Homosexuality in Japan - Ancient Japan

Ancient Japan

The Japanese term nanshoku (男色, which can also be read as danshoku) is the Japanese reading of the same characters in Chinese, which literally mean "male colors." The character 色 (color) still has the meaning of sexual pleasure in China and Japan. This term was widely used to refer to some kind of male–male sex in a pre-modern era of Japan. The term shudō (衆道) (abbreviated from wakashudō, the "way of adolescent boys") is also used, especially in older works.

According to Gary Leupp, a professor of history at Tufts University, the ancient Japanese associated nanshoku with China, a country from which borrowed ideas became the basis for much of Japanese high culture, including their writing system (kanji, Chinese characters). The Japanese nanshoku tradition drew heavily on that of China (see Homosexuality in China).

A variety of obscure literary references to same-sex love exist in ancient sources, but many of these are so subtle as to be unreliable; another consideration is that declarations of affection for friends of the same sex were also common. Nevertheless, references do exist, and they become more numerous in the Heian Period, roughly the 11th century. In Genji Monogatari (源氏物語, The Tale of Genji), written in the early 11th century, men are frequently moved by the beauty of youths. In one scene the hero is rejected by a certain lady, and instead sleeps with her young brother:

Genji pulled the boy down beside him . . . Genji, for his part, or so one is informed, found the boy more attractive than his chilly sister.

The Tale of Genji is a novel, but there exist several Heian-era diaries which contain references to homosexual acts as well. Some of these also contain references to Emperors involved in homosexual relationships and to "handsome boys retained for sexual purposes" by Emperors.

There can be found references to what Leupp has called "problems of gender identity" in other literary works, such as the story of a youth falling in love with a girl who is actually a cross-dressing male.