Joe Zu

My Very First Boyfriend (lol)

2021-03-03T16:24:42Z

When I was about four and living in Japan, my father took me to see a spaghetti western at the theater on the American air force base. And for years and years, I’ve wondered what that movie was because it gave me my first look at a male nude body. Here’s the way I remember the scene:

A gringo is walking across the desert when he is ambushed my bandits. They knock him to the ground and start tearing off his clothes—everything except his white dress shirt. When he stands up, there is a glimpse of his dick. The leader tells the gringo he can keep his shirt, but the gringo takes it off and throws it to the ground. He then turns and walks into the desert, exposing his butt to the camera, while the bandits laugh at him.

I did not have a sexual reaction, but I was definitely intrigued by the nudity, and kept hoping the naked man would come back for another scene. I never remembered anything else about that film except that scene, but I think this was definitely an early indication of my orientation. A few years later while sneaking looks at both Playboys and Playgirls, the pictures of nude women made little, if any, impression on me, but I was fascinated by the nude men, though again, I was too young to have a sexual reaction.

Over the years, when I would think about that spaghetti western, I did internet searches for male nude scenes in spaghetti westerns to try to find it. The only film I could find was Duck, You Sucker! (aka A Fistful of Dynamite), which had a scene like this:

A group of bandits holds up a stagecoach full of people. They strip the men (which includes a close-up of a butt) and force them (and a dressed woman) onto an empty wagon. The bandits let the wagon roll down a hill. When it crashes, the occupants go flying into a mud puddle where some pigs are wallowing. There is a fleeting glimpse of dicks as the men go flying.

This was nothing like how I remembered the white shirt scene, but it wouldn’t be the first time I saw a movie after many years which was different than my memory. Alas, Duck came out in 1971, which was after my return to the states, so it seems unlikely that Duck was the film I had seen.

But a few days ago, I happened to be thinking about Fawlty Towers, and that serendipitously* led me to a 1968 spaghetti western called The Mercenary. And lo and behold, this was the film! And the object of my desire? None other than Jack Palance!

I watched the film. While Jack did come back for other scenes, there was no more nudity. There was a scene where a man played by Franco Nero takes a shower outdoors, and while the camera stayed above his waist, it did dip momentarily to show him wearing pants. I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be naked and the cameraman screwed up, or if the character was intentionally showering with his pants on.

But there was no flash of Jack’s dick. Where was it? It’s entirely possible there were other cuts of The Mercenary that showed more. I looked at a few websites dedicated to male nude movie scenes, and none gave any indication that Jack showed anything more than his butt. Had I merely imagined it, then? Had I seen another film at that time with male frontal nudity and confused the two? The latter seems unlikely, but it seems almost as unlikely I would remember the scene in such detail and merely imagine a dick shot, considering I hadn’t seen a dick before, other than my own.

In researching this, I found out about two other spaghetti westerns—Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! from 1967 and The Ruthless Four from 1968—that supposedly featured gay characters. If I watch them, I’ll let you know what happens.

As of this writing, The Mercenary is available for free viewing here; Jack’s nude scene is 32:25 to 36:25.

An article about homosexuality in spaghetti westerns.

*I happened to be thinking about Fawlty Towers—in particular, the scenes where Fawlty would make cracks about Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. I never had any idea what Franco looked like, and always imagined he might look like actor Franco Nero, for no reason beyond the shared name. I searched the internet: Franco the dictator looked nothing like Franco the actor; he wasn’t even particularly attractive. I then searched for images of Franco Nero, and found an image of his shower scene from The Mercenary. Thinking this might have been part of the nude scene I remembered, I watched the film, and voila, Mr. Palance!

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Eating Ass and Tiny Shorts

2021-01-22T17:43:57Z

Back in the mid- to late-80s or so, there were two magazine articles that I-wish-I-wish-I-wish I’d saved. One was probably in Blueboy and the other in a different gay magazine. Looking for them on the internet has yielded nothing, and I don’t recall the names of the authors. So I’m going to recreate them here as best I can.

The first article was about rimming. It’s possible the article was tongue-in-cheek (excuse the expression) and not meant to be taken seriously, despite the author referring to a scientific study that sounded quite plausible. The author postulated that rimming was more than a sexual act; that many animals rim themselves, each other, and their newborns. The author quoted a study where scientists prevented animal parents from rimming their offspring. The study demonstrated that offspring that were not rimmed didn’t develop as fully as those that were, and possibly suffered from decreased development and social skills. The author may have also theorized that since gays are much more likely to rim and get rimmed than their heterosexual counterparts, it might explain why gays, on average, might be more intelligent, creative, etc.

The second article was about shorts. The opening page depicted a young male skateboarder (possibly a teen) in a t-shirt and cut-off shorts (aka Daisy Dukes). The author stated that this look was quite fashionable in the late 70s, regardless of one’s gender or sexual orientation. Similarly, in sports like basketball, athletes wore very short shorts. But over the course of a few years, not only did the length of these pants legs increase, so did the volume of the pants themselves—they became baggier, and were no longer form-fitting or skin tight.

Photographer: unknown
The author theorized this was perhaps an unconscious reaction to the AIDS crisis. Until the early 80s, the LGBT community was mostly invisible to the average person. Sure, everyone knew about the Village People, but like with Liberace, most heterosexuals conveniently ignored their (perceived) sexual orientation. Female fans of Liberace were upset when he announced his pending marriage (to a woman). The Village People was “merely” a fun disco group.

Photographer: unknown
But then the AIDS crisis began, and AIDS was in the news, and the news pointed out that gay men were among the high risk groups. The symptoms of AIDS were not something one could hide or disguise for too long. People began to be aware that a neighbor or a coworker might actually be homosexual, or aware that there might be homosexuals in the world, period. Suddenly a homosexual panic ensued: if a heterosexual realized there were homosexuals everywhere, might they be looking at him in the showers at the gym? Ogling him at the beach or pool? Or checking out his butt as he walked by on the street, minding his own heterosexual business?

Photographer: Waring Abbott
What to do? Well, cut-off shorts showed a lot of leg, and sometimes some butt. Best to cover that up and give those homosexuals nothing to look at. So the length of the legs began to increase. The volume of the legs and the crotch also increased, until athletes were now wearing large, baggy, shapeless pants that revealed nothing of what was underneath.

This article mentions how hip-hop influenced basketball culture, including the move towards baggy shorts. I can’t recall if the author mentioned that. It is also entirely possible that AIDS-era homosexual panic influenced hip-hop—in the liner notes of a disco compilation CD, the writer suggested that disco’s demise was due, in part, to how disco began and was popular in the black, Latino, and gay communities, and that anti-disco people were not merely wishing for a return to rock, but also to stomp out the acceptance and visibility of those cultures.

If anyone knows the sources of either of these articles, please let me know or comment below. Thanks!

More pictures of 1970s men in tiny shorts (all links open in new windows):
At demilked.com
At groovyhistory.com
At boredpanda.com

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A Rainy Day in The Big City

2021-01-19T03:46:53Z

I’ve been wanting to have a “cyberpunk experience”: sitting in a small space in the rain, protected from the elements by a tarp, eating cheap instant food, and illuminated by LED lighting. I initially had this idea while in Palm Springs, possibly an offshoot of my cyborg experience, where I mentioned the idea of being a cyborg or robot, discarded and left to rust in the rain. The idea was further inspired by my blog about the Life Safety Learning Center in Japan, where one can experience what it might be like to be in various emergency situations, such as earthquake or typhoon. Portland OR is a much more rainy place than Palm Springs CA, so what better place to try this, right? However, I was a bit disappointed to learn Portland tends to have gentler rains while Palm Springs sometimes gets monsoonal weather of pouring rains and driving winds (which would have been more dramatic—I grew up in tornado country so love big powerful storms).

How to go about creating this experience? I figured the easiest thing to do would be to cover my deck chair with a transparent tarp. I cut the tarp to size, then decorated the inside with strips of dayglo duct tape crudely spelling out “Off World” (mentioned in Blade Runner) and, in Japanese lettering, 千葉市 (“Chiba City”, where the novel Neuromancer begins). My deck chair has an adjustable shade, which has a velcro pocket underneath, where I put two mini LED lights. I had my menu: Cup Noodles and Pocky sticks, plus some coffee. I also downloaded a video of Japanese news read by Shouhei Nishizawa (circa 1980s) to my phone. I had to go back that far because I just wanted a voice speaking Japanese. Modern news and interview shows add too much music, sound effects, inane chatter, etc.

The deck chair (Deck-ard?), before and after.

On the next rainy day, I set up the chair outside, covered it with the tarp, and boiled the water for my noodles. It was just after 9am. I got under the tarp, arranged all my goods, turned on the lights and the news, and voila! After eating, I read a chapter in Neuromancer, then sat back. I love to nap outside on my deck chair, but didn’t think I’d be able to relax enough with the sound of the rain hitting the tarp to do so, but eventually I did.

The breakfast of (cyberpunk) champions.

Despite the 100% cloud cover, it was still too bright outside for the LEDs to have much effect. I’ll have to try this again after sunset. I also didn’t take the wind into account. Fortunately, it wasn’t too windy and the tarp mostly behaved itself, but next time I’ll secure it better.

The experience was not an inherently sexual one, but it was definitely fun to have a little “escape” into a fantasy cyberpunk world (especially in these COVID-days, when it’s easier to go stir crazy and any escape will do). Ultimately, it would be great to have room enough for two under the tarp ...

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かちかち山（エロ漫画）

2020-10-20T17:29:03Z

English version/英語で

画像をクリックすると、画像が原寸で見える。

警告!

これはエロ漫画です。内容はゲイなエロティシズムと残虐なサディズムとマゾヒズムを含んでいます。２１歳未満の方は、この漫画の閲覧を固くお断りいたします。

本当に悪い翻訳があれば、私に知らせてください、そして私はそれらを修正します。ありがとうございました。

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Kachi-Kachi Yama (an erotic manga)

2020-10-20T17:23:57Z

日本語で/Japanese version

Here is my erotic manga adaptation of a Japanese fairy tale, “Kachi-Kachi Yama”. The comic is in “manga format”, meaning the text is to be read from the right side of the panel to the left (the mirror of how English-language comics are read). Clicking the images will enlarge them to full-size. There are notes about the making of this manga afterwards. Enjoy!

Warning: this comic includes depiction of gay eroticism and extreme sadism and masochism. Those under the age of 21 are prohibited from viewing this comic.

(spoilers here, in case you skipped the comic to read the notes) I’d been looking for another Japanese folk tale suitable for an erotic manga, and “Kachi-Kachi Yama” seemed ideal. In the original, the rabbit pretends to befriend the tanuki only to torture him mercilessly and eventually (in some versions) kill him. Ah, but what if there were a twist: what if the tanuki were a masochist and secretly enjoyed being tortured? I was also inspired by some of the outrageous Japanese TV game shows where contestants perform humiliating and physically demanding—if not downright sadistic—challenges.

When I’ve done bilingual manga before, I always began with the English version then translated them into Japanese text, which typically runs vertically. This time, as a challenge, I began with the Japanese first, then figured out how to make the English horizontal text fit in the same spaces.

Both English and Japanese comics use written sound effects like BLAM! ZOOM! CRASH! Japanese also has sound effects for emotional states (happiness, sadness, etc.) and non-audible physical motions (shoulders shrugging, winking, etc.). In the English-language version of this comic, rather than replacing the Japanese sound effects with English, I just added “translations” so the original Japanese art remained intact.

While real life tanuki (sometimes referred to as “raccoon dogs”) have ordinary-sized testicles—well, whatever is ordinary for a tanuki—in Japanese folklore, they have gigantic ones, hence the huge testicles of the tanuki in this story. There’s even a children’s schoolyard chant that goes, “The tanuki’s testicles, even without wind, swing and swing.”

I wanted to ink this story with a dip pen and India ink rather than an archival pigment pen for a couple of reasons. One, India ink resists being erased better than pigment pen ink. Two, though I ink better with a pigment pen, I enjoy using a dip pen and the somewhat “rougher” look it creates. It had been a while since I used one, so even after doing some practice, I deliberately inked the pages out of order, beginning with the less important pages and finishing with the most important ones. That way it wouldn’t look like the inking improved as the story went. Alas, about two-thirds of the way through the inking, something went wrong. The dip pen just stopped working. I thought my nib had gone bad so I switched it for a new one. No go, even after trying several nibs. Then I thought maybe the ink had gotten old so I opened a new bottle of ink. Still no go. No matter what I did, the nibs just refused to work. Even the clerk at the local art store was mystified. It defied all logic. So unfortunately, I had to ink the last pages with a pigment pen.

With a lengthy comic like this, I was more concerned with the narrative and the characters than with trying to create artistic masterpieces. Even so, the process really illuminated the skills that need improving. I also wondered if I’d do better if I invested in a drawing tablet. It would save time in the scanning and cleanup process and there’s nothing to erase.

Hope you enjoyed it!

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Ikenai! Luna Sensei

2020-09-28T17:44:42Z

In the late 1990s I collected a monthly manga anthology called Gekkan Shounen Magajin, or roughly, “Monthly Boys’ Magazine”. The typical issue had about 700 pages, with about a dozen or so continuing serials. These included “King of the Hustlers”, about a young billiards champion; “Futari ni Omakase” (Leave it to Those Two), about two policewomen who unwittingly got into erotic hijinks; “Yankee Reppuutai” (Yankee Wind Gang), about a motorcycle gang; and (arguably) most famously, GeGeGe no Kitarou* (Chattering Teeth Kitarou) by Shigeru Mizuki, about a boy and his ghostly friends and their adventures.

