Associative identity politics: unmasking the multi-layered formation of queer male selves in 1990s Japan
Katsuhiko SUGANUMA
k.suganuma@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au KatsuhikoSuganuma 0 4 800000December 2007 & Francis Original Article Studies 1464-9373 (print)/1469-8447 Inter-AsiaFrancis 2007 10.1080/14649370701567955(online) RIAC_A_256652.sgm Taylor andCultural Ltd
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses one way to articulate queer male identity politics in 1990s Japan through Fran Martins conceptualization of the mask (Martin 2003). By comparatively examining two key Japanese gay coming-out narratives, the paper shows how a reading of queer subject formation in the decade through a metaphor of masking can shed light on the complex scenarios functioning beneath the surface of identity politics. I argue that the notion of masking is useful in reading the multiple axes incorporated into queer identity formation in Japan in the context of globalization. The paper further refutes any reductive claim that queer identity in Japan can be understood in terms of essentialist epistemological binaries, such as global/local, West/non-West, and Japan/abroad.
KEYWORDS: Queer, gay, Japan, mask, identity, gender, sexuality, globalization, Asia, Orientalism
Introduction The last decade has seen the emergence of the field of Asian Queer Studies. This area of scholarship owes much of its analytical paradigm to preceding as well as contemporaneously evolving disciplines such as post-colonial feminism, post-structuralism, and globalization studies, with particular critical attention being given to cultural imperialism, ethnocentrism and orientalism. In the case of post-war and contemporary Japanese queer1 male culture, several scholars have conducted key research employing cross-cultural perspectives (Lunsing 1999, 2001; McLelland 2000a, 2000b, 2003a, 2003b, 2005; Vincent et al. 1997). In his discussion of Asian queer cultures in the context of globalization, Peter Jackson, drawing on Arjun Appadurais critique of homogenization theory, insists that globalization needs to be understood as the operation of common processes in diverse locales, inciting semi-independent and parallel developments in these different places. In other words, gay and other new identities may have multiple origins in a globalizing world (Jackson 2001: 14). Jackson proposes that there is a need for us to come up with effective theoretical tools to decipher Asian queer cultures of multiple associations, as no current formulation of the history of eroticism whether based on Foucauldian or globalization analyses is adequate to the task of explaining the global proliferation of gender/sex diversity (Jackson 2001: 14 15). Commenting on the process of hybridization of these cultures, Chris Berry also contends that Asian queer cultures should not be understood as setting up a fixed and naturalized Asian gay identity versus a Western gay identity. Instead, a subtle conceptual framework is required to accommodate these multivalent and sometimes contradictory articulations (Berry 2001: 212). The answer to such a critical inquiry is of course not ready-made. To give a comprehensive treatment to it is no doubt beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, this paper discusses one possible strategy which might be called up when tackling this critical inquiry, namely the applicability of the epistemology of Fran Martins masking trope as a means to
ISSN 14649373 Print/ISSN 14698447 Online/07/04048518 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14649370701567955
To elaborate further on the aptness of the notion of masking in the Taiwanese context, Martin draws a certain socio-semantic parallel between a mask and a face (lian). She argues that like the mask, the latter Mandarin word, lian, functions as an ambiguous
Associative identity politics 487 and flexible avatar that engages in various showing even while continuously concealing the subject(s) of peoples social identities within contemporary Taiwan. Thus, the notion of face (lian) is intimately related to the social setting within which it functions. That is, the lian indexes a subjects basic social acceptability: It is a measure of the extent to which a subject can be countenanced, as it were, by the social collectivity (Martin 2003: 197198). Instead of pro-actively revealing the inner-true-self out of a closet, the masking tactic resulted in the manifestation of a multi-layered elusive subject, to use Martins expression, by members of Taiwans homosexual community. Martin takes her analysis further when she asks: if the rhetorical function of the mask frustrates the essentialist readings of gay or lesbian identity formation, then does it have a similar effect on reception? In other words, how would such an unreadable subject look to the gaze of the hetero-normative society? (Martin 2003: 204). According to Martin, the rhetorical masking tactic used in 1990s Taiwan