Content Warning: this post contains a brief mention of suicide.
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When reviewing the breadth of queer history through Western sociocultural lenses, there is usually a current of repression – particularly in those narratives dating from the post-Christianization period of the late ancient world. Manifold queer subcultures survived (and even thrived!) despite official restrictions in these less-than-welcoming eras, but the overarching threat of backlash was often real and present.
This situation was not the case, however, in cultures far removed from Christian Europe. In those regions which were relatively untouched by monotheistic influences, queer subcultures evidently developed with unique acceptance and, indeed, specific roles in reinforcing the values of the period. Such was the case in Japan – a country which was virtually closed to the rest of the world for hundreds of years, and where the historical record shows widespread acceptance of what today might be considered queer sexuality. But what did such “sexuality” or longing mean in the Japanese context, what was its role in the wider culture, and how connected (if at all) is it to modern concepts?
Part 1 of this blog series (which begins below) considers the nanshoku model of male-male love predominant among Japanese samurai warriors in the early modern period. Later, part 2 will consider a different model, kagema, which predominated within the kabuki theatre scene.
Age of the Samurai
Samurai warriors have gained legendary status throughout the world despite their “golden age” ruling Japan passing hundreds of years ago. Samurai have endured in the global popular imagination thanks to prolific art and literature (both historical and modern) extolling their singular virtues. Prominent among these are superb swordsmanship, dedication to the martial arts, and unyielding bravery and honor in the face of their enemies. It is a long and impressive list – but rarely does it include passionate love for other men.[1]
Understanding how and why gay desires became integral to the samurai ethos in early modern Japan requires a brief overview of who the samurai were in the (deeply complicated) political context of the age they ruled. Although the roots of the samurai can arguably be traced back to ancient times, samurai as a distinct warrior class emerged during the 12th century.[2] The following few centuries saw a nearly complete breakdown of central authority under the Japanese emperors, and the rise of the samurai themselves – until then the servants of the elite ruling classes – to become the rulers themselves. The “shogunate”, or military rule under samurai, officially commenced in the Kamakura Period (1180 – 1333) when a dispossessed samurai lord Minamoto Yoritomo leveraged political chaos to establish himself as the head of a parallel martial government.[3] But it would not be until the Tokugawa age in the early 17th century that Japan would have an extended period of centralized stability under the shoguns. Throughout the intervening few hundred years, samurai (and their lethal skills) were constantly at the crux of political and territorial disputes. They served regional warlords, honed their skills and became de facto kingmakers themselves.[4]
The samurai were not just an elite warrior class, but also a ruling class
The Tokugawa Period saw a gradual, but decisive, transformation of the samurai from elite units of soldiers to bureaucrats amid relative tranquility.[5] After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the samurai class (previously at the very apex of Japanese society) was stripped of nearly all its medieval privileges.[6] Despite the Japanese government’s sprint thereafter toward modernization and global power status, the era of the samurai left profound impacts on their wider cultural context – even if their era of political dominance had inevitably faded.
Nanshoku and the Love of Men
The modern world has mythologized the samurai warriors for their strict ethos, collectively called bushido or “the Way of the Warrior” which influenced nearly every aspect of a samurai’s existence. Its codes have been summarized in seven guiding principles: Righteousness, Loyalty, Honor, Respect, Honesty, Courage and Consistency.[7]
Amid chaos, political intrigue and rampant social upheaval, the samurai were expected to be rational, self-controlled, humble and untroubled even to the point of their own imminent demise. Their devotion to their overlords – and each other – was thought to be above reproach. Within this intricate system of allegiances and hierarchy, disrepute was a far worse fate than death itself. From a modern Western perspective, this rigid and unyielding code of ethics seems an odd place to find a separate, but parallel, tradition of homosexual love: for the samurai, this tradition was nanshoku.
The male-male love tradition of nanshoku was strongly connected to religious influences in Japan
Nanshoku was not the first, or only, tradition of male homosexual relationships in Japan – it didn’t even begin with the samurai themselves. One Japanese scholar has called nanshoku the “base note” for premodern homosexuality in this period of the country’s history.[8] Rather than representing one particular tradition, nanshoku brought together a range of male-male love subcultural norms which began with Buddhist priests.[9]
Although early Japanese Buddhism held complex and often negative views of sexuality in general, highly structured homosexual affairs seem to have been commonplace during the Japanese medieval period. Minamoto Junko argues, for example, “homosexuality among the clergy did exist, often being a facet of religious experience or of the master-disciple relationship.”[10] In a system markedly similar to that of ancient Greece, young men (usually in their teens) apprenticed to the monastic lifestyle became both students and physical intimates of older and higher-ranking monks.[11]
But one primary source, from 17th century literary scholar Kitamura Kigin, suggests that nanshoku also included mutually passionate affairs among men far beyond the hierarchy of the monasteries:
“[T]his love has surpassed in depth the love between women and men in these latter days. It plagues the heart not only of courtier and aristocrat (this goes without saying) but also of brave warriors.”[12]
What, then, did nanshoku mean among the samurai? R.B. Parkinson writes that “[t]he world of the elite warrior class, the samurai, centered around male honor. This masculine ethos favoured relationships between warriors and their younger pages, and erotic relationships were embedded in many aspects of warrior culture.”[13] Furukawa Makoto writes that, “[t]his model is strongly linked to samurai philosophy; one could call it homosexuality as a reflection of samurai values. Duty and loyalty are thus highly regarded.”[14] Within this model, men who had been intimate partners did not see their affairs as a fleeting expression of attraction or desire. Rather, the record implies that such men would be bound, in some respect, for life as partners, friends and allies. In this sense, homosexual love was one of the avenues by which samurai forged enduring bonds in an interminably dangerous world.
