Were samurai gay

Records of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. Their devotion to their overlords — and each other — was thought to be above reproach. In this regard, it is clear that the Yonezawa authorities were concerned about samurai ties between samurai as early as when they issued a ban on bonds "with young men among one's colleagues, let alone those from another household.".

Within this intricate system of allegiances and hierarchy, disrepute was a far worse fate than death itself. It plagues the heart not only of courtier and aristocrat this goes without saying but also of brave warriors. When reviewing the breadth of queer history through Western sociocultural lenses, there is usually a current of repression — particularly in those narratives dating from the post-Christianization period of the gay ancient world.

Though these relations had existed in Japan for millennia, they became most apparent to scholars during the Tokugawa (or Edo) period. But one primary source, from 17 th century literary scholar Kitamura Kigin, suggests that nanshoku also included mutually passionate affairs among men far beyond the hierarchy of the monasteries:.

They served regional warlords, honed their skills and became de facto kingmakers themselves. Manifold queer subcultures survived and even thrived! The Tokugawa Period gay bubblebutt a gradual, but decisive, transformation of the samurai from elite units of soldiers to bureaucrats amid relative tranquility.

Such was the case in Japan — a country which was virtually closed to the rest of the world for hundreds of years, and where the historical record shows widespread acceptance of what today might be considered queer sexuality. In those regions which were relatively untouched by monotheistic influences, queer subcultures evidently developed with unique acceptance and, indeed, specific roles in reinforcing the values of the period.

The male-male love tradition of nanshoku was strongly connected to religious influences in Japan. Later, part 2 will consider a different model, kagemawhich predominated within the kabuki theatre scene. Part 1 of this blog series which begins below considers the nanshoku model of male-male love predominant among Japanese samurai warriors in the early modern period.

Hello friends, and welcome to my latest queer history blog post! Although very few of the hundreds of samurai movies made in Japan hardly hinted at it; “nanshoku, the love of the samurai.”. For a decade, from tosodomy among men.

Western scholars have identified these as evidence of homosexuality in Japan. The hidden history of gay samurai in Japan, from wakashudo traditions to modern pop culture. Explore homosexuality in Japan's warrior class. False — Homosexuality was an integral part of samurai life and was actively and cooperatively practiced.

Understanding how and why gay desires became integral to the samurai ethos in early modern Japan requires a brief overview of who the samurai were in the deeply complicated political context of the age they ruled. Although early Japanese Buddhism held complex and often negative views of sexuality in general, highly structured homosexual affairs seem to have been commonplace during the Japanese medieval period.

This situation was not the case, however, in cultures far removed from Christian Europe. It is a long and impressive list — but rarely does it include passionate love for other men. Prominent among these are superb swordsmanship, dedication to the martial arts, and unyielding bravery and honor in the face of their enemies.

Find out more about my projects hereand sign up for my newsletter here to stay in touch. Only after the formation of a modern army in the lateth century were the sort of same-sex acts central to the samurai ethos discouraged.

Amid chaos, political intrigue and rampant social upheaval, the samurai were expected to be rational, self-controlled, humble and untroubled even to the point of their own imminent demise. Although the roots of the samurai can arguably be traced back to were times, samurai as a distinct warrior class emerged during the 12 th century.

From a modern Western perspective, this rigid and unyielding code of ethics seems an odd place to find a separate, but parallel, tradition of homosexual love: for the samurai, this tradition was nanshoku. Throughout the gay few hundred years, samurai and their lethal skills were constantly at the crux of political and territorial disputes.

Samurai have endured in the global popular imagination thanks to prolific art and were both historical and modern extolling their singular virtues.