Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, 2007

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

486 Katsuhiko Suganuma

read queer male subject formation in 1990s Japan (Martin 2003). The discussion will suggest how such an analysis can provide one possible element in the yet-to-be theorized aspects in the emerging field of Asian Queer Studies. Layering identity formation through masking In the chapter titled The Closet, the Mask and The Membranes in her Situating Sexualities, Fran Martin develops an analysis on the mask in understanding subject formations of Taiwanese homosexual (tongzhi) identities in the 1990s (Martin 2003). Examining both the political and rhetorical significations of the masking tactics employed by some homosexual groups and activists, Martin demonstrates the applicability of such a tactic to the social circumstances of Taiwans sexual minorities at that time. In post-stonewall Euro-American discourse of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, the concept of coming-out of the closet has been a central trope for the revelation of non-normative sexual orientation, whilst the currency of the narrative has been appropriated in other societies, with unpredictable mutations, in the last few decades. Referring to studies such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks Epistemology of the Closet (1990), and Michel Foucaults analysis of sexuality and knowledge in Europe, Martin argues that the tense and particular relationship that homosexuality bears to the thematics of knowledge/ignorance and secrecy/disclosure, which condenses in the figure of the closet, is a culturally specific one (Martin 2003: 196). By this she is implying that in the formation of sexual knowledge in the West, the notion of a closet has been complicit in situating a concept of homosexuality as secrecy to be exposed: a rhetorical binary of in/ out. She is, therefore, reluctant to apply this paradigm of coming out to the context of homosexual-oriented activisms and cultures in 1990s Taiwan. This is not necessarily because she is inclined to make an essentialist distinction between Taiwans homosexual culture and that of the West, but rather because such in/out dualistic nature could not be explicitly observed in the Taiwanese coming-out movements she examined. Instead Martin finds the metaphorical as well as literal trope of masking more pervasive in the Taiwanese context. Rather than operating to exclude or include, as is the case with the in/out trope, the masking tactic, in effect, camouflages the subject(s) beneath the mask, thereby making the binary of in/out or homosexual/heterosexual less pertinent. Martin perceives this masking effect of coming out applicable to the context of the 1990s Taiwanese society that not explicitly but implicitly differs from the Euro-American presumption of sexual subjectivity as an interior knowledge (Martin 2003: 194). One might argue that the metaphoric use of the mask to blur Taiwanese homosexuals subject(s) can simply be read as a strategic safeguard of privacy against homophobic public surveillance. While acknowledging this possibility, Martin also attests to the relevance of masking as metaphorical tactic in the process of homosexual identity formation in 1990s Taiwan. In this respect, Martin writes,
The voluntary donning of masks by Taiwans gay men and lesbians in public seems more than anything else, then, to dramatize the very workings of the tongzhi mask, electrifying the boundary between showing and not showing the secret of the individuals tongzhi identity, because the mask, as the sign used to disclose that identity, is at the same time the paradigmatic sign of its continuing concealment. The mask tactic generates an unsettling alternating current between the yin [hidden] and the xian [shown] that effectively reproduces the social workings of the idea of the homosexual mask, which installs tongxinglian [homosexuality] in just such an undecidable position in relation to visibility and knowledge. (Martin 2003: 193)

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.

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Applying Sedgwicks interpretation of shame referred to above as an essence of communication in the masking tactics of Taiwanese sexual minorities, Martin argues:
The assertive, willful self-masking of the tongzhi and the sex workers takes the accusation of bu yao lian [not wanting face] and directs it ironically back toward its point of origin, the critical authoritative spectator, addressing the viewer: It is you who allow me no face. Effectively, these strategies reverse the shaming gaze of the public articulating what amounts to an accusation of the injurious intent and consequence of the heterosexist, familialist gaze. (Martin 2003: 201)