was accompanied by an interesting audience response. Compared with the notion of the gay or lesbian identity as a true-self being disclosed from a closet, masking demands that the spectators deal with the ambiguity of making sense of the unreadable subject of the mask. In other words, the tactical deployment of masking systematically invites the participation of the masks audience. In so doing, the act of masking provides a more intimate space for both wearer and viewer, to engage in reconfiguring the surfaces of the mask. In theorizing the metaphoric trope of a mask in relation to that of a closet within a narrative of coming out, Martin reiterates that she has no intention to essentialize any stark contrast between the two concepts (Martin 2003: 203). Moreover, as I read Martin, neither does she imply that the tactic of masking affords sexual minorities any greater degree of fluidity than the trope of the closet in terms of their identity formation. What Martin does find more significant, in my view at least, is the process by means of which viewing the masked homosexual face inevitably and intimately draws the audience into its politics. This is where Martin finds the mask tactic so unique, if not distinct from the closet; she argues that the mask reinflects the preoccupations of the closet away from private/public and towards shame/status, and away from enclosure/exposure and towards social enactment (Martin 2003: 203). Martins wording of shame here is derived from Sedgwicks application of Michael Franz Baschs and Silvan Tomkinss interpretation of shame. Sedgwick argues that:
Shame floods into being as a moment, a disruptive moment, in a circuit of identity-constituting identificatory communication. Indeed, like a stigma, shame is itself a form of communication. Blazons of shame, the fallen face with eyes down and head averted are semaphores of trouble and at the same time of a desire to reconstitute the interpersonal bridge. (Cited in Martin 2003: 242)
In Situating Sexualities, Martin analyzes not only activist groups but also contemporaneous literary texts. These include Qiu Miaojins 1994 fictional novel The Crocodiles Journal, and Chi Ta-weis 1995 novella The Membranes (Mo), both of which draw on a narrative of masking with regard to the revelation of sexual identity. In those texts Martin observes a certain consistency of dark, injured, and negative images associated with the use of the mask. In this consistency, one could argue Martin is not attesting to the playful nature of the masking tactic which might allow sexual minorities to shift their countenance on the mask at free will. At the same time these negative or shameful perceptions are not necessarily attached to the individual self of homosexual wearer. Rather they hover around the surface of the mask almost like a haunting illumination. In other words, such disastrous imageries are not signifying the characteristics of homosexual individuals, reflecting instead the social situations surrounding them. This almost theatrical effect of masking is, in fact, what initiates intimate integrations between the masking subjectivities and their audience.
Instead of accusing the heterosexist social norm in a unilateral or oppositional manner, the mask tactic makes the accusation with the intent of reconciliation. Martin phrases this subtle yet important difference into the following words.
The impulse in the particular tongzhi representations I am referring to seems less to say, See how secretly evil the system is: Join with me to overthrow it! than it seems to say, See how the collectivity with which you are complicit has injured me: Now, instead of injuring me further, will you not instead indulge and love me? (Martin 2003: 245)
Martins theorization of the masking trope of coming-out acts in Taiwanese homosexual culture helps us to delve into several liminal effects of the metaphorical tactic. In fact, the processes she identifies, in particular those of multi-layering and camouflaging queer subject formation, as well as facilitating the intimate association between subject/s and the audience, are not only useful in understanding Taiwan. They virtually apply to the complexity of every queer cultures identity politics, providing a useful alternative to the burden of being submerged beneath a master narrative of coming-out of the closet. Furthermore, Martins work referenced here certainly resists reductionist or positivist approaches to the understanding of the queer culture of Taiwan. In the following section of the paper I will borrow Martins theorization of the mask and apply this to a reading of the identity formations of 1990s Japanese queer male culture. While Martin astutely elucidates the liminal local dialogues between sexual minorities and the hetero-normative audience in Taiwan by virtue of understanding the effects of the masking tactic, I also extend the discussion to the intra-local dialogues among sexual minorities themselves in the Japanese context.