The storyline that stood out most memorably was one called “Ikenai! Runa Sensei” (Don’t Do It! Teacher Luna). At the time I could barely read Japanese, but the stories were pretty easy to decipher: a sexy blonde teacher named Luna had a male student named Wataru living with her. In each tale, there would be some activity or task to which Wataru was averse. Luna would always assume the worst outcome. In the first story I read, Wataru refuses to eat his vegetables. Luna then fears he will succumb to malnutrition and die. In another, Wataru fails a geography test. Luna worries he will become a school dropout, then an outcast of society, then commit suicide out of loneliness.

Luna then selflessly resolves to help Wataru, using the only method at her disposal: sexual conditioning. In the vegetable story, she first tries to French kiss him while there’s a cherry tomato in her mouth. Later, she strips to reveal she’s wearing a thong made of a bell pepper half and strings of peas. Eventually, Wataru learns to love vegetables and all is well—that is, until Luna finds out he’s out of shape and the school sports festival is just around the corner ...

click to see full-size image
from left to right: late 1990s cover of Gekkan Shounen Magajin; Ikenai! Runa Sensei!; Futari ni Omakase
I was surprised at the time because Gekkan Shounen Magajin was aimed primarily at a teenaged boy audience. There was no nudity aside from breasts and buttocks, and no depictions of penetrative sex, but otherwise the strip got pretty salacious: in one scene Wataru is licking vegetable broth from Luna’s inner thighs. In another, to help him understand how important vacuuming is, she has him suck dust from between her breasts with a straw. When her nipple gets stuck in the straw, he has to use his tongue to dislodge it. Maybe such scenes would be more erotic to a heterosexual teenaged boy, but I found them more bawdy and humorous than prurient.

I happened to be thinking about Gekkan Shounen Magajin the other day and looked it up. I discovered that Ikenai! Runa Sensei has an English language Wikipedia page. This I found surprising, since “Yankee Reppuutai” seemed to be the flagship series at the time for Gekkan Shounen Magajin and it does not have an English language page. Ikenai!’s entry states the series’ sexual content had caused trouble for the publisher, which eventually cancelled the serial. The pressure to remove Ikenai! was also fueled in part by the arrest and trial of Tsutomu Miyazaki, a child molester and serial killer who also owned a large collection of anime and slasher flicks. These were used as “evidence” that viewing such material contributed to his crimes.

I remember reading maybe eight Ikenai! stories, so obviously the decision to cancel it wasn’t instant. I wondered if “Futari ni Omakase” also caused any trouble. The art in Futari was slightly more realistic than Ikenai!, and seemed to go a little further in its depiction of sexuality. One scene featured the two policewomen with a third in a hot spring resort. The third policewoman, a blonde bombshell with a tanned body, offered to wash the back of one of the other two. As she did so, she groped her breasts and eventually slid her hand under her butt to grope her genitals. At least in Ikenai!, sex was ostensibly in the name of helping Wataru and not any sexual interest on the part of either party.

I was also surprised to find out Ikenai!’s creator, Sumiko Kamimura, is a woman—I assumed way back then it was a man. Kamimura is almost exactly my age, which means she began her career relatively young. According to Japanese Wikipedia, she worked most recently in 2015 on another erotic comic, “Oh! Invisible Man” (Oh! Toumei Ningen)

I made a trip to the local Japanese bookstore over the weekend and saw that Gekkan Shounen Magajin is still being published, and I picked up a copy. I haven’t read it yet, but flipping through the pages I see a serial that features a rather amply endowed villainess. In the same story the hero rescues a fainted woman but her top comes off in the process and in trying to prop her up he inadvertently grabs a handful of boob.

*There’s a funny story about when I was in Nagoya, wearing a GeGeGe no Kitarou t-shirt. I stopped at a visitors’ center. The young woman behind the counter pointed right at me and cried out “GeGeGe!” which sounded, to my Western ears, like “Gay! Gay! Gay!” I was taken aback. How did she know? Was I that obvious? I said, “Excuse me?” and she pointed again and said, “I like your GeGeGe t-shirt.”

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A different kind of water sports

2020-09-27T18:26:42Z

Though I’ve never seen the film itself, when I was a boy I vividly remember seeing ads for The Drowning Pool (1975), particularly the clip where Paul Newman and Gail Strickland struggle against a tide of water inside a room. Besides the presence of a soaking wet Paul Newman clad only in white boxers, there was something erotic about the water itself. It’s not that I have a fetish for drowning or sex underwater. It’s more like the water is an analog for restraining rope, against which one must struggle, resist, and fight back (I don’t like being a passive bondage participant). “Water bondage”, if you will. And for perhaps the same reason, I’ve always had a thing for super windy or stormy days*.

I saw something recently on NHK about a “Life Safety Learning Center”, a facility where visitors can experience what it’s like to be in an earthquake, fire, flood, or other disasters. For example, the “earthquake room” shakes, while in the “flood room” one can try to open a car door that has reverse pressure on it to simulate what it feels like to open it underwater. As the Learning Center guide explained, we all see in movies how people open car doors underwater or walk through a typhoon with only moderate difficulty, while the reality is much different. The purpose of the center is to give people a chance to experience that reality, and thus be better prepared for disasters.

The room that caught my attention, however, was the “rainstorm simulation room”. The reporter put on rubber boots, a large rain slicker and a cap, then entered a room that had three rows of handrails and was instructed to hang on. Machines activated and a tremendous spray of water and wind was directed at the reporter. This went on for about two minutes. The room was also designed to simulate choppy wind turbulence.

(the rainstorm action begins at about 4:00)

I had a different thought, however. How cool would it be to be tied up naked in such a room? Or to hang on to a play partner(s) while being buffeted by the driving rain and wind? Alas, unless you happen to be buddies with someone working there, I’m pretty sure the facility is not available for private play parties. A shame!

The scene in question from The Drowning Pool:

Similar blog entry from March 2014: a simulation of being buffeted by wind and seawater while also being sodomized by a giant octopus.

*Once, in Japan, I was inquiring at a visitors center about a particular attraction I wanted to visit. The woman at the counter advised against it—a severe rainstorm was already in progress, with gale force winds. I started to walk back to my hotel, thinking I’d hang out in my room and try again another day, but thought, “What if the weather’s like this my whole trip?” So I went. I was just about the only person there. And it poured rain and the wind whipped so strongly there were moments I could barely stand, and my umbrella kept turning inside out. Good times!

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Throw Away Your Books, Rally In The Streets

2020-05-29T20:09:50Z

Throw Away Your Books, Rally In The Streets
Japanese title: 書を捨てよ町へ出よう (Sho wo Suteyo Machi e Deyou)
1971, Art Theatre Guild
dir. Shuuji Terayama

I had seen Shuuji Terayama’s film Pastoral: To Die in The Country (1974), a Fellini-esque coming of age story and really enjoyed it, so I was eager to see more of Terayama’s work. I had also believed Throw Away Your Books, Rally In The Streets, judging by its title, would be about the student riots of Japan that took place just a few years before the film’s release. Instead, like Pastoral, it is a coming of age story about a young man dealing with family issues, with experimental film techniques such as using both color and black-and-white stock, garishly tinted shots, exposure changes within a single take, and so on. There is also a good amount of both male and female nudity, though genitals are never seen. I thought some of the music sounded familiar, like something from Revolutionary Girl Utena. No surprise, composer J. A. Seazer worked on both. A song called “I Love You, Ken-San”, composed by Terayama, is also featured in the film. In my blog about the contributors of Japanese postwar sex magazines, I wrote that Terayama composed the song about actor Ken Takakura (who was rumored to be bisexual), written from the viewpoint of a woman but sung by a man.

There is a sequence featuring a series of “interviews”, like an early video dating service, of men looking for dates and prospective mates. Some of the men are looking for women, some don’t use any gender terms so it’s not clear what their orientations are, but some are clearly gay, and one is even into BDSM, as shown in this sequence of stills (click image below to open full-sized image in new window):

I haven’t been able to figure out the significance of this sequence as it doesn’t appear germane to the plot. Terayama was heterosexual but a supporter of Barazoku, an early gay magazine. Was the inclusion of these interviews, as well as a sequence featuring a drag queen, a way of showing support for the gay community, or a way of introducing the audience to the LGBT subculture? Was there even video dating in Japan at the time? Or was this sequence just to shock the audience?

The first half of Throw Away is interesting, but the second seems to lose steam, though I’m sure there’s a lot of cultural context I’m missing. Both films are worth seeing, but I would recommend Pastoral over Throw Away.

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The Cyborg Fetish Experiment

2019-10-02T22:30:07Z

Note: all links open in new windows.

Robot
A machine designed to do a specific task or set of tasks, such as a Roomba. Robots need not be complex; they can be very simple, like a toaster. They can also be roughly humanoid, like Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet) or Mechagodzilla from the Godzilla franchise.

Android
A robot made to resemble a human (gynoid for a female form), though to what degree is debatable. Examples include the animatronic figure in Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland, Ash (Alien), fembots (The Bionic Woman, the Austin Powers franchise), and HRP-4C/Miim. Maria from Metropolis could be considered both a robot in her original form and a gynoid when she is made to resemble the human Maria.

Cyborg
Short for cybernetic organism, a cyborg describes a person (or other living creature) having both organic and biomechatronic parts. Technically, anyone with a pacemaker is a cyborg. Darth Vader, Steve Austin (The Six Million Dollar Man), and the Borg (Star Trek franchise) are examples of cyborgs.

For a while now, I’ve entertained a sexual fantasy about being a cyborg, but it never went beyond an idea until about a month ago when I sat down and thought, “Exactly what does being a cyborg in this context mean?” I began brainstorming and writing down things like:

• chillwave and “monorail” music
• armor, helmet, headphones, headgear
• dystopian cyberpunk environments like Kowloon Walled City and Anata No Warehouse
• alternately: pristine, futuristic, utopian environments
• “All carbon units will be reduced to data patterns.”, a quotation by the Ilia probe from Star Trek: The Motion Picture
• electronic noise, audio glitch
• abandonment, isolation, vulnerability
• Canti (a robot from Fooly Cooly)
• retro computer graphics, vector graphics, Quadrascan
• the computer entities from films like Dark Star, THX-1138, and Logan’s Run that, even when warning of impending doom, sound calm, detached, almost seductive
• being wrapped in wires, circuits, cables, lights
• disorientation, blindness, vertigo
• Japanese internet cafés
• Yuki Nagato (a character from Haruhi Suzumiya)
• hazy, dreamlike, detached feeling

I filled two pages with such thoughts. Some of the themes had to do with the physicality of being a cyborg: having artificial parts, senses enhanced through technology, and the sensation of being bound or restrained by cables or wires. As for the psychological aspects, while I honestly don’t believe I have abandonment issues, there is something compelling about the idea of being a cyborg or sentient machine discarded and left to rust in the rain.

But not all of this cyborg fantasy is dark or grim. I have many pleasant memories of sitting in Japanese internet cafés, which were cool, dark, and quiet. They were oases where I could escape, relax, listen to monorail music, and have free coffee. I could imagine I was in a spaceship, sitting in the dark, with only the glow from the monitors providing illumination.

“Monorail music” was a word I coined when I first heard “Rubicon” by Alan Braxe and Fred Falke. It made me imagine transoceanic monorails gliding past floating glass metropolises, and the world was bright and cheerful and optimistic! Since then, I’ve applied that description to many songs, though this kind of music falls somewhere between the house music and chillwave genres.

So—how do I turn all this into some kind of fantasy experience? I decided the monthly fetish night event at The Barracks would be a good venue to try this.

First, I had to assemble a costume. I found a headset at the dollar store, the kind into which you put your smartphone and look at stereoscopic images. Even if it didn’t work with my phone, at least it looked cool, and I have a thing for big goggles (e.g., steampunk) and headgear. Since I would be unable to see while wearing the headset, the rest of the costume would be purely cosmetic. I cobbled a bunch of old wires and cords and circuit boards and a couple of LED lights into a chestplate and gauntlets. I didn’t have a soldering iron, so I used cable ties, galvanized wire, and duct tape for a more cyberpunk look.

The next step was to put together something to watch and listen to on my phone. I tried to find an app that would use the phone’s camera aperture to pixelate incoming imagery in real time to simulate a crude “robotic” view of my surroundings, but I couldn’t find one. Instead, I created a video of futuristic, dreamlike imagery and computer displays. I made the video 90 minutes long so it would end before the event finished and afford people the opportunity to ask questions. It was made up of shots cut into 5-30 second soundless clips which included footage from Triterasu commercials, Takako Minekawa’s “Plash” music video, Tokyo’s Yamanote Line display, Digidrive (a video game from the bit Generations series), an Infinity Watch commercial, Jimmy Edgar’s “New Touch” music video, and the old Tempest video game. Using a stereoscopic viewer without a stereoscopic image produced an odd effect: your left eye sees the right half of the image, and vice versa. I discovered this while testing the video, but decided the disorientation would be just fine for the experience. Finally, I opted for a more optimistic, utopian feeling by using 90 minutes of monorail music by various artists.

I asked a friend to be my chaperon to guide me and to make sure nobody at the event tried anything funny, not that I expected any trouble. I worked out some signals beforehand for him:

pat twice on head: emergency (e.g., building has caught fire)
pat twice on arm: he needs to reposition me; he can’t lead me in a particular direction
pat twice on thigh: I need to watch my step; uneven path or obstacles ahead
pat twice on shoulder: chaperon needs to disengage (e.g., go to the bathroom)

I also created a sign to carry around, which gave a brief premise and directions for interaction, and which read:

This is a cyborg.

