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Chapter Two Silence, Sin, and the System: Women’s Same-Sex Practices in Japan

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Book cover Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia

Part of the book series: Comparative Feminist Studies Series ((CFS))

Abstract

In the above epigraph a heterosexually married lesbian woman reflects on the reasons why she finds it almost impossible to get a divorce from her husband, whom she does not love, while she broke up with her woman lover, whom she loves deeply even after their separation. In the collection of testimonies from which this passage is taken, lesbian women tell of the self-hate and self-destruction that follow from their realization that they do not want to lead a “normal” married life. In spite of a lesbian movement that started in Japan in the 1980s and a “gay boom” in the early 1990s, many lesbian women I spoke to during my stay in Tokyo in 1998 echoed similar feelings of isolation and despair. What then is this “system” that, with silence as one of its major tools of surveillance, and shame and sin as its major effects, encourages heterosexual marriage so strongly, while it ignores women’s same-sex desires and allows “demons” to destroy lesbian relations? A prominent lesbian academic, now in her old age, said to me: “Maybe, 50 years from now sexuality will be liberated in Japan and we may enjoy it in whatever way we fancy. Some may like fishing; others may like to have sex. But present-day society is sex-obsessed. There is an enormous power game going on which controls everyone’s feelings and links sexual desires to shame and guilt.”1

Lesbian couples cannot receive the blessing of the system. The system restricts freedom and is inconvenient, but it encourages heterosexual relations to last forever … Even while my lover and I were embracing problems, we believed that we would continue our relationship until death do us part. Despite these feelings, a demon slipped through a crack created by our fatigue and misunderstandings. In between our accusations the crack widened. With no cover from the system, a person’s heart was overwhelmed by this demon.

—Itoh 1998:161

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Authors
  1. Saskia E. Wieringa
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indonesia

    Saskia E. Wieringa (anthropologist, Professor of Women’s Same-sex Sexuality Cross-culturally and director of the International Women’s Center and Archives) (anthropologist, Professor of Women’s Same-sex Sexuality Cross-culturally and director of the International Women’s Center and Archives)

  2. University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Saskia E. Wieringa (anthropologist, Professor of Women’s Same-sex Sexuality Cross-culturally and director of the International Women’s Center and Archives) (anthropologist, Professor of Women’s Same-sex Sexuality Cross-culturally and director of the International Women’s Center and Archives)

  3. Purdue University, USA

    Evelyn Blackwood (Associate Professor in Anthropology and Women’s Studies) (Associate Professor in Anthropology and Women’s Studies)

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© 2007 Saskia E. Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood, and Abha Bhaiya

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Wieringa, S.E. (2007). Chapter Two Silence, Sin, and the System: Women’s Same-Sex Practices in Japan. In: Wieringa, S.E., Blackwood, E., Bhaiya, A. (eds) Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia. Comparative Feminist Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230604124_2

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