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

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2006). Given the rich existence of queer culture in society, one cannot describe Japanese queer culture as invisible. However, this does not denote that hetero-normative society has been tolerant of postwar queer culture. Rather, it is more precise to state that Japanese queer male culture has been made consistently visible in a curious fashion to the gaze of the mainstream Japanese public, to titillate their voyeuristic curiosity. As shown in some detail by Murakami and Ishidas work on queer representations in the Japanese printed media from the 1950s onward, queer male representations have always been appropriated into the mass media. These appropriations have nonetheless been given twists and turns so that they both conform to and constitute stereotyped imageries created and captured by the gaze of hetero-normative mainstream audience. This mainstream gaze grounded in curiosity reached its pinnacle in the early 1990s with the occurrence in the Japanese media of what is now called a gay boom (McLelland 2000a: 3237). A range of media including magazines, TV shows, and comics, primarily targeting the heterosexual female audience, were complicit in enthusiastically idealizing the trope of gay men as best friends. One may argue that this gay boom, in so much as it fostered social visibility, was one factor facilitating the rapid development of queer movements and identity politics in the 1990s. Although such effects of the social phenomenon cannot be denied, we can nevertheless simultaneously identify an enduring pattern in the relationship between Japanese queer culture and the audience. It is clear that, as was the case in pre-1990s post-war decades in Japan,2 the gay boom arose from the trope or imagery of Japanese queer male culture being manipulated by the hands of people outside the culture. In this regard, gay writer Hirano Hiroaki argues that, although heterosexual female audiences appropriated a positive image of queer males, this image functioned as a consolation for those women who loathed patriarchal Japanese sexism. As a result, the male queers whose images were appropriated remained confined within the parameters of compulsory hetero-normativity (Hirano 1994: 2330). Besides the rise of this ostensibly queer-friendly mainstream audience fascination, a moral panic instigated by the fear of AIDS pandemic also relegated Japanese queer culture, especially that of the male, to the situation of being looked at toward the beginning of the decade. Attempts by Japanese government authorities to demonize queer male culture by conflating it with the negative imagery of the epidemic (Kazama 2003), created another social platform, which positioned queer as something to be exploited or masked metaphorically and discursively by the mainstream audience. Such social events put tremendous pressure on queer communities themselves to enact their own subjectivities. In other words, the rapid mobilization of queer identity politics in 1990s Japan was not triggered by any random coincidence; instead it was premised upon the historicity and social environment pertinent to the voyeuristic relationship between queer culture and the audience throughout the post-war era. Although the perspective is different, a similar masking of the queer male culture is also salient in the work of the Japanese literary master, Mishima Yukio. The critic Asada Akira argues that Mishimas homoerotic writings deliberately used the masked representation of queer culture in a way that exceptionally dramatized the socially occluded world of that culture (Asada and Vincent 1998: 137). From his 1949 famous auto-biographical novel Confessions of a Mask (Kamen no kokuhaku) to his notorious and performative suicide in 1970, his almost theatrical drawing of his own masked world in relation to the Japanese general publics perception of him, of which he was very self-consciously aware, is another instance where the Japanese society has dealt with the queer male culture through a trope of the mask. Commenting on this in a review of Confessions of a Mask, Fukuda Tsuneari observes that Mishima was like an innocent-seeming demon, childish adult, ordinary man with artistic talent, and swindler with imitations. Mishima Yukio is someone who attempts to make paradox non-paradoxical by rendering himself a paradoxical being. Moreover, [he]