His optical and auditory sensors are malfunctioning and it was not safe to leave him at home unattended, so he has been brought here.

You are free to interact with the cyborg within certain parameters. For example, he responds well to:

kisses / hugs / caresses

Please do not shove or strike the cyborg.

Nanobots are repairing the cyborg’s sensors with an estimated completion time no later than 9:30 pm, at which time the cyborg will be happy to fully interact with you and answer questions.

In an emergency situation, please alert the chaperon immediately.

Click each image for full view.
Left: headset, gauntlet components, and chestplate. Right: dressed to ’borg! I wanted to be in “cyborg mode” before we entered the venue, so nobody would see my transformation from ordinary human Joe. I already had everything on except the headset when we parked. After some technical difficulties getting the video to play properly, I donned the headset and the chaperon led me inside. The music playing in my earbuds didn’t quite drown out all outside noise; I could still catch snippets of conversation if people were close enough to me.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of leather and men, mmm! I had told a couple of friends I’d be there that evening. Almost as soon as we walked in, I could hear one of them introducing himself to my chaperon, after which he gave me a hug. I had asked my chaperon to walk me around during the evening so everyone could get a good look, but to take breaks when he needed.

Altogether, I interacted with about eight people. The one I remember most vividly was someone who started caressing my neck and shoulders, then gave me a kiss (which was difficult with my bulky headset), then resumed caressing me up and down my entire body, raising my arms to lick my armpits, and even placing his head between my thighs and nuzzling them with his hair (I had shorts on, by the way). I reached out to try to hug him and found a handful of dick—quite a big one! I also remember thinking, I had no idea what this guy or the other participants looked like: how old or young, how thin or heavy, what ethnicity, or how attractive or homely. I interacted with them purely by touch.

I had instructed the chaperon to explain to anyone who asked that this was a sensory deprivation experiment. I heard one guy reply, “Oh, virtual reality.” It hadn’t occurred to me people might think that. I could hear another say he thought this was a really fascinating idea, and the chaperon telling him he could come back later to speak to me. At one point I nearly took the headset off because I could hear someone saying he had worked in computer sciences, and I was eager to speak to him. But no, I was not going to end the experiment until it was time. Even when I started to get sweaty under the headset, especially around my eyes, and the inside of the visor was fogging up, I decided to stay “in character”.

Though it wasn’t my original intent to act in a robotic manner, the first time I needed to scratch my nose I reached up with a slow and mechanical movement. If I felt someone touching me I would slowly swivel my head, one axis at a time, to face him. It was at this point I realized what I was doing had gone beyond indulging in a fetish—it had become performance art. I thought of Jacolby Satterwhite’s performances, which sometimes incorporate technological elements, or Yoko Ono’s 1964 performance of “Cut Piece”, in which members of the audience were invited to cut off pieces of her clothing while she sat passively. I began to wonder, how would these BDSM fetishists react to having a strange, faceless creature, with whom they could not communicate except through touch, in their midst?

When I finally removed the headset, the room seemed very dark and much smaller than I remembered from previous visits. The chaperon said about a dozen people had asked him what I was doing, though not all interacted with me. But I was disappointed—not a single person came up to speak to me. The chaperon couldn’t remember specifically who had approached us earlier. I walked around a bit but nobody acknowledged me or said anything. We left shortly after.

Later, the chaperon said, of the people who had approached us, nobody had reacted negatively, and most seemed genuinely curious. One person thought I was actually blind. One asked if all the wiring and circuitry on my costume actually did something. Another asked him what I was seeing inside the headset. I had instructed the chaperon before the event that he could explain as much of the experiment as he wanted, except to say what I was actually experiencing inside the headset—he should only say I was unable to hear or see anything. He also wondered if people simply didn’t realize that now-human Joe had been the cyborg. Perhaps I should’ve unmasked in a more dramatic fashion!

The next day, I was telling a friend about the experience. He believed people may have been reluctant to interact with me afterwards because, until I had unmasked, I had been voiceless, faceless, an un-person. Now there was suddenly a human in the cyborg’s place, but was he able to communicate? I think one thing I should’ve made clearer to the chaperon was to have had him explain this was entirely my idea. He said he had the impression some people thought he was my Sir or Master and he had ordered me to dress this way, and this might’ve inhibited more interaction, either in cyborg-mode or after. I wondered if The Nuzzler had seen me merely as a sex toy (which was perfectly fine), but not a human to speak to later.

I told my friend, if I were to do this again and with a sufficiently larger budget or resources, I would include some way for people to communicate with me. For example, a keyboard to type messages that I could read within my headset. Or, if my hearing were not obstructed, people could speak to me but I would reply via a talk box or vocoder to make my voice sound robotic. Another idea would be for me to communicate via a monitor over my face that would print out my replies, either in ordinary English or in stilted computerese (“AFFIRMATIVE, THIS UNIT ACCEPTS YOUR QUERY”), or just with emoji. All this would alter the ways in which humans normally communicate with each other; otherwise, I’d just be a guy with a fancy costume. I also mentioned there were other ways of communicating, such as the Necomimi, a pair of “cat ears” that perk up or droop depending on the wearer’s mood, or an electronic dress that reflects the emotional state of the wearer, not unlike a mood ring. Imagine if I glowed different intensities of a color to express my degree of enjoyment! People might enjoy trying different things to see which ones brought me the most pleasure.

The Necomimi website says (emphasis mine):

People think that our bodies have limitations, but just imagine if we had organs that don’t exist, and could control that new body?

We created new human organs that use a brainwave sensor.

But while Necomimi may seem like a rather elaborate toy, it is not dissimilar to artificial limbs for amputees that can be controlled by one’s brain.

The headset and video can still be used at home for when I want to bliss out, and there’s still the darker, dystopian side of this fetish to explore as well. But it’s exciting that what began as a sexual fetish experiment has turned into a discourse in art and science!

Selected Bibliography

Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a cyberpunk film directed by Shin’ya Tsukamoto (1989)

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, a book about the future of computing and the human experience by Ray Kurzweil (2000, Penguin Publishing Group)

Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer, a book about mediated reality and surveillance by Steve Mann with Hal Niedzviecki (2002, Doubleday Canada)

Light-up, programmable headgear worn in the “Automaton” music video by Jamiroquai, 2017

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Two Postwar Japanese Sex Magazines

2019-09-08T23:26:27Z

In June 2017, I wrote about Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列, Bara no Souretsu), a 1969 Japanese film about a love triangle between a gay bar owner and two of his drag queen servers. The casual and relaxed attitude depicted in the bar—and yes, I realize this was just a movie, and a surreal one at that—made me wonder how LGBT life in Japan in the 60s differed from LGBT life in America, a time when police raids on gay bars happened frequently, culminating in the Stonewall riots in June 1969 and the start of the LGBT rights movement.

Japan had once been a sexually progressive country: homosexuality was not only tolerated but also normative, and crossdressing and prostitution were commonplace. All this began to change in 1853 when American Commodore Matthew Perry arrived with his ships and demanded Japan (which, up to that point, had been mostly isolationist) open itself to trade or face military action. Japan did so—then, as it tried to take its place as a world power, began to censor its sexual mores for fear other nations would think the Japanese were primitive and not to be taken seriously, among other reasons.

Historically, Japan was very tolerant about homosexuality, but I believe that it was America that changed this. It was due to the puritanism brought by missionaries after the Meiji Restoration.

Yukio Mishima

It’s ironic that the LGBT movement in Japan is in its relative infancy, with Pride parades in the major cities (beginning in 1994), and more recently the demand for equal rights and same-sex marriage. Japanese LGBTs are fighting for the rights they had to begin with.

There are two periods of 20th century Japanese history that fascinate me in particular. In the past year or so, I’ve learned about Japan’s Taishou era (1912-1926), which was akin to America’s flapper era and Germany’s Weimar Republic. Young Japanese women called moga (モガ, short for modern girls) were becoming financially independent and exploring hedonistic lifestyles and casual sex. There was also the male equivalent, the mobo (モボ, modern boys) who aped American men’s fashions, with some wearing round-framed spectacles called roido, named after actor Harold Lloyd’s trademark glasses. Edogawa Rampo (江戸川乱歩, 1894-1965), a heterosexual writer, was fascinated by and writing stories about homosexuality, though more with the intent to titillate and shock. And Oogai Mori (森鴎外, 1862-1922) wrote Vita Sexualis (ヰタ・セクスアリス, Wita Sekusuarisu) in 1909, a novel about a young man’s experiences in college. Although the protagonist didn’t engage in homosexuality, others in the novel did.

After the war, in the 1960s, there were considerable student riots protesting further treaties between Japan and America. Magazines like Provoke: Provocative Materials For Thought (プロヴォーク) documented these, with many of its photographers shooting in a style called “are bure boke” (あれ・ぶれ・ぼけ), which produced deliberately grainy and blurry photographs. Art of that period was becoming Dadaist and avant-garde, spearheaded by art collectives like Jikken Koubou (実験工房, Experimental Workshop) and the Gutai Group (具体美術協会, Tangible Art Society). The 1960s also saw the publication of Fuuzokukitan (風俗奇譚, “Sex Oriented Mystery Stories”), a magazine aimed at a heterosexual audience that explored BDSM but also included references to homosexuality. Mori’s daughter, Mari Mori (森茉莉, 1903-1987), wrote of a homosexual relationship in A Lover’s Forest (恋人たちの森, Koibitotachi no Mori) in 1961. The first publicly available gay magazine, Barazoku (薔薇族, “Rose Tribe”), was first published in 1971, and shared many contributors with Fuuzokukitan.

All this made me wonder: surely there were gay mobo. Surely there were gay avant-garde artists in Japan in the 60s. Surely someone who contributed to Provoke was gay. But there isn’t much in-depth information online, at least that I can find and read—I am hampered by the fact I can only read a little Japanese, not nearly enough to make use of what little I can find. Even in Japan, at least in the major bookstore chains, one mostly finds exactly what one sees in American bookstores in the art section: the “big names” like Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Picasso, Warhol, and oh yes, Hokusai, as if he were the only Japanese artist ever. When I’ve asked about books on Japanese avant-garde artists, salesclerks looked at me like I was from Mars. Just finding basic biographical information about some of the artists discussed below is difficult enough, much less anything about their personal lives. Even many of the contributors of Barazoku and subsequent gay magazines don’t seem to have made much headway beyond being “gay erotic artists”.

Don’t get me wrong. I find what I’m learning about Taishou and post-war Japan fascinating. But my original intent was to study the LGBT society within these periods. Finally, I did find some tenuous connections by way of illustrator Tadanori Yokoo, who collaborated with avant-garde filmmaker Shuuji Terayama, who was heterosexual but a supporter of Barazoku magazine, and through photographer Hosoe Eikou and choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata, who both worked with Mishima. But there is no indication any of these four artists were gay.

To connect all these dots, I begin with renowned author Yukio Mishima, who is the point of convergence for many of the people mentioned in this blog. Please note, throughout this blog, when the name “Mishima” is used alone, it refers to Yukio Mishima, as opposed to artist Gou Mishima, mentioned elsewhere in this blog. The rest of the people discussed herein are listed in alphabetical order by family name. The diagram illustrates how they connect to each other and to various publications.

Biographies

Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫), 1925-1970
Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia’s summary of his life and career:

... a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay “Sun and Steel”. Ideologically a right wing nationalist, Mishima formed the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia, for the avowed purpose of restoring power to the Japanese Emperor. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to overturn Japan’s 1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed ritual suicide by disembowelment.

I once read that Mishima’s death impacted the Japanese public as intensely and as surprisingly as President John F. Kennedy’s death in 1963.

Click the map for a zoomable window view (opens in new window)

Mansaku Arashi (嵐万作) ?-?
Writer who contributed to Barazoku, who was charged with obscenity, along with Itou Bungaku, for the 1975 publication of Sodomy Journey to the West (男色西遊記, Danshoku Saiyuuki). Eventually he was ordered to pay 100,000 yen (approx 333.00 USD in 1975, or 1588.00 USD in 2019). Bungaku was ordered to pay double that amount, but he paid both fines. Mansaku and Barazoku contributor Ryuu Fujita believed author Tamotsu Sakakiyama, who had written “Worse for Love” (愛の処刑, Ai no shokei) in 1961 for Apollo magazine, was actually Mishima. A note from Mishima was discovered in 2005 which seemed to confirm this.

Itou Bungaku (伊藤文學) 1932-
Publisher and editor of Barazoku magazine. He said that contributor Ryuu Fujita was the true editor, but as Bungaku was heterosexual, he could promote the magazine without fear of censure. Was charged with obscenity, along with writer Mansaku Arashi, for the 1975 publication of Sodomy Journey to the West (男色西遊記, Danshoku Saiyuuki). Eventually Mansaku was ordered to pay 100,000 yen (approx 333.00 USD in 1975, or 1588.00 USD in 2019) and Bungaku was ordered to pay double that amount, but Bungaku paid both fines. He maintains a blog here.

Ryuu Fujita (藤田竜) ?-?
Contributor to Fuuzokukitan and Barazoku magazines. Itou Bungaku said Fujita was the true editor of Barazoku. Fujita and author Mansaku Arashi believed author Tamotsu Sakakiyama, who had written “Worse for Love” (愛の処刑, Ai no shokei) in 1961 for Apollo magazine, was actually Mishima. A note from Mishima was discovered in 2005 which seemed to confirm this. Fujita was romantically involved with illustrator and Barazoku contributor Rene Naitou.

