In response to the relatively open discussion of sexual matters and widespread, if covert, homosexual behavior, Japan’s descent into militarism in the early 1930s saw the government tighten its hold on sexual discourse and practice. Japan’s escalating conflict with China beginning in 1931 and its withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933 ushered in a period of government repression that sought to mobilize the nation as a whole for the war effort.

One result was an increasing didacticism on the part of the nation’s leaders and further attempts to bring the media under direct state control. As Dore points out, “Not even Victorian England produced such large numbers of moralizers, or gave them such complete control of the police forces, the means of education, and the organs of public opinion”.

Consequently, just as the press had been placed under state supervision, by the late 1930s film too was being purged of “frivolous activities” and deployed as a means for the promulgation of official ideology regarding sex and gender.

Aiko Takeuchi‐Demirci’s Sexuality and the Japanese Empire: A contested history sums it up:

Wartime censorship and suppression drove expressions of same‐sex love and the ero‐guro culture underground, although not entirely out of existence. Even though public references to male–male sexuality within the ranks of the military were taboo, for example, Pflugfelder notes that wartime authorities held a “relatively benign stance” toward the subject.

Thus, while it may be surprising that the Imperialists could fool around with other blokes, it was expected to be a short phase, a brief detour before returning to heterosexual life, and was not to be taken seriously. It was not to be discussed (in public) either.

It would be useful to have input from elderly Japanese discussing how heteronormativity impacted them, but unfortunately I have no examples.