Locations of Japanese queer activism in the 1990s: a reading through masks In the decade of the 1990s, Japanese queer male minorities went through a critical period in terms of developing an identity politics. Through the release of numerous publications and through engaging in political activism concerning the social status of queer minorities, many activists from different factions brought this issue into the public arena. In understanding such complexity, I find it useful to apply the theoretical concept of a masking through which the topology of the complexity can be elucidated in a more amplified manner. By using a masking hermeneutic to examine two representative but seemingly conflicting coming out narratives from the 1990s, I will show both collaborate in constituting Japanese queer male culture of the time. Before moving to the analysis of the first coming-out narrative, it is worthwhile to explain briefly the applicability of the masking trope to the context of Japanese post-war queer male culture. However, in what follows, I am by no means suggesting that Japanese queer culture in that decade can be better understood employing the masking trope as opposed to that of the closet, based upon an orientalist differentiation of Japanese society from that of the West. I acknowledge that any attempts to read Japanese societys peculiar post-modernity in relation to that of the West always entail the danger of glorifying the
Associative identity politics 489 very terms of cultural exceptionalism (Nihonjinron) [the theory of the Japanese] as a form of defensive reaction to distinguish Japan from the West, and as the surest protection from the desire of the Other (Miyoshi and Harootunian 1989: xvxvi). I also would like to clarify that I do not wish to claim that the masking trope is specifically apposite to the context of Japanese queer male culture more than any other societies. Indeed, I think that the hermeneutic of masking in the discussion of queer subject formation can be applied to virtually any society within their own historical contexts. Thus, this section simply points to several elements of Japanese queer male culture that are pertinent to a masking analysis. General scholarly fascination with mask cultures in Japan is nothing new. The Japanese culture of masks or masking has often been used as a locus of analyses of processes of Japanese identity transformation, particularly from anthropological as well as art and theater studies points of view. Those studies range from a relatively simplistic as well as orientalist reading of Japanese mask culture by James McCormick (1956) to the more nuanced investigation conducted by Klaus-Peter Kpping (2005) which incorporates recent accounts of anthropological and social psychological theoretical developments on masking. However, my focus lies not on the notion of masking as the actual act of donning and then wearing the mask in the traditional theater cultures or religious festivals. Instead, as implied above in relation to Martins work, my focus is the metaphorical social countenance of the Japanese queer male mask through which queer identity is construed. In order to concretize my point further, it is useful to draw on a semiotic reading of masking by Donald Pollock (1995). Expanding the notion of the mask from representational media to one of semiotic media, Pollock indicates multiple ways in which we can apply the notion of masking to social identity. Adding to a masks effect when used as a plastic object, Pollock suggests that we treat the objects conventionally called masks as only one of a variety of semiotic systems that are related through their conventional use in disguising, transforming or displaying identity, [M]asks therefore work by coordinating the iconicity and indexicality of signs of identity, as identity is understood in any particular cultural context (Pollock 1995: 581582). In a discussion of the indexicality as a semiotic criterion of identity, Pollock shows a couple of instances where the primary conventional medium for indexing identity varies depending upon cultural context (Pollock 1995: 591). For instance, referring to Anthony Seeger, he assumes that in western society the eyes are often considered to be the main indexing site for identity that seeing is believing: look someone in the eyes to gauge their honesty or true worth. In such culture seeing is equated with understanding. The minimal Western mask works, not by concealing the face, but by concealing the eyes (Pollock 1995: 585). On the other hand, in the Kulina Indian culture in western Amazonia, Pollock argues that instead of a visual indexication of identity, verbal performance is the primary conventional medium for indexing identity among Kulina, verbal performance is also, in semiotic terms, the appropriate channel for the indexing of transformed identity (Pollock 1995: 591). Thus, the masking function can be applicable, in a semiotic sense, to any medium through which identity transformation has taken place. In short, Pollocks attempt to draw our attention not only to the representation of masks but also precisely to the semiotic mechanism of the mask in terms of its iconicity and indexicality is a useful tool to help us grasp an extended understanding or application of the notion of masking. My application of the masking trope to the Japanese queer male culture draws upon a semiotic reading inspired by Pollocks argument. In talking of masks in regard to Japanese queer male identity, I am not talking about visual masking. Instead my discussion is primarily centered on its metaphorical social discourse, which serves the function of masking. Fushimi Noriaki, Wim Lunsing, Mark McLelland, Murakami Takanori and Ishida Hitoshi and others show that in postwar Japan, queer male culture has always existed in various social sites (Fushimi 2002; Lunsing 1999; McLelland 2005; Murakami and Ishida
