The Clash Between Traditional and Contemporary Ideas
The all encompassing term which refers to the non-heterosexual and gender-variant practices and identities that include gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals is kono sekai. The term literally translated in English means “this world,” and is used to refer to the wide variety of gender and sexual subcultures.
Homosexual practice is also found among the Samurai aristocracy in part because of the heavy influence that Buddhism had on their culture specifically during the early stages of the Edo period (1600-1868). Also during this period, “there was no necessary connection made between gender and sexual preference, because men, samurai in particular, were able to engage in both same and opposite sex affairs without being stigmatized.” Because same-sex relationships were governed by a code of ethics, “elite men were able to pursue boys and young men who had not yet undergone their coming-of-age ceremonies, as well as transgender females of all ages from the lower classes who worked as actors and prostitutes.” Although bisexuality in women was practiced, the notion of lesbianism was not documented and there is “no way of cognitively linking both male and female homosexuality.
It was not until the Meiji period (1868-1912) that “Japanese sexuality” was transformed through influence from “the West.” From a male to male perspective, before the Meiji period, the “behaviors between a man and a man dealt with the commitment to spend their lives together, not on their sexual desire.” Current queer expressions were established through postwar sex magazines, coffee shops (danshoku kisssaten), gay bars (gei ba), and various queer organizations.
Read more about this topic: Sexual Minorities In Japan
Famous quotes containing the words clash, traditional, contemporary and/or ideas:
“God of justice, save the people
From the clash of race and creed,
From the strife of class and faction,
Make our nation free indeed;”
—William Pierson Merrill (1867–1954)
“Americans want action for their money. They are fascinated by its self-reproducing qualities if it’s put to work.... Gold-hoarding goes against the American grain; it fits in better with European pessimism than with America’s traditional optimism.”
—Paula Nelson (b. 1945)
“The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn’t make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth.... Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)