Jirou Fukushima (福島次郎), 1930-2006
Novelist who, in 1998, published Sword and Cold Red (剣と寒紅, Ken to kanbeni), which included 15 letters from Mishima attesting to their homosexual relationship. Two of Mishima’s children sued Fukushima and the book’s publisher, Bungeishunjuu (文藝春秋). Ultimately, the defendants lost the case in 2000 and was ordered to pay 5 million yen (roughly 47,000 USD in 2000, or 69,000 USD in 2019) in damages. The court also ordered further publication of the book be suspended, although 100,000 copies had already been published and most remain in circulation. Fukishima had also written that Tatenokai (楯の会, Shield Society), Mishima’s private militia, routinely had group sex.

Sanshi Funayama (船山三四), c.1920s-c.1999
Artist for Fuuzokukitan and G-Men, and acquaintance of Mishima.

Tatsumi Hijikata (土方巽), 1928-1986
Choreographer and performer who created the dance genre Butoh. He choreographed a 1959 dance piece called “Kinjiki” (禁色, Forbidden Colors, 1951), based on a book of the same name by Mishima, about a young gay man engaged to be married to a woman. Hijikata collaborated with photographer Eikou Hosoe on a number of projects, including a series of photographs depicting Hijikata as a supernatural creature. Hijikata was an acquaintance of Donald Richie.

Gou Hirano (平野剛), ?-?
Artist featured in both Fuuzokukitan and Barazoku.

Eikou Hosoe (細江英公), 1933-
Photographer and filmmaker who collaborated with Mishima on the 1961 book Ordeal by Roses (薔薇刑, Barakei). The book featured surreal and masochistic photographs of Mishima. Hosoe documented several of Tatsumi Hijikata’s performances, as well as taking a series of photographs depicting Hijikata dressed as a supernatural creature. Hosoe also created the Jazz Film Laboratory in 1960 with Shuuji Terayama.

Donald Keene (キーン・ドナルド) 1922-2019
American historian and translator, friend of Mishima. Became a Japanese citizen after the 2011 Touhoku earthquake.

Hiroshi Mamiya (間宮浩), ?-?
Contributor to both Fuuzokukitan and Barazoku. Wrote the novel Shinjuku Boys (新宿の美少年たち, Shinjuku no bishounentachi) in 1993. Was an acquaintance of Tatsuji Ookawa. Upon Ookawa’s death, Mamiya and Itou Bungaku were able to obtain his works.

Gou Mishima (三島剛), 1924-1988
Erotic artist who contributed to Fuuzokukitan and Barazoku, and acquaintance of Mishima. He preferred a more masculine style of depicting men, along with BDSM themes, and founded his own magazine, Sabu, in 1974.

Akihiro Miwa (美輪明宏), 1935-
Drag entertainer and social activist, an acquaintance and possibly lover of Mishima. Appeared in movies such as 1968’s Black Lizard (黒蜥蝪 Kurotokage), which was based on a play by Mishima (in turn, based on a novel by Edogawa Rampo). Miwa has also done voice work for films by animation filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Interviewed in Barazoku in 2005. He can currently be seen as the Talking Sun on the children’s educational program Let’s Play With Japanese (にほんごであそぼ, Nihongo de Asobo).

Rene Naitou (内藤ルネ), 1932-2007
Illustrator for Barazoku. Romantically involved with Barazoku contributor Ryuu Fujita.

Hideo Nakai (中井英夫), 1922-1993
Writer who was a member of the Adonis Society (アドニス会, Adonisu kai), a male homosexual group which included Mishima. Nakai also contributed to its members-only magazine, Adonis (アドニス).

Tatsuji Ookawa (大川辰次), 1904-1994
Artist who originally published in Fuuzokukitan through his acquaintance with Hiroshi Mamiya, which led to Ookawa’s work appearing in Barazoku. Mishima was a fan of Ookawa’s work and commissioned him to do an illustration of him being tortured. Ookawa gave up illustration in the 1970’s and, upon his death, his works were obtained by Mamiya and Itou Bungaku.

Shinobu Orikuchi (折口信夫) 1887-1953
Novelist and poet, called by Mishima the “Japanese Walter Pater”. Orikuchi was the model for the protagonist in Mishima’s short story “Mikumano Moude” (三熊野詣, Pilgrimage to Mikumano Shrine).

Donald Richie (ドナルド・リチー) 1924-2013
American author and film historian. Friend to Mishima, Mutsuo Takahashi, and Tamotsu Yatou. Richie gave Takahashi a tour of New York City’s gay underground scene, which served as the basis for Takahashi’s 1972 book A Legend of a Holy Place (聖所伝説, Seisho densetsu).

Tamotsu Sakakiyama (榊山保), 1925-1970
Wrote “Execution of Love” (愛の処刑, Ai No Shokei) for Apollo magazine. Barazoku contributors Ryuu Fujita and Mansaku Arashi believed Sakakiyama was a pseudonym for Mishima. A note from Mishima was discovered in 2005 which seemed to confirm this.

Mutsuo Takahashi (高橋睦郎) 1937-
Poet and essayist. Sent a collection of his work to Mishima, who offered to help promote his work. In 1972, he wrote A Legend of a Holy Place (聖所伝説, Seisho densetsu), inspired by his trip to New York City where Donald Richie led him on a tour of the city’s gay underground scene.

Ken Takakura (高倉健), 1931-2014
Renowned Japanese actor who made films on both sides of the Pacific. Though married, it was rumored he was a closeted bisexual. He was depicted in artwork by Tadanori Yokoo, and was the subject of a song (“I Love You, Ken-San”) that film director Shuuji Terayama wrote for his 1971 movie Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (書を捨てよ町へ出よう, Sho wo Suteyo Machi e Deyou).

Kotarou Takemoto (竹本小太郎), ?-?
Artist featured in Barazoku, Badi, and G-Men.

Shuuji Terayama (寺山修司), 1935-1983
Avant-garde dramatist and film director of such films as 1971’s Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (書を捨てよ町へ出よう, Sho wo Suteyo Machi e Deyou) and 1974’s Death in The Country aka Pastoral Hide and Seek (田園に死す, Den’en ni shisu). Though heterosexual, he was a supporter of Barazoku magazine. For the movie Throw Away Your Books, Terayama wrote the song “I Love You, Ken-San”, about actor Ken Takakura, which was written from the viewpoint of a woman but sung by a man. Terayama also formed the theater troupe Tenjou Sajiki (天井桟敷, “The Nosebleed Seats”), which collaborated with artist Tadanori Yokoo.

Meredith Weatherby (メレディス・ウェザビー) 1915-1997
American founder of Weatherhill Publishing, best known for his translations of works by Mishima including his 1949 novel, Confessions of a Mask (仮面の告白, Kamen no kokuhaku). Romantic partner and patron of photographer Tamotsu Yatou.

Jun’ichi Yamakawa (山川純一), ?-?
Artist for Barazoku.

Tamotsu Yatou (矢頭保), 1925?-1973
Pioneer of male erotic photography. Friend of Donald Richie, and friend and collaborator of Mishima. Romantic partner of Meredith Weatherby. Was called the “Japanese Tarzan” due to his physique.

Tadanori Yokoo (横尾忠則), 1936-
Graphic designer and illustrator. Cited Mishima and filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, etc.) as his most formative influences. Collaborated with Shuuji Terayama’s theater troupe Tenjou Sajiki (天井桟敷, “The Nosebleed Seats”). Produced a series of works featuring the likeness of actor Ken Takakura.

Selected Bibliography

While compiling notes for this blog entry, most of which were found online, I clicked on numerous links that led to other links which led to more and more. It was impossible to keep track of where I found every bit of information, especially since I also had to run many of the Japanese-language pages through an online translator, from where I then clicked on more links, which only added to the confusion. Here then, is a selected bibliography, as best as I can recall. Corrections are greatly appreciated.

A great deal of the information I’ve compiled came from Wikipedia, both English and Japanese versions, including (these are all in Japanese):

Article about moga and mobo
Biography of novelist Jirou Fukushima
Biography of artist Jun’ichi Yamakawa
Biography of Barazoku publisher Itou Bungaku

Peter Tasker’s blog entry about Ken Takakura being bisexual, Nov 1 2015

Biography of Tatsuji Ookawa from japanesegayart.com

Itou Bungaku’s blog entry about Mansaku Arashi’s lawsuit, July 17 2011

SFGate.com’s article about the lawsuit against Jirou Fukishima, taken from the New York Times, Oct 21 1999

Mark Adnum’s article where Jirou Fukishima discusses the Tatenokai sex parties, from huffpost.com, Jan 13 2015

Leslie Truchet’s article about the lawsuit against Jirou Fukushima, from writersabroad.com, Jan 14 2019

Japantimes.com obituary of Jirou Fukushima, Feb 23 2006

Information about Mishima’s relationship with Hijikate and Eikou taken from the book Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde (2012, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City)

Mishima quotation regarding America’s impact on homosexuality in Japan taken from The Gay & Lesbian Review, Sept-Oct 2019 issue, page 15. Translated by Mark Oshima.

Information about Japan’s sexual mores before the Meiji Restoration can be found in the book Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan by Gary P. Leupp (1995, University of California Press)

Many thanks to Mr. Biscornu for his editorial assistance.

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Aunt Natsuko's Mysterious Magazines

2019-07-20T21:52:18Z

Note: certain facts in this entry have been changed to maintain the privacy of the individuals mentioned.

I lived in Japan when I was a boy. One day—mind you, this happened about fifty years ago so my memory is a little hazy!—my mother took my brother and me to a small town outside Tokyo to visit my Aunt Natsuko. While she and my mother sat in the kitchen chatting and drinking tea, my brother and I played in the living room. My brother soon fell asleep on the floor but I discovered a pile of magazines in the corner. They were roughly the size of Readers’ Digests, only with twice as many pages. I began flipping through one and discovered that the first dozen or so pages had black and white photos of women in bondage! I remember two in particular:

1. a woman in a bus tour guide’s uniform (skirt, hat, blouse, neckerchief), suspended spread-eagled and face down from the luggage racks, with her blouse opened to reveal her breasts

2. a nude woman, bound in a kneeling position with her hands behind her back, and completely submerged in a large water tank

The other magazines had similar photos!

Fuuzokukitan covers. The caption in the center of the rightmost image says, “Pictorial: The World of Sadism and Gays”

Recently in my research about sexuality in Japan, I came across a magazine called Fuuzokukitan (風俗奇譚; literally, “Sex Oriented Mystery Stories”), originally published in 1960 and which featured articles about BDSM, fetishes, homosexuality, and many photos of women in bondage. I have to wonder if it was the same magazine? (doubtlessly, there were imitators)

Fuuzokukitan, by openly discussing homosexuality, laid the foundation for future gay Japanese magazines like Bara (launched in 1964). According to Wikipedia Japan, the first issue of Fuuzokukitan is available for viewing at the Fuuzoku Shiryoukan, a museum dedicated to preserving SM publications. It’s just a shame I can’t travel back in time to find out for sure what Aunt Natsuko’s magazines were!

I really don’t think Aunt Natsuko was either lesbian or bisexual or into kinky sex, so over the years I was mystified why she would have such magazines. Perhaps they were like The Sun: a British tabloid which, for many years, featured a topless female model on page 3. I’m sure not everyone who read The Sun was interested in the models. My guess is Natsuko’s interest was mere curiosity, or maybe Fuuzokukitan had great recipes in the back!

September 2019 update: read my blog entry about the contributors to Fuuzokukitan, many of whom also contributed to Barazoku, the first publicly available gay magazine in Japan.

External Links:
Fuuzoku Shiryoukan museum website (Japanese language only)
2011 English-language article about the museum from SM Detective

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“Home Cooking”

2019-03-03T17:42:24Z

I’ve long been a fan of actress Prunella Scales, best known for her comedy work in shows like Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979) and Mapp & Lucia (1985-1986), so I was surprised to see her in a dark, dramatic role on an anthology series called Unnatural Causes (1986), in an episode called “Home Cooking”, written by Paula Milne.