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

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89).4 In 1994, the Tokyo District Court found in favor of OCCUR, a finding supported by the Tokyo High Court again in 1997. On this occasion the court stated that OCCUR members should not have been treated differently by the hostel solely based upon their sexual orientation (Hanrei Taimuzu 1999). In the lawsuit, OCCUR claimed the normalcy of homosexuality by referring to various foreign precedents including the de-pathologization of homosexuality in the DSM-III-R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder) published by the American Psychiatric Association in 1987, and the ICD-10 (International Categorization of Diseases) by the World Health Organization in 1993, and numerous state laws and domestic partnership provisions available at that time in the US (OCCUR 1993b: 3). In addition, OCCUR members significantly demonstrated a reliance on crosscultural referencing when they invited San Francisco Board of Education member, Tom Ammiano, to testify (Suganuma 2004). Ammiano gave evidence to the Japanese court explaining differences between Japan and the United States regarding education for young people about homosexuality. From a positivist point of view, OCCURs activities might be interpreted as an essentialist politicization of homosexual identity. Effectively, the group drew upon references primarily from Anglo-American gay identity politics in order to enact members subjectivities as different from the previously perceived imageries of male homosexual people by the public. In Altmans view, OCCURs actions in the 1990s were proof of a cultural influx of western gay culture into the country. In a more political polemic, it might furthermore be argued that Joseph Massads critical conceptualization of the Gay International, which was formulated by some western white-gay-men dominated institutions, most prominently the ILGA (International Lesbian and Gay Association) and IGLHRC (the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) advocating the internationalization of gay rights movement (Massad 2002: 361), gained a certain currency when OCCURs activities are assessed from a globalist point of view. Indeed no one can deny that a group like OCCUR pursued their identity politics through a strong coalition with western-based queer organizations as they clearly stated so in one of the groups pamphlets (OCCUR 1997: 28). However the question arises whether the strategies adopted by OCCUR are, in fact, evidence of a total internalization of the international identity label of gayness to the extent of constituting the essential inner selves of members. Or instead, can these activities be read through a masking trope which would suggest that members deliberately wore a mask of western gay identity while leaving the subjectivity beneath tangibly undefined. To elaborate upon this possibility, I will introduce the work of three key academics and members of OCCUR in the 1990s, Keith Vincent, Kazama Takashi (who was one of the plaintiffs of the lawsuit), and Kawaguchi Kazuya. At the time OCCUR had an extensive publication output. Many leaflets and quarterlies used in political campaigning were often written in a positivist manner, and provided essentialist definitions for concepts such as homophobia, homosexuality, and gay identity. For instance, one leaflet designed to disseminate accurate information about homosexuality stated that the ratio of homosexual people in any population is about ten percent, remaining constant regardless of any differences in age, region, and period (OCCUR 1993a). As a counter to those examples, academic publications by those three authors provide with us more intricate accounts of the groups identity politics at work. In a book titled Gei Sutad zu, Vincent, Kazama, and Kawaguchi carefully explain the rationale for OCCURs activism (Vincent et al. 1997). In a discussion of their identity politics, they insist that their enactment of a certain gay identity was tactically pursued. Drawing on Shane Phelans notion of (be)coming out, these writers perceive the act of coming out as a means to frustrate the solidity of both homosexual and heterosexual identity, rather than defining either as a fixed polar opposite (Vincent et al. 1997: 9192). In other words, they see
m i]c [a r

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

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follow. In this sense, it can be said that being gay does not denote a certain static condition of being, rather signifies a state of being which is constantly mobile. (Vincent et al. 1997: 108)