Associative identity politics 491 is keenly aware of his positionality as such, and plays it out in his novel with full calculation (Fukuda 1949: 238). Considering the historical and contemporary references above, it is likely that any new form of self-proclaimed enactment of queer male subjectivity in 1990s Japan had to be contrasted with some pre-existing masking imagery already understood by the audience. In other words, the queer male subjectivity processes needed to repaint the mask, as well as facilitate a new dialogue with the audience through which to reconfigure both preceding queer male representations and the stereotypes operating against them. In the following sections, by subjecting two key queer male coming-out narratives to the masking analysis, I will elucidate how such a masking reading of Japanese queer male identity formation can shed light on the multi-tiered construction of it/them. Imported mask and its frustration effect In the decade of the 1990s, the activist group OCCUR (Japan Association for the Lesbian & Gay Movement) was one of the active participants in Japanese queer male identity politics.3 Through their numerous publications and political activism, OCCUR played a significant role in illuminating the discourse of Japanese queer male culture in the decade. As Ishida and Murakami observe, OCCUR was the most influential gay activist group, and their public presence in Japanese mainstream media helped reconfigure the social imagery of gay individuals (Murakami and Ishida 2006: 539540). In the cultural turmoil which saw socially biased perceptions of Japanese male queers proliferating through the media, OCCUR turned their efforts to debunking cultural myths as well as to enacting a form of sexual identity untainted by the public gaze. OCCUR was established in 1986 among younger members who diverged from the preceding gay activist group JILGA (Japanese International Lesbian and Gay Association) led by Minami Teishiro since 1984. Following a disagreement over the political stance adopted by Minami, the younger generation decided to create their own political group, which resulted in the formation of OCCUR (Minami 1996: 175; Lunsing 1999: 304). Political campaigns undertaken included a protest against the choice of word for homosexuality in the authoritative Japanese dictionary, the Kojien, and petitioning Amnesty International to include the rights of homosexuals in their guidelines protecting innocent prisoners. The group also criticized the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare for their rejection of blood donations from male homosexuals as well as for government attempts to demonize male homosexuality alleging it to be the cause of the AIDS epidemic (OCCUR 1993a; Kazama 2003; Vincent et al. 1997: 124127). As these instances illustrate, the fundamental strategy employed by OCCUR was directly targeting state and cultural authorities in order to bring about changes in the publics perception toward homosexuals. Most of these strategies had been used in other countries, especially in western developed nations in the post-Stonewall era. Thus it comes as no surprise that Dennis Altman perceived OCCURs strategy for homosexual liberation as the best example of western-style political activism proliferated in other parts of the world (Altman 1997: 432). This way of understanding OCCURs activism might have been further confirmed when the group was involved in the lawsuit against the Tokyo Metropolitan government demanding the legal recognition of equal rights for homosexual citizens from 1991 to 1997 (Suganuma 2004). The lawsuit was mounted when OCCUR members who had disclosed their sexual orientation were denied their rights to use Fuchu Seinen no Ie, a youth hostel operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan government. The government insisted that their refusal of OCCURs use of the hostel was valid on the grounds that the hostel had an administrational rule strictly prohibiting users of the opposite sex to stay in the same room in order to ensure that sexual conduct did not take place. This logic precluded allowing any group of homosexual men to stay in the same room (OCCUR 1996:
oa m [r ]c oa m []r c