Spoilers Ahead! Scales plays Judith Hatten, who co-manages a small hotel with her husband Vic (Brian Cox). Vic is sexist, emotionally and physically abusive towards Judith, and in the course of the episode, she begins to suspect Vic is the serial rapist that is the top story day after day in the news. In one scene, Vic is in the bar with two guests, both salespeople, Dennis (Dennis Killick) and Helen Cassady (Belinda Lang). The bar has pinup pictures of nude women on the walls and there is the atmosphere of an “old boys’ club” of regulars; Helen is a rare female guest. The scene begins in the middle of a conversation:

Dennis	My point is, it must make it easier being a woman.
Helen	Why?
Dennis	Well, people are less suspicious of you, aren’t they?
Helen	Are they?
Dennis	The whole business of selling restaurant trust, right, is that a client trusts our assessment of a product. The “foot in the door shyster salesman” image is something that we still all have to live down. But as a woman you don’t have that problem, do you?
Helen	Oh, I don’t know.
Dennis	Oh, come on.
Helen	Perhaps I have other problems.
Vic	For instance?
Helen	Not being taken seriously. That my assessment of a product is inherently trivial or simplistic.
Dennis	Ah, but then you have another advantage, don’t you? You can flutter your eyelashes at them. Charm their wallets open that way.
Helen	That’s not my style.
Vic	What is your “style”?
Helen	I treat my clients as my equal. Give them the facts and let them make up their own minds.
Vic	Does that get results?
Helen	Absolutely.
Vic	You don’t think the fact you’re a woman makes any difference to your clients?
Helen	No.
Vic	You’re sure about that?
Helen	I am.
Vic	Then you don’t know very much about the male of the species, Miss Cassady.
Helen	Not all men are the same and not all my clients are male.
Vic	But the majority are.
Helen	Possibly.
Vic	You wear that outfit when you go to work?
Helen	Or something like it, why?
Vic	The makeup?
Helen	Of course.
Vic	Then you still think they don’t notice you’re a woman? You must have a very low opinion of your powers of attraction, Miss Cassady.
Helen	It’s not something I think very much about one way or the other.
Vic	Then why dress like that?
Helen	It pleases me.
Vic	(snapping) Why?
Dennis	Stop badgering the woman, Vic.
Helen	I don’t mind. (a beat) It makes me feel good, it gives me confidence. Good enough?
Vic	Because you know men are looking at you.
Helen	That doesn’t mean they can touch.
Vic	Oh. But you admit the thought is in their mind.
Helen	Rather their problem, isn’t it?
Vic	Suppose one of them decides to make it yours? Tries it on, one of your clients.
Helen	Then I'd handle him accordingly. The male ego, in my experience, is rather a delicate mechanism. One rejection, they don’t usually try it on again.
Vic	Don’t you like men, Miss Cassady.
Helen	Some of them.
Vic	Sounds like it. (Helen smirks) Is that funny?
Helen	Just the regularity with which that question crops up.
Vic	Oh.
Helen	It’s an assumption you all seem to make if you think a woman isn’t treating you with the respect you think you deserve.
Vic	Then I’m sorry to be so predictable, Miss Cassady.
Helen	And I’m sorry to have no stock answer for your stock question, Mr. Hatten. How about you tell me something? Do you like women? (no response) You see? It’s that kind of question, it’s so general it’s meaningless.
Vic	My answer’s the same as yours. I like some of them.
Helen	Then we are equal.
Vic	Always like to get the last word, don’t you?
Helen	Whenever possible.
Vic	And when it’s not?
Helen	I make a tactical withdrawal, like now. I shall be leaving first thing in the morning so I’ll say goodbye now. (offers her hand for a handshake; Vic tries to kiss it but she pulls away and he stumbles across the bar counter; Dennis laughs, Vic glares after her)

Unfortunately, not only does Helen become the rapist’s next victim, she is murdered as well. It’s an interesting episode, well acted, though there seems to be one subplot too many. Scales is all but unrecognizable as the long-suffering Judith. “Home Cooking” was written over 30 years ago, and it struck me that, unfortunately, some men’s attitudes haven’t changed at all towards strong, independent women.

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「DVDA」（エロ漫画）

2018-09-08T01:02:40Z

(English version)

ドロシー・パーカーは「執筆するのがきらい。もう執筆したのが大好き。」と言いました。私のために、それはいつも本当じゃない。芸術的な方法を楽しむけど、先延ばしと焦燥は私に困らせて、働きのために時間を取らなくて、無理な標準を到達出来ない。

下の漫画の思想が１０以上年前あった。郵便で着いた「TURN・LOOSE・OUR・DEATH・RAYS・AND・KILL・THEM・ALL！」（死のビームを発して皆を殺せ！）の本がようやく私に動機させた。「TURN」は漫画の芸術家のFLETCHER・HANKS （フレッチャー・ハンクス）の全集だ。HANKS（１８８９年ー１９７６年）は作家として上手じゃなかったにもかかわらず私が「TURN」を大いに楽しむ。喫茶店で読書とき、「帰って、漫画を書きなさい。上手かどうか無縁だ。働きを頑張って楽しみなさい。」と思った。それから、帰って、書いた。上手かどうか、あげるよ！

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"DVDA" (erotic comic)

2018-09-08T00:58:43Z

(日本語で)

Dorothy Parker once said, “I hate writing. I love having written.” That's not entirely true for me. I do enjoy the artistic process. But my procrastination and impatience usually get the best of me and I don't make the time to do the work or I set an impossibly high standard for myself.

I had the idea for the story you're about to read over ten years ago. What finally motivated me to do it was receiving a copy in the mail of “Turn Loose Our Death Rays and Kill Them All!”, the complete works of comic book artist Fletcher Hanks (1889-1976). Hanks was neither a great storyteller nor a technically proficient artist (neither of which has stopped me from enjoying his work immensely), but while reading the book in a coffeeshop, I thought, “Just go home and do your comic. Good or bad, get it done. Just enjoy the process.” So I went home and did it, and good or bad, here it is!

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小便プレイ

2018-07-18T19:43:16Z

通知：このブログの記事は２０１７年３月英語で書かれました。 (英語: 第一章第二章) 日本語の重大な間違いがあれば、教えて下さい！ありがとうございます。

小便プレー（英語：watersports, piss play, golden showers, urolagnia, urophagia）とはセックスには尿が伴います。BDSMプレーの種類です。小便プレーの活動には自分か他の人に尿を掛けるの、尿を飲むのを含みます。

どうして小便プレー？
小便プレーするの皆さんが自分の理由があります。例えば：

１。人間のトイレーとしての恥を好む人もいます。
２。尿の暖かさ、味、体にはねかけるの感覚を好む人もいます。
３。尿で犬の縄張りのマーキングするのように所有として性奴隷に尿でマーキングするマスターもいます。
４。肌または口の中に尿の流れは長い間の射精の感覚のようです。
５。おむつプレーの方のために、トイレに行くもなしおむすに小便するとき自由の感覚があります。

どんな小便プレーの活動がある？

初心者のために、水を飲み初めなさい。尿が澄むとき、指を流れに入れてちょっと飲みなさい。シャワーで立って脚に小便しなさい。仰向けに寝転んで腹に小便しなさい。

プレーパートナーがいる場合に、あなたは彼の体に小便したり、彼はあなたにしたり、互いに同時にしたり出来ます。

口に小便すれば、飲んだりよだれを垂らしたり出来ます。よだれを垂らす場合に、お風呂の床（排水管があります）でプレーしなければ、タオルか防水シイとを床に敷きなさい。

助言

たとえ膀胱いっぱいでも、他人の前に小便するの恥ずかしければ（英語：Pee Shy, Bladder Shy, Paruesis)、小便するの難しいです。目を閉めて、深く吸い込みます。息を吐くとき、膀胱の中で小便を外へ出させる大きいピストンを想像します。シャワーで小便プレイすれば、小便が流れ始めるために、蛇口から温かい水を出して手に流れさせなさい。

小便はわずかにつるつるな感覚がありますから、オナニーか兜合わせを簡単にちょっとさせますが、ラブローションのために不適当です。自分か他の人の小便を目の中に入れないで。

小便の浣腸が好き人もいます。直接にパートナーの肛門か膣に小便するのか浣腸の器を小便で満たしなさい。指導されて練習したら、勃起をとおって小便することが出来ます。しかし、コンドームなしプレーの場合、直接に肛門か膣に小便するのは性感染症の危険または膣のpH（水素イオン指数）バランスの乱れがあります。

飲食

たとえ小便プレーが好きじゃなくてでも、水和を保つのが大切です。小便が深い黄色いであれば、脱水かもしれませせん。小便が薄い黄色いに成るまで、水を飲みなさい。水を飲むと尿路結石の危険が減少するのを手伝うかもしれません。水和するのあと、小便が深い黄色いまだであれば、医者に会いなさい。

小便の濃くて苦い味（英語：MORNING PISS＝朝の小便）や薄い味（英語：「BEER PISS」＝ビールの小便）が好きかどうかにかかわらず、小便プレーの前に水を多く飲むのを勧めます。そうすることで小便するのがもっとかんたんです、特に他人の前で小便するのは恥ずかしいであれば（英語：PARURESISかPEE SHY）。

飲む人は苦い匂いが好きじゃなければ、プレー前にアスパラガスを食べるのがダメです。アスパラガスにアスパラガス酸と呼ばれて特異の物質がありますから、臭いの原因だかもしれません。科学者はこれが本当だかどうか弁論していますが、私がアスパラガスを食べるとき、小便がひどい匂いがします。

注意！

小便プレーの前に水をいつもより多い飲むのがいいですが、飲みすぎるのが電解質のバランスの乱れから水中毒か死の原因だかもしれません。水中毒の徴候は：頭痛、筋肉痛、吐き気、喉の乾き、眠気、メンタルの混乱、怒り、や行動の変化です。この徴候の場合は、医者か救急救命室に行きたいかもしれません。電解質の回復のためには、スポーツドリンク（例えば、POCARI SWEAT/ポカリスエット、GATORADE/ゲータレード）を飲みなさい。しかしスポーツドリンクには人工甘味料か味があるかもしれません。自然で電解質の回復のためには、レモン、チア種子、リンゴ、ケール、ココナッツジュース、バナナ、セロリを食べなさい。

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What is Sex Work? It's more than you think.

2018-06-01T21:59:02Z

Note: sex trafficking is not synonymous with sex work. Trafficking is neither voluntary nor consensual, and associating it with consensual sex work is like associating vandals with demolition crews, or assault and battery with boxing.

When you ask people if they know a sex worker, most will say no. The image that often pops into people's minds when they think of sex work is a woman standing under a streetlight, dressed in hot pants, a tube top, a feather boa, stiletto heels, and gobs of makeup (the woman is wearing those things, not the streetlight). They are immoral hussies, indiscriminate sexual vampires, wreckers of happy marriages, and callous spreaders of diseases. But this is a narrow, stereotyped view of sex work.

Sex work is not limited to any demographic. There are sex workers of all genders, all races, and all orientations. Some are college graduates and some are high school dropouts—that doesn't mean the latter are dummies, mind you. Sex workers come in all shapes and sizes—they don't all look like Julia Roberts or Catherine Deneuve. There are plus-size workers, workers in wheelchairs, workers who are blind or missing limbs. Some are young adults, and some are seniors. Some look like glamorous movie stars, and some look like your unassuming plain Jane or plain John neighbor. Some do it for fun, some do it to survive, and some do it for extra spending money or to pay off college loans. Some do it for a short time then find other work, and some make a career out of it. And surprise!—some even pay income taxes on their earnings.

So what does constitute sex work? Let's begin with the most obvious: prostitution, or the selling of sexual acts or companionship or both, for money or (as California law states) “other compensation”, which might be interpreted to mean things such as gifts, clothing, or groceries. Some workers walk the streets, and others may connect with clients online. There are quite a few euphemisms (both acceptable or offensive) that are used to describe this kind of sex worker: hookers, rent boys, whores, call girls, ladies of the night, gigolos, escorts, sugar babies, kept boys, and so on.

Another type of sex work is within the porn industry: actors and actresses who are paid to have sex for entertainment purposes such as erotic videos or magazines. But there are also non-performers such as directors, camera operators, photographers, makeup artists, and producers. Many porn companies operate online, so they need web designers and developers. DVD cases need graphic designers, and some videos have soundtracks, so there may be composers and recording engineers. All these people are making money from selling sex.

Strippers and cam models are also sex workers. They're not actually having sex with anyone—they're just showing their goodies to an audience. But the selling point is all about sex: patrons aren't watching that pole dancer solely for her gymnastic prowess. And while Playboy may indeed have good articles, I doubt most people are reading it solely for that reason. They want to see the sexy women!

I also doubt many people are looking at the lingerie in Victoria's Secret catalogs solely to admire the sartorial skills of the designers. The models aren't nude, but money is being made by using sexy images to sell. Imagine a Victoria's Secret catalog, or the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, with the lingerie or bikinis photographed on hangers. Think anyone would buy them, then?

If you’ve ever purchased porn, or tipped a stripper or cam model, or bought a copy of 50 Shades of Grey or The Joy of Gay Sex, guess what? You’ve paid for sex work. Click To Tweet

There are many creative people who are sex workers. Aside from photographers and their models, there are also artists (from Tom of Finland to Alberto Vargas), and writers (from the Marquis de Sade to Anaïs Nin). If a publishing company publishes such books, they too are dealing in sex work.

Then there are erotic masseurs and masseuses, servers at Hooters or Twin Peaks, phone sex operators, and models for nyotaimori and nantaimori (the practice of eating sushi off the bodies of nude or scantily clad women and men). Sex workers also include designers and manufacturers of sex toys, from dildos and vibrators and lube to furry handcuffs and floggers and ball gags. There are companies that make Viagra and Cialis, or birth control devices and pharmaceuticals; ostensibly, those are to prevent pregnancy, but why? So people can enjoy sex and not worry about an unwanted pregnancy. There are columnists whose job is to teach us how to have better sex, from Dr. Ruth to Dan Savage, as well as sexual surrogates, who work in conjunction with a therapist to mentor clients about sex. Guess what? They're all sex workers, too.

I began writing this article many months ago but never finished it. It was, after all, mostly a long list of occupations related to sex. But with the April 11, 2018 passage of SESTA/FOSTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act), laws that were created ostensibly to combat sex trafficking, the welfare and safety of sex workers have come under attack, even legal sex workers in Nevada and lingerie companies. Sites like Craigslist and Pounced shut down its personals sections, and from what I've seen in chatrooms, many people don't even understand why. You may still think you don't know any sex workers, but bear in mind there is often a stigma attached to people in this industry, particularly women. It's not surprising they keep their work a secret, especially around those who go around declaring that sex work is disgusting or immoral. You may say you dislike or disapprove of sex work, or maybe you have never procured the services of a prostitute, but if you've ever purchased porn, or tipped a stripper or cam model, or bought a copy of 50 Shades of Grey or The Joy of Gay Sex, guess what? You've paid for sex work. So don't make the mistake of thinking sex work, or the effects of SESTA/FOSTA, have nothing to do with you.