Junko takes this more aromantic view of the purpose of nanshoko relationships, arguing that the rigid hierarchy rendered these relationships independent of any participating individual’s sexual orientation. She argues, “[t]he fact that little love was involved is certainly related to the larger Japanese sexual culture, which was not inherently a culture of love.”[15] However, within samurai relationships specifically, there was still clear value and purpose even if romance was not the central driver or outcome: “[h]ere we see the sating desire coupled with the bonds of camaraderie.”[16]
Love among samurai may have been as much about politics as it was about romance or desire
An anonymous Japanese commentator, writing in the mid-17th century, took a similarly utilitarian view of such relationships. Writing specifically of shudo (a contemporaneous synonym for nanshoku): “It is natural for a samurai to make every effort to excel with pen and sword. Beyond that, what is important to us is not ever to forget, even to our last moment, the spirit of shudo [nanshoku]. If we should forget it, it will not be possible for us to maintain the decencies, nor gentleness of speech, nor the refinements of polite behavior.”[17]
This perspective aligns with modern critical scholarship which argues that, during this period, queer sexual acts were just that – actions – rather than indicative of specific, defined “sexualities” in the modern sense.[18] For the samurai, the notion of fluid and non-exclusive sexuality was simply the expected norm, part of a self-reinforcing hierarchal system.
Samurai in Love?
Early modern Japan thus fostered a militaristic subculture which both absorbed an ethos favoring homosexual affairs and refashioned it in a way that served that culture’s aims and values.
One of the most famous (and expansive) primary sources of the era claimed to be a nearly encyclopedic account of these samurai relationships. Ihara Saikaku (1642 – 1693) was one of the most prolific poets of his age and is credited with the founding of the “Floating World” genre of literature. Much of his catalogue, including The Great Mirror of Male Love (published 1687) concerned romantic and erotic narratives among Japanese elites. The Great Mirror, a collection of short stories that are considered “semi-legendary” by scholars today, devotes half of its space to tales of nanshoku-style affairs among the samurai.[19] Although a fascinating resource which confirms the widespread nature of these relationships within Japan’s ruling class, it is not (and perhaps was not intended to be) a straightforward historical account of specific relationships.
The shoguns of Japan ruled with immense power and wealth – and a succession of male lovers
Even so, The Great Mirror was not wholly fiction either. Rather, the historical record suggests that the tumultuous era of the shoguns produced a number of high-profile gay liaisons between powerful warlords and their reported male lovers.[20] Crompton writes that “at least half of the twenty-six shoguns who ruled Japan from 1338 to 1837 had male love affairs.”[21] Some of these affairs were a reflection of the unity of the lovers and lifelong devotion; others evoked messy betrayals and perhaps literal back-stabbing.
One such bittersweet narrative comes from the shogunate of Yoshimochi in the early 15th century. Yoshimochi reportedly fell so disastrously in love with a young samurai named Mochisada that the latter felt free to abuse the authority granted to him by the smitten shogun.[22] Mochisada’s arrogance was only stopped when his family accused him of misdeeds to the shogun’s face; the shogun, to preserve his honor, commanded Mochisada to commit ritual suicide.
These more sordid outcomes, however, were not necessarily the norm for powerful soldiers and their boyfriends. Rather, these relationships often served as a stepping stone on the political ladder as former lovers often followed their older partners and became powerful leaders themselves. One famous example comes from Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the shogunate which would rule Japan for three centuries and usher in an era of tranquility for the samurai warriors. Tokugawa was father to over a dozen children by various women, but also had numerous relationships with young male lovers – some of whom, such as Li Manchiyo, served him as devoted soldiers in his campaigns.[23]
Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate and “unifier” of Japan
Another example is that of Hashiba Hideyoshi, one of the last prominent rulers prior to the Tokugawa age who spurred Japanese unification. Evidence, in the form of wood block prints, from the 16th century suggests romantic affairs with his pages – specifically, Ishida Mitsunari.[24] Mitsunari was later entrusted by Hideyoshi to become overlord (or daimyo) of Sawayama and was among a quintet of regents to Hideyoshi’s young son.[25]
Indeed, the prevalence of queer affairs among the samurai class seemed only to diminish with the samurai themselves in the late 19th century. Homosexual acts were only briefly banned (for a single decade) beginning in 1872.[26] Interestingly, this flirtation with repressing public expressions of queer behavior coincided with the beginning of Japan’s rise as a global empire and long-term efforts to match the reach and power of the Western colonial governments. But no single change in government, or official policy, could wipe away nearly a millennium of tradition.