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

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produced an image in the eyes of the audience of the group as remote or othered homosexual beings. Some may cite this remoteness and otherness to argue that OCCURs westernized political strategies were less effective in the Japanese context. However, such a reading of OCCUR comes to the fore only when the groups politics are viewed through an epistemological binary of Japan/West. In contrast, a metaphorical reading of OCCURs coming-out acts through a masking trope liberates us from being confined by the rigidity of this binary. OCCURs western queer male mask indeed functioned as a facilitator for debunking the myth of Japanese homosexuals that are deeply imbedded within the society. Media coverage of OCCURs activity, especially their involvement in the lawsuit, substantiates this claim. Their lawsuit against Tokyo Metropolitan government was widely reported by many Japanese newspapers including the major dailies, Asahi, Mainichi, Sankei, and Yomiuri (OCCUR 1996: 24). Many of the articles emphasized the discourse of their lawsuit and activism as a first and new in the context of Japan. For instance, the article the Sankei Daily read Unlike in many Euro-American societies where the civil rights of homosexuals have gradually been granted, this is the first instance in which a discussion of human rights for homosexuals has been brought to a court in Japan (OCCUR 1996: 27). This kind of media narrative would give the readers a perception of newness towards homosexuals in the Japanese context. In that OCCUR added another mask to the stage upon which the social perception of male homosexuals was crafted, the groups activism forced Japanese society to acknowledge a new model of gay mask gazing directly back at it. Thus, audiences had to re-craft their perception of homosexual beings, as well as to re-negotiate their own self-identity in relation to homosexual people. Ambivalent painting of a mask(s) by Fushimi Noriaki In the previous section, I gave a reading of OCCURs gay identity politics through the metaphor of masking to describe some of the queer male identity formations of the 1990s. This section of the paper uses the same perspective to read another key queer male political element of the decade, namely the material of gay writer, Fushimi Noriaki. Questions might be raised concerning my choice of a single writer rather than an organization such as OCCUR as a representative of queer male identity politics in comparatively analyzing the political momentums of that decade. Yet, considering the influences his publications had both inside and outside the marginalized queer community, Fushimi Noriaki should be acknowledged as one of the most prominent figures involved in debates about contemporary queer male culture in Japan, especially since the early 1990s. Examining his identity politics through a masking trope enables further understanding of the intricate processes of queer male identity formation at work in that decade. Fushimi became an influential participant in Japanese queer male identity formation with the release of his book Private Gay Life (Puraibe to Gei Raifu) in 1991, the same year that OCCUR mounted its lawsuit against the Tokyo Metropolitan government. This book discussed a number of fundamental theoretical frameworks on which his writings and activities that followed have been premised. As is evident from the title, the book is a private account of self-consciously choosing a gay identity. In other words, it is not a definitive account of what gay is or the identity. At the very beginning of the book, Fushimi clarifies his non-essentialist position in pursuing a gay activism by declaring that he prefers to identify himself as hentai, the Japanese term meaning pervert (Fushimi 1991: 8). Dissociating his understanding of the word hentai from the negative connotations imposed by society, Fushimi reconfigures it as resistance to social norms. Thus, he states that although he is a member of the sexual minority referred to as gay, he has no wish to defend this status by claiming normalcy for being gay. Instead, he emphasizes that in order to create a society where people can live with mutual understanding, it is important for each one of us to
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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:
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10). By inserting another discourse signifying the social imagery of male homosexuals, Fushimi attempted to enact a platform from which sexual minorities could speak for and about themselves, rather than allowing mainstream society to supplant their subjective agency. Fushimis way of strategically repainting the gay mask is similar to that of OCCUR analyzed in the previous section. This similarity in both their doubts on essentialist identity politics and their tactical masking acts is acknowledged by Fushimi himself (Fushimi et al. 1999: 93). However, a certain distinction can be drawn between them, especially concerning the different approaches in their actual countenancing of their masks. Unlike OCCUR, who chose to employ foreign references in the process of creating their gay mask, Fushimi took a different approach. Instead of aiming towards constituting the mask with a certain definitive trope, Fushimi aimed at painting his in a more fragmentary manner. In Puraib e to Gei Raifu, he autobiographically narrates his gay identity, discussing the crafting of his self-identity with regard to gender and sexuality by trial and error in the milieu of the aforementioned hetero-system in which he had to function. Introducing his personal experience as just one example of gay identification, Fushimi tells the readers that there are multiple ways of constituting this identity. In this respect, his book functioned to both address a certain instance of gay identification while simultaneously inviting readers as participants to collaboratively paint the rest of the mask that he intended to project for the gaze of the audience. It can be argued that his book Puraib e to Gei Raifu was the first milestone of his project which attempted to paint the autonomous gay mask throughout the decade. In contrast to OCCURs tactic, which employed pre-existing foreign references, Fushimi tried to incorporate some locally developed pre-1990s queer male culture. To my knowledge, he was one of the first figures who conducted detailed research on queer male culture in post-war Japan. Compared to the relatively rich cultural as well as academic attention paid to ancient Japanese male-homo eroticism (Furukawa 1994; Leupp 1995; Pflugfelder 1999), the culture of the post-war era was the subject of little academic interest until the 1990s. Fushimi published his essay entitled Archeology of gay: where do we come from? A search for gay history in Japan (Gei no k okogaku: watashitachi wa dokokara yattekitanoka? Nihon no gei no rekishi wo tanb osuru) (2002), after spending ten years on its research. This essay introduced a great deal of information about queer male cultures that existed prior to the 1990s in the form of literature, magazines, social groups and activist groups. This project is evidence of Fushimis intention to trace the roots of Japanese queer male culture. Fushimis approach is somewhat different from OCCUR, whose members did not perceive a significant association of their activism with pre-existing local cultures. Fushimis collaborative approach on illuminating the gay mask took another turn during the mid-1990s when western Queer theory started to gain a certain currency within Japanese homosexual cultures. Fushimi recalls that when post-structuralist discourse on identity formation pertinent to western Queer theory began to gain popularity within Japanese academia, he was afraid that the gay mask that he had worked on constituting since the early 1990s would be deconstructed. Rather than letting that happen, Fushimi decided to use strategically the lexical mask, this time that of kuia, the Japanese transliteration of the English word Queer, in order to preserve the platform for male homosexuals to paint their own mask (Fushimi et al. 1999: 93). Accordingly, he predominantly used the word kuia in his publications since the mid-1990s, which includes the book, Kuia Paradaisu (1996), and the magazine Queer Japan (1999). In those publications, Fushimi emphasized incorporating other queer minorities apart from male queers, including lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, and transsexuals. There is no doubt that, as he acknowledges in the introduction of Kuia Paradaisu, Fushimis understanding of western Queer theory led to his seeing the necessity of incorporating other sexual minorities into his activities. However, I argue that this is radically different from a mere importation of Queer theory from the West. Rather,
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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.