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BDSM活動の安全

2018-04-14T01:19:30Z

通知：日本語の重大な間違いがあれば、教えて下さい！ありがとうございます。

穏やかまたは凄まじいBDSM（ビーディーエスエム）の活動は危険の程度がありますが、方法と安全を学んで念入りにプレーパートナーを選ぶのによって危険を和らげる。陰茎を折る可能性がありますから、自分でマスするも危険の程度がありますよ！

BDSMの性的の妄想（英語：SEXUAL FANTASY)は性的な活動の願いです。妄想を果たすのは下の５つものをされなければなりません。

１。妄想は詳しく思いつくべきです。何人？どのような活動？どのような強度へ？プレーパートナーは裸かスペシアルな衣服ですか。性具が必要ですか。

２。適当な技術を習うべきです。例えば、フィストファックの安全、鞭打ちの技術、緊縛のために縄の結び目。

３。危険、非常時の計画が分かるべきです。フィストファックするときに腸内が貫通されれば、近くの病院がどこですか。窒息プレーするときにプレーパートナーは気を失って気がつかなければ、人工呼吸または心肺蘇生法ができますか。

４。プレーパートナーが信用されられるべきです。完全な見知らぬ人に縛り上げられないで！
信頼が期間の経過で得られる。プレーの数回の期間の経過では、都度がだんだんもっときつく成ります。

５。結果を受け入れるべきです。無謀な男がスキーして落ちって背中を骨折して麻痺に成れば、リゾートまたはスキー用具の会社の責任ですか。

このものは超過にようですか。スキーしたい男は授業か練習なし苗場山に登りますか。だめですよ！レッスンをして上質なスキー用具を買うべきです。友達と一緒に行けば、骨折された脚に副木をあて方を知るのが役に立つ。凍傷と低体温症を治療し方も習うべきです。

プレーパートナーは現実と妄想を見分けるのが大切です。例えば、凄まじいBDSMの画家の田亀源五郎がサイトにこの警告があります：

「現実と妄想の違いを認識せよ！」

いくつかBDSMの活動のふりをすることができます。例えば：

A-太郎：僕の妄想が暴力団に誘拐と強姦されたいよ！
B-太郎：へえ？本当の暴力団？危ないね？
A-太郎：ああ、ちょっと！３人の友達が暴力団のスーツを着ておもちゃのピストルを持っつ。体にマジックマーカーでイレズミを描く。暴力団のふりするの！
B-太郎：ああ、分かった。本当の暴力団を近づくな。
A-太郎：もちろん！

現実と妄想の大切な違いの一つは、どの理由でもどのパートナーでもプレーを止められます。
現実の強姦は犠牲者が「止まれ！」と言えません。犠牲者が強姦犯に「コンドームを使え！」と聞けません。しかし、妄想の強姦では、犠牲者ふりが１２人の強姦犯ふりに強姦ふりされることができます。強姦犯ふりがコンドームを使えます。十分の活動とき、犠牲者ふりがプレーを止められます。強姦犯フリする男たちがちょっと激しく演じますが、かれらの友達に傷付けません。

妄想のプレーは種類が無限ありますのに、安全についてこのブログ記事が入門として使えるだろう。あなたの妄想はドラえもんのコスプレしてる男があなたを縛り上げて納豆を顔に塗れば、頑張ってよ！安全にプレーしてけど経験は限度しないで。

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フィストファック・うけの水洗方法

2018-04-07T18:39:38Z

通知：このブログの記事は２０１５年９月英語で書かれました。日本語の重大な間違いがあれば、教えて下さい！ありがとうございます。 English-language version.

これまで私のフィストファックのブログの書き込みがタチとして経験です。フィストファックのウケのために水洗方法が役に立つと思いますから、友達の「A-太郎」、「B-太郎」、「C-太郎」にインタビューしました。

プレーの前後の食生活
A-太郎：もっと簡単で徹底的な水洗方法のために前もって数時間か数日前に食生活を計画する人もいますが、大差だと思いません。C-太郎：プレイの２４時間の前に何も食べない人もいますが、余計と思います。プレイの１ー２時間の前には８ー１０時間腸内で大便の活動を防ぐの時々ロペラミド（反下痢薬）を取ると言いました。プレイのあとで大便の活動に続けさせるのためにブドウを時々食べます。

装置と方法
浣腸のシャワーノズルは洗いにくいですから、A-太郎が使いません。そのかわりホームセンターで買ったプラスチックな管を使います。先をつるつるに成らせるためにヤスリをかけます。けっして深すぎ差し込みません。衛生の目的のために定期的に管を換えます。大抵３回の濯ぎと流出が足りますが、時々もっとか掛かります。特別な技術がありません。「とにかく、やるよ！」と言います。深くフィストファックしたくなければ、深く濯ぎと流出が不必要です。

A-太郎：腸内に大便の物質が多いがありますから、最初濯ぎのために水を多い使いません。
二番目の濯ぎは大便の残りを取り除く。三番目の濯ぎはできるだけ大便を除去するの最後の確認です。濯ぎの合間に時々アナルプラグ（英語: BUTTPLUG）を差し込みます。プラグが脳に「大便をしたい」と通信を送るでっしょう。
アナルプラグをする間に家事をしたりテレビを見たりします。完全の手順は２０〜４５分掛かります。水温は体温に等しいか少し低いべきです。

濯ぎのあと腸内にまだゴボゴボがあれば、大便したいもう一度かもしれません。転ばぬ先の杖！A-太郎はパンツの事故を心配しましたから、フィストファックの待ち合わせを取り消しました。にもかかわらず、２、３日で排便しませんでした。

B-太郎：シャワーの１８インチ（４５．７センチ）フレキシブルな管を使います。ノズルが水を直角に先の３つの穴から吹きます。温かまたはぬるい水を使います。深い濯ぎのために管の全部長さを差し込んで、いっぱいの感覚するまで肛門をきつく閉めます。それからトイレに座って水を流出しました。大抵二回して、そして４５分ベッドに横たわって、もう一度濯ぎと流出します。この方法が１ー２時間掛かりますが、絶対のきれいのために必要であれば、もう一度します。

時々流出のためにトイレの代わりにシャワーで使います。流出する間に立つの腸内にもっと優しいかもしれません。「必要な時間を取って、流出の間に横たわってリラックスしなさい。」と勧めます。

左：B-太郎の管（３つの穴）右：C-太郎の管（先の穴）

C-太郎もシャワーの１８インチ（４５．７センチ）フレキシブルな管を使いますが、穴が管の側の代わりに先にあります。深い濯ぎ向けですが、二番の括約筋（英語:「PUBORECTALIS MUSCLE」、「THE SECOND RING」）の向こうを濯ぎしません。まず管の先と肛門にラブローションを少し塗ります。

大抵９０分間３回の濯ぎします。３番の濯ぎのあとは、フィストファックをするの前に、彼は３０ー４５分間で腸内に残りの液体を吸収させて「乾かせます」。シャワーで流出するほうが好きです。実は、水を満たすの間に大抵腸内を押します。さもないと水が大腸に高すぎる可能性があって、プレーの間に水が流出するかもしれません。しかしシャワーから出るのあと必要であればトイレに座ります。

二番の濯ぎは腸内にきつくくつっく大便の物質を流出するのためです。三回の濯ぎは最後の確認です。大抵その時、水だけです。時々最後の濯ぎのあと８インチ（２０．３センチ）の張形を差し込んでちょっとねじります。きれいに引き出せば、準備が整っていますよ！

濯ぎの間に不意の流出の警告の気を付けります。彼に「お腹または腸内にゴボゴボですか。」と聞きました。「そんなに明らかじゃない。」と言いました。「排便する必要の感覚ただなのです。」濯ぎ、流出、フィストファックするの何年も、流出するの感覚を分かります。

追加の忠告
肛門の括約筋が負傷されなければ、A-太郎はフィストファックが大便の永久の失禁を引き起こすと思いません。彼の経験には、フィストファックをされるのあとに、肛門の括約筋がいつもよりきついです。例えば、ウエイトトレーニングのあとに、筋肉がいつもよりもっときついのです。ただし、とくに強硬なフィストファックをされるのあとに、最初の少々時間でトイレの近くにいるの確かめます。ある日彼はフィストファックをされるのあとにスーパーにいってとき、パンツに排便してしまいましたから、はやく急いで帰らなければなりませんでした！

A-太郎の最後の忠告：タ千またはウケは「ウンコ恐怖症」が最も少ないあれば、フィストファックが適当じゃありませんた。できるだけ濯ぎしても、思いがけない出来事が起こるかもしれません。

B-太郎はA-太郎に同感しました。「ウンコ恐怖症」する人はフィストファックが適当じゃありません。「お尻とプレーすれば、早晩大便を見つけます。」

見ての通り、て三人はほとんど同じの濯ぎの方法します。はっきり違って方法があれば、教えて下さい！

頑張って！

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Japan Trip Part 5: Miscellaneous Anecdotes

2017-11-18T00:36:44Z

(The fifth in a five-part series about my Fall 2017 trip to Japan)

I stopped in a donut shop in Sendai to have a little snack and some coffee. As I sat there eating my donut, I noticed a straight couple in their 20s sitting across from me. They kept staring at me and snickering. I checked myself to see if I had spilled something on my shirt or if my fly were open, but no. I had no idea what was so amusing so I did my best to ignore them. A few minutes later, an elderly woman got up from where she was sitting. On her way to the door, she stopped at the couple's table and fairly spat at the young man—“FUCKHEAD!”—then left. What on earth? Had she seen the way they were treating me? Had they been doing the same to her before I arrived? And how on earth does an elderly Japanese lady know the word “fuckhead”?

In those four weeks, I didn't encounter a single speed bump. I also didn't see any barbed wire or razor wire, except around one post office in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. And I didn't hear a single leaf blower.

One morning I was watching a children's show on television in my hotel. A bright computer animated sun with a human face appeared and began to speak. The voice was familiar: was it actually drag queen Akihiro Miwa? Upon my return to the States, I did a little research and yes, it was indeed Miwa. The show was Nihongo De Asobo*, which roughly translates as “Let's Play With Japanese”.

In the photo, the four characters to the left are different emotions (from top to bottom, “joy”, “anger”, “sorrow”, and “ease”), and as each character was highlighted, Miwa would act out the emotion.

*This is curious; the volitional conjugation should be asobou. Perhaps this is a colloquial variation?

A couple of times, I was surprised to see guys in drag in public, but not “fabulous” drag the way we think in the West, like RuPaul or Violet Chachki or the aforementioned Miwa. In one store, I saw a guy of about 40 with long hair (possibly a wig, but I don't think so), sneakers, striped knee-high socks, a skirt, a long sleeved shirt, and a maid's white apron and cap. He did not wear any makeup. He wore a backpack and glasses. He certainly made an eccentric looking character, a bit on the frumpy side despite his brightly colored apparel, and definitely did not “pass” as a woman. He was just making his way through the store like the other customers, looking at books and minding his own business. Nobody else noticed him, or at least they didn't bother him. In the West, a man dressed in fabulous drag would attract attention, but most people would think he was doing it for a reason—perhaps he was there being filmed for RuPaul's Drag Race—and certainly not just to do a little window shopping. I suppose this man might have been transgendered—there is no requirement than any trans person, male or female, must “pass” (nor must cis-gender people). Such a man, except perhaps in a major city like New York City or Los Angeles, would probably be hooted at or hassled in America. I got the impression, however, that if this man had dressed this way in a small town in Japan, he would still be let alone.

I went to a Yoshinoya in Osaka for breakfast quite early one morning (I was in the mood for beef and raw egg). I was the only customer, except for a young man at the other end of the counter with his head buried in his arms, apparently asleep. After the server brought my food, she went to the man and said softly, “Okyakusama, daijoubu desu ka?” (Sir, are you okay?) a couple of times, then again, a little less softly. By now other customers had come in and were all watching this little drama. Finally, the server gently shook the man and repeated her question more loudly. At this, the young man stirred and dazedly began eating his food. He was probably hung over and had stumbled into the restaurant by chance. He got up to leave—without paying. The server called after him, loudly again, “Okyakusama!” but he paid no heed because he was wearing earphones. As he headed out the door, the chef heard the commotion and came running out of the kitchen. The server pointed to the customer and said “Iyahon!” (earphones). The chef gave chase and managed to get the customer to come back inside, who then paid his bill and stumbled outside again.

While in Osaka's Umeda area (a major shopping and entertainment district), I saw a man begging for change on the street. He wasn't the first homeless person I'd seen in Japan, though he was the first one I'd seen begging for change. What made him stand out in my mind was how he was begging. He was kneeling on a cardboard mat with his head touching the mat in a kowtow position, and a bowl for money a foot or so in front of him. He was absolutely motionless. I've never seen any homeless person, in Japan or in the States, in such a position of abject humility and supplication.

The Japanese don't seem to be afraid of certain colors. I saw utility vehicles, like dump trucks and steam shovels, painted bright pink or lavender! Few, if any American construction workers, except perhaps an LGBT one, would be caught dead in such a vehicle.

Part 1: Fisting in Shinjuku
Part 2: Porn, Porn Everywhere!
Part 3: Going to an Onsen
Part 4: Japanese Bondage
Part 5: Miscellaneous Anecdotes

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Japan Trip Part 4: Japanese Bondage

2017-11-14T00:46:40Z

(The fourth in a five-part series about my Fall 2017 trip to Japan)

I began corresponding with Tozan-kun (not his real name) about a year ago, after having seen his pictures online, most of which had him tied up in traditional Japanese bondage and sometimes being paddled or having clothes pins attached to him. I told him I would be coming to Japan in the fall of 2017 and suggested meeting. As the date grew nearer, he suggested we make it a three-way with his BDSM Master. I said that would be fine, except I wasn't really into receiving pain. He said I should talk about it to the Master directly, so I emailed him, and he said he would be happy just to tie me up.