Associative identity politics 493 the potential of such a coming out as a means to negotiate mutual understanding among all parties involved regardless of their sexual orientation, which has a certain resonance to Martins understanding of the effects of a coming-out tactic through a masking trope. They hope that their coming-out strategy would function as an initial move to expose the complex nature of Japanese homophobia in which the state- and government-sanctioned discriminations against homosexuals have been implicitly, rather than explicitly, imbedded in the social fabric. In comparison to the social situation facing queer individuals in the US, where religious authorities and related moral values result in explicit condemnation of homosexuality, the absence of those instances in Japan somehow leads to the nostalgic assumption that Japan is relatively more tolerant. However, they argue that such an optimistic understanding often hinders us from grasping the nature of Japanese homophobia, which they term as quiet (otonashii) homophobia (Vincent et al. 1997: 109). According to them, Japanese homophobia functions in a way that allows a certain existence of homosexual culture, but only to the extent that such presence does not pose any threat to the social ideology and value system of the majority population (Vincent et al. 1997: 120). In other words, the visibility of homosexual culture in Japan needs to be contained in hetero-normative ideology in order for it to be tolerated. And when it appears intolerable, the otonashii homophobia awakes and deploys a cynical defense against the deconstructing force. They point out that the lawsuit against the Tokyo Metropolitan government illustrates this scenario clearly. As defendant, the Tokyo Metropolitan government boldly insisted that its decision to refuse OCCURs right to use their hostel was based not upon discrimination against their sexual orientation, but rather made simply as a result of applying the nosex rule equally subjected to heterosexual users. However, the three authors perceive that this ostensibly non-homophobic rhetoric employed by the government is a typical specimen of Japanese otonashii homophobia. If one considers that the government legitimized its decision by assuming that OCCURs members would engage in sexual conducts when together in a room, it becomes clear that such an assumption presupposed or defined the sexuality of a male homosexual through a lens of male heterosexuals; sexuality of maleheterosexuals which, by definition, grants them the socially approved agency to objectify others sexual bodies (Vincent et al. 1997: 119). This already signifies the governments neglect of the sexual autonomy of male-homosexuals. Furthermore, the government gave no approval to male homosexuality. Had it done so, it would have acknowledged automatically that male bodies were being put into the position of being objectified, and would, therefore, have put pressure on heterosexual males to compromise their hetero-normative ideology and also to give up the male privilege of constantly objectifying others (Vincent et al. 1997: 118). To the extent that it did not do this, male hetero-normative authority attempted to terminate the agency of homosexuals in the lawsuit; first by ignoring that differences with regard to sexual agency existed between male homosexuals and male heterosexuals, and further by disapproving of the former in the public domain. However, rather than explicitly denouncing homosexuality on religious or other cultural grounds, the Tokyo authorities conducted their campaign against OCCUR more subtly by, for example, insisting on the no-sex rule. The three authors insist that in order to tackle the complex nature of Japanese homophobia, the coming-out act by male homosexuals themselves is a necessary step. However, they are clearly aware that pursuing coming-out acts suggesting a certain gay identity should not constitute the essential inner-self. Rather, their inner-self is contemporaneously crafted through the process of coming out. In this regard, they state:
We will become gay [gei] only after going through the process of coming out [ kamingu auto]. And as many times as you go through the process, changes in the meaning of being gay will
This way of perceiving their sexual identity through an act of coming out is a reflection of, in Martins term, the elusive subjectivity expressed through the masking tactic. I would argue that such a self-masking strategy was at work in the case of OCCURs activism in 1990s Japan. At the same time, in a rhetorical discussion of the masking tactic, it is also recognized that they did not choose to wear a mask that fully reflects the elusive gay identity that they theoretically envisaged. In practice, as I pointed out above referring to OCCURs other published materials, the representation that they employed for their masking heavily drew upon western references. In a sense it looked as if they wore a western mask for their own identitarian representation. In fact, a more accurate reading of the tactics employed is that, at the time, OCCUR members found the utilization of explicit or definitive self-representation more efficient rather than the use of a more ambiguous public persona. In my understanding, this decision reflected concerns held against the possible side effects of the uncritical appropriation at that time of imported Foucauldian as well as postmodernist critiques against identity politics. The trio argued that the repudiation of identity politics before the enactment of an identity in practice might work against the goal of social recognition for homosexual people in Japan (Vincent et al. 1997: 7176). Critiquing those post-modernist perspectives that glorified the ostensibly tolerant attitude of Japanese society toward homosexuality in comparison to other, the authors disdain such a way of thinking as a form of reverse orientalism, borrowing Ueno Chizukos theorization on cross-cultural feminist critiques on the orientalist gender paradigm (Vincent et al. 1997: 158161). They state that:
As Ueno points out, when gender problems are discussed in a dichotomous frame between Japan and the West, all the Japanese become women. Thus, the agency that [Japanese] women need to possess in order to speak about their own issues will be appropriated by [Japanese] men who become feminized by the West. In the same vein, when issues of sexuality are considered from a cross-cultural perspective, all the Japanese become queers [in relation to the west]. As a result, the concrete conflicts and power dynamics between homosexuals and heterosexuals within Japanese society remain concealed. (Vincent et al. 1997: 159)
Considering all these arguments put forward by the three authors in the 1990s, the employment of a western mask on the surface of their identity politics was clearly their strategic move. Such a method of OCCURs activism was termed by Asada Akira a radical strategic essentialism (Asada et al. 1997: 22). Reading OCCURs identity politics in the 1990s through the trope of masking, their strategic masking of their countenance is immediately apparent. Such a reading raises another question pertinent to the tactic, namely how and in what ways did the audiences viewing OCCURs mask respond? As stated above, in crafting their own mask, OCCUR utilized a number of foreign terms and definitions which were not necessarily familiar to either the mainstream or other homosexual communities at that time. In the aforementioned leaflet published by OCCUR, there is a glossary explaining several words and concepts relating to issues of homosexuality. In that, indigenous Japanese words which the mainstream audience has used to describe male homosexuals, such as homo or okama are not recommended to use, as opposed to English transliterations of gay or lesbian (OCCUR 1993a). The newly represented gay mask must have appeared in stark contrast to preexisting imageries manipulated through the mainstream media. Such a contrast would undoubtedly have had the effect of distilling the positionality of the mainstream audience
Associative identity politics 495 in relation to that of homosexuals. This frustrating effect on audiences of the mask assumed by OCCUR was a feature of 1990s Japan. However, at the same time, because they strategically donned the western mask, the momentum that OCCUR created through numerous publications, lawsuits and lobbying activities might have been unthinkably consumed as western influence in Japan and thereby conservatively contained in the mainstream society as the work of distant others. This is especially true of the impact of the groups court victory over the Tokyo authorities occurring in the absence of laws specifically protecting the rights of homosexual people. It is likely that, in this instance, the publics perception of OCCURs activism may have been tinged with a sense of remoteness as if the whole thing was happening in extraordinary circumstances (Suganuma 2004). Furthermore with the court ruling of 1994 it was the first time that the notion of homosexuality was officially narrated in legal terms in Japan. As the opinion statement by the court reads, the court quoted a significant amount of western references, which were introduced by OCCUR, to explain homosexuality in Japan (OCCUR 1996: 911). As these occasions symbolize, one can argue that a certain audience of OCCURs mask was likely digesting their activism as remote or others to a certain degree. This discussion is not particular to the case of the mainstream audience. There was also a similar reaction among queer male communities to OCCURs identity politics. For instance, the gay activist and scholar, Sunagawa Hideki expressed his disappointment that OCCUR did not engage in a discussion of how and what exactly their identity politics were applicable to the everyday life of Japanese homosexuals (Sunagawa 1999: 148). The cultural anthropologist Wim Lunsing also argues from a cross-cultural perspective that OCCURs emphasis on strengthening it [gay identity] seems to be an attempt to Americanize, which will not work. The trend is toward shifting identities, rather then having a rigidly set (katamatta) identity, and this trend fits perfectly with Japanese culture (Lunsing 1999: 314315). Comparing OCCURs activism with those of other queer groups during that period, Lunsing concludes that OCCUR has largely remained outside discussions taking place within a gay and lesbian context in Japan, by failing to interact with other groups and individuals (Lunsing 1999: 315). These observations might be accurate from a positivist point of view. Indeed, since the number of publications and publicly recognizable activities by OCCUR decreased significantly after the late 1990s, we might assume that the group was unable to gain the general support of the homosexual community in