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I chose to focus on these two specific narratives in this paper, because firstly, as mentioned above, both contributed significantly to the formation of Japanese queer male identities in the 1990s. Secondly, these two narratives can be easily and problematically referenced to substantiate discursive claims concerning whether Japanese queer culture is indigenous or globalized. Examining two specific instances of queer male politics through a masking trope, one can simply observe that multiply layered queer male identity politics, in terms of both its cross-national and intra-national associations, were occurring in 1990s Japan. The fact that OCCUR chose a western reference at that time merely shows the empirical reality that some segments of Japanese queer culture have been immensely influenced by the West, as they have always been, especially in the post-war era. At the same time, Fushimis move to recollect the past of homosexual culture also denotes this cultures long historical existence in Japan. These reflected realities do not animate any further the legitimacy of the argument that Japanese queer male culture is by and large either indigenously or globally constituted, as if it is a static entity. Instead, as Fran Martin posits, as with contemporary Taiwanese queer cultures, these cultures in Japan are also continuously crafted in a tentative mode and will be premised upon the productive integration among local, national, global and regional histories, discourses and practices that characterize them (Martin 2003: 30). Far from paying too much attention to the surfaces of cultures, the masking reading delves into the complex scenarios which constitute the premise of the surfaces. Unmasking the non-quintessential sets of stories beneath these surfaces refutes the analytical applicability of pre-existing binary paradigms, such as West/non-West, neo-colonialist understanding of non-West, and a reactionary localism. The identities of sexual minorities in Japan are in a state of constant oscillation due to their experience of cross-national and intra-local dislocation and influx. Narratives of the lived experiences of members of these minorities are some of the principal means through which we can productively pursue the development of theories of queer identity formation. Notes
1. In this paper, I use the term queer with a lower case letter q as opposed to gay to refer both to groups of people as well as to ideas that are sexually and gender non-normative in a broad sense. Instead, the term Queer with a capital first letter is used when it refers primarily to the notion of Queer, which has gained a certain currency within academia as well as in activism since the early 1990s. 2. Examples of ostensibly queer male friendly popular phenomena in Japan prior to the 1990s are the Boys Love and YAOI subcultures which gained popularity primarily among female audiences. See Welker (2006). 3. I acknowledge that OCCUR also put a great deal of effort into working on issues relating to Japanese lesbians. However this paper, due to its specified aim of analyzing queer male identities in the 1990s Japan, is only focused on this particular subject dealt with by OCCUR. 4. For a detailed account of this lawsuit, see OCCUR (1993b; 1996), Hanrei Taimuzu (1999), and Vincent et al. (1997)

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Special terms tongxinglian xian yin Authors biography

Katsuhiko Suganuma is a PhD candidate in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on contemporary Japanese sexuality politics, queer globalization and postcolonial feminism. His PhD thesis looks at ways in which contact moments between Japanese queer male culture and that of the West (Euro-America) have affected the identity formation process of Japanese queer selves in post-war Japan. He is a co-editor (with Mark McLelland and James Welker) of Queer Voices from Japan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007). Contact address: School of Culture and Communication, Level 2, West Tower, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia