page_title: Homosexuality in Japan
section_title: Monastic same-sex "love"
hierarchical_section_title: Homosexuality in Japan / Pre-Meiji Japan / Monastic same-sex "love"
context_page_description: Records of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. Western scholars have identified these as evidence of homosexuality in Japan. Though these relations had existed in Japan for millennia, they became most apparent to scholars during the Tokugawa period. Historical practices identified by scholars as homosexual include shudō, wakashudō and nanshoku.
  The Japanese term nanshoku is the Japanese reading of the same characters in Chinese, which literally mean "male colors". The character 色 has the added meaning of "sexual pleasure" in both China and Japan. This term was widely used to refer to some kind of male to male sex in a pre-modern era of Japan. The term shudō is also used, especially in older works.
  During the Meiji period nanshoku started to become discouraged due to the rise of sexology within Japan and the process of westernization.
  Modern terms for homosexuals include dōseiaisha, okama, gei, homo or homosekusharu, onabe, bian /rezu and
  rezubian.
context_section_description: Nanshoku relationships inside monasteries were typically pederastic: an age-structured relationship where the younger partner is not considered an adult. The older partner, or nenja (念者, "lover" or "admirer"), would be a monk, priest or abbot, while the younger partner was assumed to be an acolyte (稚児, chigo), who would be a prepubescent or adolescent boy; the relationship would be dissolved once the boy reached adulthood (or left the monastery). Both parties were encouraged to treat the relationship seriously and conduct the affair honorably, and the nenja might be required to write a formal vow of fidelity. Outside of the monasteries, monks were considered to have a particular predilection for male prostitutes, which was the subject of much ribald humor.
  There is no evidence so far of religious opposition to homosexuality within Japan in non-Buddhist traditions. Tokugawa commentators felt free to illustrate kami engaging in anal sex with each other. During the Tokugawa period, some of the Shinto gods, especially Hachiman, Myoshin, Shinmei and Tenjin, "came to be seen as guardian deities of nanshoku" (male–male love). Tokugawa-era writer Ihara Saikaku joked that since there are no women for the first three generations in the genealogy of the gods found in the Nihon Shoki, the gods must have enjoyed homosexual relationships—which Saikaku argued was the real origin of nanshoku.
  In contrast to the norms in religious circles, in the warrior (samurai) class it was customary for a boy in the wakashū age category to undergo training in the martial arts by apprenticing to a more experienced adult man. According to Furukawa, the relationship was based on the model of a typically older nenja, paired with a typically younger chigo.
   The man was permitted, if the boy agreed, to take the boy as his lover until he came of age; this relationship, often formalized in a "brotherhood contract", was expected to be exclusive, with both partners swearing to take no other (male) lovers.
  This practice, along with clerical pederasty, developed into the codified system of age-structured homosexuality known as shudō, abbreviated from wakashūdō, the "way (Tao) of wakashū". The older partner, in the role of nenja, would teach the chigo martial skills, warrior etiquette, and the samurai code of honor, while his desire to be a good role model for his chigo would lead him to behave more honorably himself; thus a shudō relationship was considered to have a "mutually ennobling effect". In addition, both parties were expected to be loyal unto death, and to assist the other both in feudal duties and in honor-driven obligations such as duels and vendettas. Although sex between the couple was expected to end when the boy came of age, the relationship would, ideally, develop into a lifelong bond of friendship. At the same time, sexual activity with women was not barred (for either party), and once the boy came of age, both were free to seek other wakashū lovers.
  Like later Edo same-sex practices, samurai shudō was strictly role-defined; the nenja was seen as the active, desiring, penetrative partner, while the younger, sexually receptive wakashū was considered to submit to the nenja's attentions out of love, loyalty, and affection, rather than sexual desireᵈ] Among the samurai class, adult men were (by definition) not permitted to take the wakashū role; only preadult boys (or, later, lower-class men) were considered legitimate targets of homosexual desire. In some cases, shudō relationships arose between boys of similar ages, but the parties were still divided into nenja and wakashū roles.
caption: Man and youth, Miyagawa Isshō, ca. 1750; Panel from a series of ten on a shunga-style painted hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk. Private collection. Note that the youth on the left is wearing a kimono whose style (furisode) and color was considered appropriate for adolescents of both sexes but not adult men, which along with the partially shaved pate denotes the boy's wakashū age status while the exposed bare feet indicates the purely sexual demeanor.
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