Japan. However, I have to wonder whether OCCURs activity needs to be assessed through the perspective of whether it was indigenous or imported, thus successful or nonsuccessful, framing the analytical point of departure upon the binary which Lunsing seemed to pursue. As Lunsing himself rightly argues, what seemed to be occurring in the spectrum of Japanese queer culture in the 1990s was the contestation of various shifting queer identities. If we situate OCCURs politics in the larger picture of this momentum, it is surely sufficient to judge OCCUR as one of a number of participants generating fragmented sections of the momentum within the collaboration of, and contestation of, others. As I mentioned above, while the group may have utilized essentialism as a practical strategy for shifting gay identity in Japan, their understanding of gay identity at the conceptual level resisted the use of an essentialist ideology. Using a trope of masking to read OCCURs politics as well as their political relationship with audiences assists us to see their activities as multifaceted rather than monolithic. This way of looking at coming-out activism in 1990s Japan also reveals the processes operating beneath the mask revealed to the spectator. From this perspective, rather than judging OCCURs activism using a western mask as a failed instance of the westernization of Japanese queer culture, I regard it as a very significant contribution to the process of shifting gay identity in 1990s Japan. As I argued above, their western masking might have
Associative identity politics 497 realize that we are all hentai one way or another, and to find the ways to respect someone elses hentai-ness (Fushimi 1991: 8). Fushimis doubts about essentialist forms of identity relate to his theorization of the intersectionality between gender and sexuality. In the book, he claims that most human sexualities are functioned on the premise of what he terms hetero-system (Fushimi 1991: 167). According to Fushimi, neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality can transcend the effects of the hetero-system itself. He conceptualizes the notion of hetero-system with his theory of eros. Fushimi argues that all erotic intimacy is fundamentally premised upon the desire of collecting an image (Fushimi 1991: 167). In erotic intimacy, there are two basic parameters representing the image, which are those of male image and female image. He terms the mechanism by which people constitute their erotic apparatus through utilization of the male image and female image as the hetero-system. In this sense, he insists that there cannot be any differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality given that both of them are sexualities that manifest erotic desire through appropriation of either male image or female image. However, he does not imply that within the current heterosystem, homosexuality and heterosexuality hold a mutually exclusive status independent of one another. As he clarifies, the contemporary hetero-system to which he refers is constituted as a way to preserve the norm of heterosexuality. Fushimi terms such an aspect of the hetero-system as hetero-sexualism (Fushimi 1991: 169). He reiterates that it is necessary for us to decipher objectively the difference between the two concepts. In other words, the intersections of gender and sexuality cannot be separately discussed in understanding the process of constituting ones own gay identity. In this light, he argues that forms of gay mens gender-exclusive identity politics and lesbian separatism that do not take into consideration the intersection of gender and sexuality only critique hetero-sexualism but do not deconstruct the hetero-system itself. Duly acknowledging the limits of positivistic gay identity politics, how did Fushimi strategize his way of deconstructing the hetero-system which suppresses homosexuality in the current form? And what was at stake in his use of the identity of gay, of which after all he was critically suspicious, in order to pursue his activism? First, he proposes that activism should not aspire toward the goal of abolishing the hetero-system itself. Fushimi reiterates that no erotic apparatus can be constituted if the gender images within the hetero-system are fully repudiated. In other words, denying the existence of gender images is the same thing as denying human sexuality itself (Fushimi 1991: 170). Thus, the necessary task is not to eliminate the images themselves but to modify the significance that images are accorded in the hetero-system. In order to do this, he proposes that we should perceive all erotic desires as the products of the image-game (Fushimi 1991: 174). By adopting a perspective which says that any kind of erotic intimacy is a game, Fushimi hopes that people will deal with human sexuality in the same way that people play any kind of ordinary games, acknowledging that the rules for the game are arbitrarily crafted. Exposing the arbitrary constructions of the rules for erotic intimacy would, in the process, de-naturalize human sexuality. Fushimis strategy of distilling the rigidly defined structure of the current heterosystem was in analytical accordance with the methodology of parody deployed by western Queer theory (Sunagawa 1999: 146). Furthermore, Fushimis doubts about the homo-hetero binary in understanding human sexuality and critiques of essentialistic identity politics have a theoretical synchronicity with western Queer theory which had contemporaneously evolved since the early 1990s (Noguchi 2003: 149). We can best understand Fushimis perspective on identity politics by acknowledging that for him to employ a gay identity in his book was strategic in nature. Recalling the time when he wrote Puraib e to Gei Raifu in the early 1990s, the author states that he thought it was necessary to demystify the social perceptions toward male homosexuals held by the society of that time (Fushimi and Noguchi 2004:
ea m []r c
Associative identity politics 499 Fushimi found some theoretical synchronicity between the imported Queer theory and his own theorization of sexual subjectivity. Thus, from the mid-1990s onward, Fushimis work concentrates on continually painting the countenance of the gay mask or the kuia mask, which can be constituted in a more associative relation to other masks, such as those of lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, and transsexuals. In this respect, throughout the decade, Fushimis masking tactic took a more tentative and constructive approach compared to the method used by OCCUR. In a comparative sense, the audience of Fushimis gay mask found themselves being confused by the ever-evolving countenance of the masks surface, and frustrated by the elusive nature of the masks projection. Furthermore, Fushimis incorporation of local queer male cultures as well as dialogue among different sexual minorities certainly imposed an anxiety within the psyche of the audiences, since it was assumed to be unviable for audiences to contain Fushimis mask as simply foreign or remote. His playful public appearance, as well as humorous writing style with many idiosyncratic expressions, must also have functioned to facilitate audience perceptions of the engaging-ness of his masking. Conclusion: unmasking of the binary trope By pointing out these characteristics, which distinguish Fushimis masking from that of OCCUR, I have no aim to conclude that one or the other type of masking was more effective or appropriate to the context of 1990s Japan. Rather, to read two seemingly conflicting examples of queer male politics through a masking perspective enables us to shift our analytical point of view away from the West/non-West binary approach in understanding Japanese queer male culture. As this paper suggests, one can indeed postulate the differences between Fushimis and OCCURs masks outlooks, contrasting them within the binary spectrum of West or Japanese, and global or local. However, if the binary scheme dominates our analytical points of both departure and destination, our observation regarding their politics fails to account for the stories waiting to be told beneath the masks. The most problematic outcome of the use of such a rigid binarism is the repudiation of the politics of a group like OCCUR from the discussion of Japanese queer male culture due to its ostensible association with the West. As pointed out above, despite the different masks countenances represented by the masks, the strategic enactment of Japanese queer male identity was deployed with a shared, rather than opposed, ideology by OCCUR and Fushimi. To put it differently, we can obtain this view only when we concern their politics with a multi-layered perspective rather than a monolithic one. Furthermore, the fact that both OCCUR and Fushimi came up with a similar strategic essentialism ideology in the same decade in Japan suggests that their politics developed in close correlation with the social milieu facing sexual minorities in the local as well as global context. Thus, the divergence in tactics of countenancing queer male subjectivity led OCCUR to use a western mask and Fushimi an ambivalent and probably more local oriented mask. However, we need to avoid appropriating the latter case, especially, as proof of the existence of some indigenous Japanese queer culture to be defended against globalizing forces. The urge to draw a stark contrast between Japan/West in discussing Japanese queer male culture becomes prevalent only with a conscious intention to challenge a presumed globalization trope of gay identity. The utilization of a binary framework may hold a certain legitimacy, given the resilient academic hegemony of Anglo-American based queer studies and its discourses (Jackson et al. 2005). However, it is important to keep in mind that sometimes dependence on the binary notion of indigenous culture could collude to create an over-simplified trope of Japanese queer culture in relation to a referential opponent. Consideration of a masking analysis is apposite and helpful in avoiding such an outcome.
References
Altman, Dennis (1997) Global gaze/global gays, GLQ 3: 417436. Asada, Akira, Maree, Claire, Chon, Yonhe and Kawaguchi, Kazuya (1997) Lesbian/gay studies today , Gendai shiso 25(6): 1857. Asada, Akira and Vincent, Keith (1998) Sexuality and activism . In Kazama Takashi, Keith Vincent and Kawaguchi Kzuya (eds) Practicing sexualities , Tokyo: Ugoku gei to rezubian no kai. , 120144.
oa m [r ]c