There are two words that refer to Japanese bondage, shibari and kinbaku. There seems to be considerable debate, among both Japanese and English speakers, as to the difference between and use of these words, but for this blog entry I shall use shibari. I don't think the Master used either term, as he spoke English to me and just called it “rope-tying”.

Tozan-kun met me at my hotel. Despite each of us being armed with dictionaries, communication was difficult. He spoke almost no English, and my Japanese listening comprehension is pretty limited. It had been far easier to communicate by email. We had lunch, then hopped on a train for the Master's town. When we arrived, the Master let us in, and after a snack and some conversation, he suggested we go to the playroom. He said he would demonstrate on Tozan-kun how to do rope-tying. I assumed shibari was highly ritualized with traditional knots and positions for the subs. The Master did say he did not consider himself an expert in shibari, just experienced in tying people up. For our sessions:

1. The Master used only one kind of knot, or a variation of it, one with which I was already familiar, plus a standard double overhand knot.

2. I learned it is possible to tie two ropes together safely to add length, as demonstrated here. This solves the issue I've often had of wondering how much rope is needed for a particular tie. I always felt like my lengths were too short or too long. Any leftover rope can be used for decorative purposes.

3. I always assumed in shibari suspension the sub was tied up first, then hauled into the air via a pulley or similar, but no. The sub is tied standing up, and the rope harness around his chest is attached tautly to the point of suspension (for example, a hook in the ceiling). The sub then stands on one leg while the other is lifted behind him and tied. Finally, the other leg is bound, then pulled up behind the sub and voilà, he is suspended!

Tozan-kun did not get fully suspended due to a recent back injury. The Master suspended only one of his legs, leaving him to stand on the other. Then it was my turn. He asked which leg I preferred to stand on, and I said my right. After affixing my rope harness to a ceiling hook, he pulled my left leg behind me and suspended it. I had told him earlier of my lower back issues and so could not be put into any position where my back was arched, so I didn't know if he was going to fully suspend me or not. He then said quickly, “One two three!” and pulled my right leg out from under me and tied it. I was now fully suspended from the ceiling. This pose did not put any stress on my back. It felt a little strange to be hanging in this fashion, but the only unpleasant feeling was a slight dizziness as I slowly spun. Finally, he released my right leg, then the other, then untied me. Tozan-kun and I got dressed and the three of us went out for dinner.

Upon our return, the Master said there was time for one more play session and he wanted to tie us side-by-side from two hooks, about four feet apart in the ceiling, without suspension. I suggested he bind us as a single unit from one hook. He blindfolded and bound Tozan-kun, then put a hood on my head and bound me as well. He then had us face each other while he tied us together. In this position, Tozan-kun and I were able to grab each others' dicks and masturbated as best we could while the Master wrapped us from foot to head in shipping plastic (sort of like Saran Wrap). I'd never been mummified but it was a pleasant feeling being bound so closely to Tozan-kun. In fact, after the Master removed the wrap, I felt a little vulnerable. He untied us, and after Tozan-kun and I took turns in the o-furo (bath), we chatted for a while, then we all turned in. The Master had laid two futon on the floor in the guest room, side by side, essentially making one large sleeping area for the two of us, then he retired to his own room. In the west, what is called a futon is like a sofa bed, whereas in Japan a futon consists of a thin mattress and a duvet, both of which can be folded and placed in a closet for storage, which allows the room to be used for other purposes during the day.

I wasn't sure how Tozan-kun felt about sharing a room with me. He had stolen a kiss in the elevator as we were heading to lunch, but he seemed more distant as the day grew. Not wanting him to feel completely left out of the conversations, I tried to speak Japanese as much as possible, but the Master always responded to me in English. Occasionally he would speak to him in Japanese, but for the most part Tozan-kun sat silently watching us. Once the lights were out, Tozan-kun and I cuddled a little, but he soon rolled over on his side, facing away from me. I guessed he wasn't interested in going further, so I too rolled over and went to sleep.

The next morning, Tozan-kun all but pounced on me, ravishing me with tremendous ardor, and rolling on top of me with his full weight. I wondered if this had anything to do with a conversation we'd had the day before while eating lunch. Tozan-kun seemed confused as to whether I was a top or bottom. I tried to explain I was primarily a top but did enjoy being restrained, either with ropes or by being pinned down. I really didn't have the vocabulary for this; the best I could do was try to compare being restrained to being pinned in wrestling. Maybe he thought I wanted to wrestle, so I went along with it. We alternated between this rigorous wrestling and a more gentle, sensuous play, then began jacking ourselves off towards a climax. However, the Master called us from the dining room to come down for breakfast. Figuring it was probably best not to keep him waiting and let our breakfast get cold, we dressed hurriedly and scampered downstairs.

After breakfast, I said we needed to get going and thanked the Master for his hospitality. Tozan-kun led the way to the station, but walked so quickly I had to jog just to keep up with him. What was the hurry, I wondered. On the train we mostly rode in silence. Between the language barrier and the very noisy train, I didn't want to try to have a conversation. Tozan-kun sat looking somewhat glum until we reached the station at my hotel and he said goodbye. Despite the play that morning, I felt bad—I felt bad that we could barely communicate, that he seemed left out of most of the conversations with the Master, and I felt my attempts to speak Japanese had disappointed him. Was the rush for the station just his desire to get this meeting over as soon as possible?

A few hours later, however, I got an email from him, in which he said he enjoyed our morning encounter tremendously, that he was glad we had become friends, that he respected my efforts to learn and speak Japanese, that he hoped we would see each other again in the future, and that he sent me his love. Needless to say, this message made me very happy.

Part 1: Fisting in Shinjuku
Part 2: Porn, Porn Everywhere!
Part 3: Going to an Onsen
Part 4: Japanese Bondage
Part 5: Miscellaneous Anecdotes

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「浦島太郎物語」の漫画 / Urashima Tarō comic, now in Japanese!

2017-11-11T04:46:44Z

In 2006 I did an erotic English language comic adaptation of a famous Japanese fairy tale, The Tale of Urashima Tarō. Eleven years later, I decided to translate it (as best I can) into Japanese.

２００６年に英語で「浦島太郎物語」のエロチックの漫画を作りました。十一年の後で、日本語で訳しました！翻訳の間違いがあれば、ごめんなさい。

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Japan Trip Part 3: Going to an Onsen

2017-11-09T23:14:05Z

(The third in a five-part series about my Fall 2017 trip to Japan)

Furo
Usually said with an honorific prefix: o-furo. A Japanese bathtub that is deeper but not as long as American tubs. Many Japanese homes and hotels, both traditional and modern, have o-furo.

Sentou
A Japanese bathhouse.

Onsen
Similar to a sentou, but using water from a hot spring. Sentou usually have just plain water.

While in Japan I had the opportunity to go to several onsen. Public bathhouses have long been a tradition in Japan, though numbers have declined due to the fact most modern homes now have baths. The difference from one bathhouse to another is usually in the design and amenities offered, but not the basic layout of the bathing areas or the bathing procedure.

After checking in at the front desk, you will receive a bath towel, washcloth, and robe. If you're staying in a hotel with an onsen, these items are usually already in your room. The first thing you do upon entering the bathing area (usually segregated by gender, though not always) is remove your shoes. Sometimes you leave them by the entrance, while in other places there are pigeon hole boxes. You might think, wouldn't some people be tempted to steal your shoes? Perhaps, but Japan is a very honest country. In public housing apartments (danchi), which can be very small, the residents sometimes keep their extra belongings in the hall, in full sight of their neighbors. Bikes are often left unlocked in public. I left behind my passport and videocam in an Osaka coffeeshop and didn't realize it until two hours later. Although I raced back to the coffeeshop to retrieve them, I was reasonably confident someone had turned them in instead of taking them.

There are small lockers for your valuables, but not your clothing. In the next area is the changing room. Instead of lockers, there are shelves with baskets. Everything you're wearing goes in there, including your bath towel.

You then proceed to the washing area. I can't speak for the ladies' side, but for the men there is a row of “stations”. Each station has a small stool, a handheld showerhead, a mirror, a faucet for filling a large plastic bowl (for dumping water over your head), soap, shampoo, conditioner, and sometimes disposable razors. You never enter the bathing area without washing first. You sit on the stool (good idea to hose it down first), then lather up and rinse. The showerheads and the faucets have a mechanism so they shut off automatically after about 30 seconds to prevent wasting water.

You then step into the bathing area. Some Japanese men will coyly cover their genitals with the washcloth as they walk around, but once they get in the water, they will set the towel aside or fold it and place it on top of their heads. The washcloth is never immersed.

The bath water is about two feet deep, just enough to come up to your chin. Depending on your health and your tolerance for heat, a soak may last five minutes or longer. I usually sat about fifteen minutes. Immersion in hot water is not recommended if you've been drinking, partly due to the risk of drowning (I never saw an attendant on duty) and also the increased risk of dehydration and heat exhaustion.

When you get out, you use the washcloth to wipe off the excess water. From here, everything happens in reverse. You may choose to rinse off in the washing area. You then dry off, get dressed, go back to the locker room to get your valuables, then the outer area to put on your shoes. The changing rooms sometimes have hair dryers, more disposable razors, ear swabs, toothbrushes, and a fan to help you cool off. There may also be a lounge, where one can relax before getting dressed. There may be more electric fans, massage chairs, and vending machines with beverages and snacks.

Here are a few differences from place to place:

24 Kaiken (gay bathhouse in Shinjuku, Tokyo)
There are two soaking tubs, one hotter than the other. I'm pretty sure the water was just regular water, not from a hot spring.

Route Inn Grantia Hotel, Hakodate
The onsen was on the hotel's top floor. In the bath you could get a view of the bay and the city. The water was 42°C (107°F), a somewhat rusty color, with a faint but not unpleasant smell. Instead of the customary robe, the hotel provided a two-piece pajama style outfit, which you could also wear around the hotel. I would like to add this was one of the best hotels at which I've ever stayed. Friendly staff, a very short walk from the main train station, a delicious free breakfast buffet of Western and Japanese foods, a desktop computer and a coffee machine in the lobby (both free to use, and each cup of coffee is made with fresh grounds).

APA Villa Hotel, Sendai
There were two tubs but the temperature seemed the same. The second was much smaller and in a separate space. The water was clear.

Ryokusuitei Resort, Sendai
A very large ground level bath in the countryside. There were two very large tubs, almost like pools; the temperature seemed the same and the water was clear. The bathing area was brightly sunlit. One may also step through a back door and follow a path to an outside bath built into a rock pond. The water had no scent but had a buttery tint. It was quite nice to soak outside under the trees, and there was a sort of brazier, probably for burning a fire at night or in the colder months. There was also a dry sauna. I got to keep my washcloth (which had the resort's name on it) as a souvenir.

My visit to Sendai was mostly so I could meet, for the first time, a penpal of twelve years, an older heterosexual gentleman named Ohayou-kun (not his real name). When I responded in the affirmative to his suggestion we check out an onsen, he warned me I would be expected to disrobe completely. I said that was no problem. He later told me he was impressed I disrobed so nonchalantly—in his experience, Westerners usually make a fuss about having to bathe nude. Nearly every onsen I went to had a sign forbidding bathing suits.

Dormy Inn, Matsumoto
The onsen was about nine floors up, with an outdoor soaking area directly underneath the illuminated hotel sign!

So, does any action take place in the onsen? Do guys on the down-low go there for some relief? Outside of the gay baths, I think not. I am all but blind without my glasses, and though I did try to wear them into one of the baths, it was so warm the glasses fogged up instantly and I couldn't see a thing. For all I knew when I didn't have my glasses on, guys could've been cruising me left and right, but this seems unlikely. The baths don't necessarily have any sexual connotation and the Japanese tend to be on the shy side, so one's eyes are usually straight forward or down.

The tubs usually shut down twice a day in the mid-afternoon and in the wee hours for a thorough cleaning. These places are immaculate, even the gay bathhouse. I never felt uneasy about walking barefoot or sitting in the tubs. In one gay bathhouse I used to frequent in Los Angeles, the hot tub smelled like it had more chlorine than water in it (easier I suppose just to dump in a barrel of chlorine rather than scrubbing the tub clean once in a while), and the place was quite popular with the cockroaches.

Part 1: Fisting in Shinjuku
Part 2: Porn, Porn Everywhere!
Part 3: Going to an Onsen
Part 4: Japanese Bondage
Part 5: Miscellaneous Anecdotes

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Japan Trip Part 2: Porn, Porn Everywhere!

2017-11-04T23:26:56Z

(The second in a five-part series about my Fall 2017 trip to Japan)

On a Wednesday, I traveled to Jinbōchō, an area of Tokyo near the Imperial Palace that boasts nearly 200 stores featuring used books of every variety, not only in Japanese but also English and undoubtedly other languages. And sure enough, up and down the many narrow alleys surrounding Jinbōchō station, there they were. The first store that caught my eye on the main street, however, was an adult bookstore with three floors of magazines, DVDs, and toys. Everything I looked at featured female models, so I finally asked the clerk if they had anything gay. He thought for a moment, then led me to one section and pulled a gay bears manga (comic book) from the shelf. There were a few of these, occupying about six inches of shelf space, but that was it. I asked the clerk if there were any gay photo magazines but he said no, though I did see a couple of the “chicks with dicks” variety.

I left, then began exploring the used book stores. After visiting about twenty of them, I found myself on another main street of restaurants, shops, and convenience stores. It was the lunch hour, so the street was quite busy with pedestrians. I saw what appeared to be a magazine store. Inside, there was a small assortment of everyday magazines: fashion, current events, and so on. But the rest of the store was dedicated to porn: a mix of manga and photo mags. Now, in Japan, there are laws on the books regarding the depiction of genitals: they are either not supposed to be shown at all, or must be obscured or hidden (for example, blurred with a digital mosaic or with the model posing behind a strategically-placed vase). Anuses are not considered genitals, so they can be shown. The modern “tentacle sex” genre was supposedly begun to get around the censorship laws. A penis entering a vagina must be blurred, but a tentacle entering an anus? No problem! The enforcement of these laws has always seemed inconsistent, but I was still surprised to see many magazines right in the open featuring completely unobscured genitals. One magazine even featured a woman taking a shit in glorious closeup. And this shop was on a main street? The magazines were all sealed in plastic, so I had no idea what was actually inside. How many of us, in ye olde days before internet porn, have purchased a sealed magazine only to discover the inside was nothing like what was depicted on the cover?

One thing I noticed about Tokyo was there seemed to be no zoning laws, or at least not as we understand them in America. Just walking through Ikebukuro one may see a convenience store next to a house next to a restaurant, or a set of modest apartments right next to a ritzy department store. So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at seeing porn shops on main streets. The real surprise, however, came when I walked into a very pristine, elegant book store. There were sports magazines, travel magazines, cooking magazines, and—well, more porn manga! No photo mags, but imagine walking into Barnes & Noble and finding The Hun's “Big Sig and The Coach” a few feet away from Time magazine.

A couple of weeks later I was exploring a luxury shopping mall in Sendai, with stores like Swarovski, Ralph Lauren, Bulgari, Tiffany's and—that's right!—a porn shop. I am tempted to say this is a sign of a sexually progressive society, except we've seen this is not necessarily so. I also didn't see anything in these shops marketed towards women, such as a Japanese equivalent of Playgirl, although there are entire stores dedicated to booizurabu manga (boys' love comics). These aren't porn, but usually romantic stories about high school boys or college age men in love—sort of the equivalent of a Harlequin romance novel. There is a depiction of romance (kissing, holding hands) or post-coital scenes (cuddling in bed), but usually no nudity aside from the occasional butt, and no graphic images of sex. Most gay men in Japan don't read these; there are separate gay comics aimed at gay men. But except for Shinjuku Ni-Chōme (Tokyo's primary gay district) and the store in Jinbōchō with the gay bears manga, I did not see gay porn anywhere else.

Part 1: Fisting in Shinjuku
Part 2: Porn, Porn Everywhere!
Part 3: Going to an Onsen
Part 4: Japanese Bondage
Part 5: Miscellaneous Anecdotes

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Japan Trip Part 1: Fisting in Shinjuku

2017-11-03T23:07:58Z

(The first in a five-part series about my Fall 2017 trip to Japan)

I arrived at Shinjuku station on a typically hot and humid Tokyo summer day. Before I left for Japan, I had arranged to meet a guy for some fisting play; he suggested we meet at 3pm in front of a gay bathhouse called 24 Kaikan, located in Shinjuku Ni-Chōme, Tokyo's primary gay district. If you've never been to a large train station in a major Japanese city, they are like mazes, despite the many maps on display. I'd been to Shinjuku a few days earlier and had gotten lost. I was determined not to do that again and came with my own detailed map, but I still got turned around leaving the station. Finally, I stopped in a konbini (convenience store) to ask for directions, only to find I had been heading completely the wrong way. I finally arrived at 24 Kaikan a little ahead of schedule.

My play buddy, let's call him Renonmae-kun, was texting me as he was making his way through Tokyo to Shinjuku. My Japanese is so-so but I couldn't understand what he was texting. Finally, I simply said I was going to wait at 24 Kaikan for him. We had connected through a gay dating site but he hadn't posted any face pics, so I was delightfully surprised to see this handsome hottie come walking up to me. He said he needed to buy some water and some lube before we went inside. I'd already been looking for Crisco or something similar since I arrived in Japan, but none of the grocery stores carried it. Renonmae-kun said it was available only in specialty baking stores. His English was better than my Japanese, but I spoke Japanese when I was able.

When you first enter 24 Kaikan, you take off your shoes and put them in a locker, then go to a vending machine in the lobby to pay your entry fee (¥2500; about 22USD). You give your entry ticket and shoe locker key to the clerk, and he gives you another locker key and a bag containing a robe, belt, and two towels. In the locker room I stripped and began putting on the robe, but nobody else was wearing one, so I wrapped the towel around my waist instead.

Renonmae-kun gave me a tour of 24 Kaikan; I had been there eleven years earlier, and it hadn't changed much at all. The facility is eight stories tall, complete with elevator and a recorded woman's voice cheerfully announcing on which floor you had landed. There is rooftop sunbathing, a sauna, a steam room, Western and Japanese style showers and o-furo (bathing tubs), private rooms, orgy rooms in varying degrees of illumination (some with bedding on the floor, some with bunk beds), a small room with a sling and a fuck bench, and parking.

We sat on the rooftop level and chatted. I asked him if it was difficult to be gay in Japan. He said it was pretty easy in the city, but he wouldn't want to be gay and living in the country. Another guy with whom I had chatted online said his city had gay bars, but gay life didn't exist outside of them. I then asked Renonmae-kun if he ever felt lonely; surely it was more difficult to be out to family or coworkers than in America. He said he wasn't out to his family, but he had friends who knew, and it was really no big deal. He seemed shy, and kept saying if I saw anyone I liked, I should go for it. I rubbed his leg and said I would keep that in mind. He rubbed my leg back, then suggested we go to the sling room.

There was a blindfolded guy in the sling, waiting for whoever came along. One patron began fingering his ass, and a group gathered to watch. Renonmae-kun, still seeming uncertain about himself, suggested I might fist the blindfolded guy. Instead, I caressed Renonmae-kun; he caressed me back, and I gave him a tentative kiss. My impression was that Japanese are not a casually kissing kind of people, but he responded quite enthusiastically and we began making out. The guy in the sling was still getting his ass fingered but was also sucking on another guy. The room was now getting quite crowded so Renonmae-kun suggested we go elsewhere. He said private rooms were extra but I said the bunk bed room was fine. I said I didn't mind if people watched—he giggled and called me a pervert.

I chose a bunk bed near the doorway to the hall where there was some illumination; the bunk bed was double wide and we climbed into the top bunk, then spent a considerable amount of time making out. I told him he was ikemen (very handsome); he blushed and rolled his eyes, then called me sexy. After a while, we cooled down a bit and just lay side-by-side in an embrace, his head on my shoulder. I asked him if he knew what the English word “cuddling” meant, and he said yes. After a while our energies returned and we resumed making out. From time to time, guys would stop by the bunk bed and watch. I wondered, in the semi-darkness, if anyone could tell I was a Westerner? In my previous visit to 24 Kaikan, I didn't score with anyone. I couldn't tell if it was because I was a Westerner, or because they just didn't like my particular looks.

After a while, Renonmae-kun suggested we try the sling room again, which was now empty. He got in the sling; I put on my gloves and started lubing his ass, and began working in a finger. He was extremely tight and seemed nervous. I promised I would go slowly. I asked him when he was last fisted; he said it had been about three months, then another three months before that. A crowd was beginning to gather again, no doubt intrigued by the Westerner with the blue nitrile gloves. Alas, the sling room was adjacent to the shower area; every evening around 5pm an army of custodians moves in and scrubs the whole floor, so we had to return to our bunk bed. Renonmae-kun lay on his back and held his legs up, but still seemed nervous so I told him in Japanese:

目を閉めて。	Me wo shimete.	Close your eyes.
考えないで。	Kangaenaide.	Don't think.
寛いで。	Kutsuroide.	Relax.
花のように開いて。	Hana no you ni aite.	Open (up) like a flower.

As I was gently massaging and stretching his asshole, a few guys gathered to watch. One began jacking Renonmae-kun's dick. I knew that stimulating the dick can cause the asshole to clench, so I told Renonmae-kun, in English, if the guy was distracting him, to ask him to stop, which he did. By now, his head was lolling back and forth and he kept sighing kimochi (It feels good).

I told him if his legs were getting tired, he could rest them on my shoulders. I now had my whole hand in his butt but didn't do as much manipulation as usual because the lube just wasn't lubricious enough. After about fifteen minutes, Renonmae-kun said he'd had enough. I said:

ゆっくり引っ込める。	Yukkuri hikkomeru.	I will withdraw slowly.
押さないで。	Osanaide.	Don't push.
独りでに出させて。	Hitori de ni dasasete.	Let (my hand) withdraw by itself.

He chuckled. Maybe he was amused I seemed to know fisting Japanese better than conversational Japanese. I pulled out slowly and told him to keep lying there as I gently caressed his body. Finally, I lay down next to him so we could cuddle again. He was now sighing ureshii (I'm happy). He said I was very jou zu (skillful), and I said, “Well, it is my name!” I told him Renonmae-kun ha kokoro ga utsukushii (Renonmae's spirit is beautiful). He blushed. It had been a wonderful experience, far better than I anticipated. Finally we got up to shower. A handsome Daddy sitting on the shower stool next to him said he'd been one of the guys watching us, and that he'd tried to get fisted before but hadn't been successful.

Renonmae-kun said he needed to get going, and since 24 Kaikan was far busier than usual, he suggested I stick around to play some more with the other patrons. And I would've, except:

1. I was ravenously hungry by now.
2. I had an early train to catch to Kamakura the next day.
3. Mostly, I wanted him to walk me to my station, because I was tired of getting lost in Shinjuku.

We got dressed, and as we were putting on our shoes in the lobby, I asked if I could take a selfie of us: yes. I said I hoped we could keep in touch: yes.

We walked towards my station. When I saw the entry gate, I headed for it but Renonmae-kun said we should take a different entrance so I wouldn't have to go up and down as many stairs inside. We skipped the next entry gate before he saw me off. We were reluctant to hug or kiss in front of everyone, so we clasped each other on the shoulders, said our thanks, and I went through the gate. When I looked back over my shoulder he was still standing there, smiling at me, waiting until I was out of sight.

Part 1: Fisting in Shinjuku
Part 2: Porn, Porn Everywhere!
Part 3: Going to an Onsen
Part 4: Japanese Bondage
Part 5: Miscellaneous Anecdotes

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Sex in Japan

2017-09-12T00:08:06Z

Recently, I had the privilege of seeing an advance screening of Boys for Sale, a documentary about male prostitution in modern day Japan, particularly that by men in their early 20s, nearly all of whom are straight. The film certainly raised a lot of questions about sex and sexuality in Japan, although one must keep in mind the opinions expressed in the film by these somewhat unworldly young men may not express the opinions of the average Japanese person or of those in different demographics (e.g., LGBTs, older people, women).

What stood out the most for me was the difference in attitudes about sex in America and Japan. Despite America's often puritanical and juvenile attitude about sex, not to mention some of the violent homophobia that occurs, there are household names such as Dr. Ruth and Dan Savage who discuss sexuality on TV or in newspaper columns. Bookstores like Barnes & Noble have whole sections dedicated to human sexuality and one can find, in blogs, podcasts, and even on YouTube, just about anything there is to know about sex, pregnancy, STIs, kinks, and so on.

Japan, on the other hand, seems to have been a sexually progressive society until Commodore Perry showed up in 1852 and forced Japan to open its shores to trade with the West. Japan, fearing it looked "primitive" to Western countries and thus not to be taken seriously in international politics and trade, began toning down its mores regarding prostitution and non-heteronormative sexuality. Today in Japan there is a strange mix of fertility festivals where giant penises are paraded through the streets and penis-shaped food is sold, while artist Megumi Igarashi (aka Rokudenashiko, “Good For Nothing Girl”) was recently arrested and charged with obscenity when she made a working canoe in the shape of her vulva. There are "love hotels" where guests can rent a room by the hour and which can be found in the middle of the most upscale neighborhoods in Tokyo, and “Soaplands”, a sort of Turkish bath, usually where women bathe men. There are activists like Akihiro Miwa, an openly gay singer, author, and drag queen, but also Masaki Sumitami, a straight comedian whose flamboyant yet hypermasculine alter-ego “Hard Gay” has generated considerable debate whether he is merely good-natured parody or offensive. There are erotic manga, comic books that go far beyond, both artistically and in imagination, what you see in Western erotic art, as well as porn magazines and videos which, even today, are required by law to blur the genitalia.

Despite all of this, some of the young men in Boys For Sale demonstrate a lack of basic knowledge about sexuality. One of them marvels that older men can be sexually active. Another believes a soapy shower is enough to eliminate the risk of catching STIs. I’m not saying one culture or the other is better or worse, I’m just struck by the differences.

Thanks to producer Ian Thomas Ash for making the advance screening of Boys for Sale available to me, and thanks to our mutual friend "A" for putting me in touch with him. Ironically, the film will be appearing at the Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival while I'll be in Japan. I'm leaving tomorrow, as a matter of fact, for four weeks. Some of the trip is for sightseeing and shopping and finally meeting some penpals of mine, one of whom I've been corresponding with for about ten years but we've yet to met. I also hope to meet members of the LGBT community as well, both for play and to try to learn more about sexuality in Japan. Besides my interest in interviewing patrons of gay bars in Japan in the 1960s, I'm curious to know what daily life is like for LGBTs. Are some able to be openly gay in a culture like Japan's, either to families, friends, or at work? Do they entertain the possibility of marriage? Are kinks generally regarded as an aberration or is there a healthy, affirming BDSM community? Homophobia in Japan may be less violent and the hatred not so outright as in America, but my impression is being LGBT is still treated like a isolating, dirty little secret.

Boys for Sale will screen at the Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival on September 22, 2017.
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Sex in Japan

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