J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

Perhaps these comics are young boy love, or perhaps they are Yaoi (the more pornographic version) I am not sure. Yaoi means "no mountains, no punchlines, no meaning," just gay sex. Or perhaps, following Erica Jong, "zipless" sexuality.

Yaoi comics are purchased by young women who find reading books about male-male romantic/sexual relationships, to be less embarassing and more interesting than reading about relationships between men and women. Most commentators suggest that this is because women are repressed and want to identify with males who have a slightly better, freeer, more expressive position in Japanese society. I think that this interpretation only slightly misses the mark.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, it seem that in Japan, expressions of *male* sexuality are not taboo, whereas any expression of female desire has been hidden since the beginning of time. Hence, when young girls want to read about romantic love and sexuality, they find man on man love and lust, pure and innocent and unthreatening.

There is method to this madness. I call it Japan as Lacan in the mirror.

Labels: culture, japan, japanese culture, Jaques Lacan, lacan, manga, nihonbunka, sex, taboo, tabuu, theory, 日本文化