Queer History?
But given all this information, where exactly do the samurai fall in the lexicon of queer history? Is the highly regimented, socially prescribed version of homosexual behavior evident in these warrior narratives “queer” in the modern sense of individual identities? The question could be approached a hundred different ways, and the scholars cited above seem to have their own differing views.
On the one hand, all of this is robust evidence for non-cisheteronormative behavior, and perhaps homosexual and/or bisexual orientations (even if expressed within specific contexts and circumstances).
Is “queer” the proper descriptor for the non-cishet normative aspects of samurai culture?
On the other hand, however, the samurai culture of early modern Japan saw all of this is entirely “normative”, laudable and even beneficial for the fabric of society. Furthermore, the primary sources of the era (even including The Great Mirror) are somewhat equivocal on the matter of defined and innate identities. If anything, a prevailing belief in the general bisexuality of men seems to have been “normal”, rather than transgressive or unexpected, in this context. The answer thus lies with the individual scholar, historian and casual observer who grapples with the question – and a definitive resolution may be impossible regardless.
That said, the samurai and their lovers are just a piece of the larger story of queer (if one chooses to label it thus) history in early modern Japan. My next post, Part 2, will consider the role of the dramatic arts and theatre in fostering a separate subculture simultaneous to that of the samurai – raising fresh questions about the intersection of gender identity with queer sexualities.
[1] While the majority of samurai were men, female samurai did exist and are noted in primary source documents during the “golden age”. This analysis is specifically considering male-male queer narratives among samurai, but should not be read as suggesting that the samurai were an exclusively male class of warriors.
[2] Mark McGee, “Brief History of the Samurai,” University of Michigan, accessed January 14, 2024, https://public.websites.umich.edu/~malokofs/SCA/Persona/History/samurai.html.
[3] Karl Friday, “Once and Future Warriors: The Samurai in Japanese History,” Education About Asia (Volume 10, No. 3), Winter 2005, https://www.asianstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/once-and-future-warriors-the-samurai-in-japanese-history.pdf.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Hidehiro Sonoda, “The Decline of the Japanese Warrior Class, 1840-1880,” Japan Review, no. 1 (1990): 73–111, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25790888.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Miho Okamoto, “What is BUSHIDO? Loyalty, Honor, Respect, Courage, Honesty, Righteousness”, Tea Ceremony Japan Experiences MAIKOYA, updated January 8, 2024, https://mai-ko.com/travel/japanese-history/samurai/bushido-the-code-of-samurai/.
[8] Makoto, Furukawa, and Angus Lockyer (translator), “The Changing Nature of Sexuality: The Three Codes Framing Homosexuality in Modern Japan,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal. English Supplement, no. 7 (1994), pg. 99, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42772078.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Junko, Minamoto, and Hank Glassman, “Buddhism and the Historical Construction of Sexuality in Japan,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal. English Supplement, no. 5 (1993), pg. 109, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42772062.
[11] Louis Crompton, “Pre-Meiji Japan” in Homosexuality and Civilization (Harvard University Press, 2003), pg. 415.
[12] Ibid.
[13] R.B. Parkinson, “Love Among Warriors,” in A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World, Columbia University Press, New York, 2013, pg. 67.
[14] Makoto, pg. 100.
[15] Junko, 110.
[16] Ibid, 109.
[17] Watanabe, Tsuneo and Iwata, Jun’Ichi, The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality (GMP Publishers, 1989), pg. 113.
[18] Jennifer Robertson, “In premodern Japan, it was common for aristocrats and samurai to pursue male lovers,” Quartz, June 26, 2017, https://qz.com/931438/in-premodern-japan-it-was-common-for-aristocrats-and-samurai-to-pursue-male-lovers.
[19] Davod Halperin, Journal of Japanese Studies 17, no. 2 (1991): 398–403, https://doi.org/10.2307/132756.
[20] Crompton, pg. 420.
[21] Ibid, pg. 422.
[22] Ibid, pg. 423.
[23] Crompton, 439.
[24] Parkinson, 67.
[25] The Sengoku Archives, “Ishida Mitsunari”, July 22, 2017, https://thesengokuarchives.com/2017/07/22/ishida-mitsunari/.
[26] Robertson, ibid. Despite the lack of formal prohibitions on gay relationships in Japan, however, gay marriages are still not recognized outside of “partnership oaths” while other members of the queer community face other legal and social discrimination.