Did you know that homosexuality or pederasty has long been celebrated in samurai society?
Japan has records that show the prevalence of homosexuality dating as far as ancient times. Its history accepts love between me as the purest form of love.
Homosexuality had never been taken as a sin in Japanese society and religion. It was not restricted by any specific legal prohibition. The exposure to Western religious thought has influenced the way homosexuality is viewed by the Japanese government and by the population since the end of the nineteenth century.
Meaning
Wakashudo also known as shudo means the “the way of the young” or more exactly, “the way of young (waka) men (shu). The “do” is related to a Chinese word “tao”, considered to be a structured discipline and body of knowledge, also as a path to awakening.
The older samurai in the shudo relationship was called the nenja while the younger one is the wakashu.
Origin of Wakashudo
The term first appeared during the 17th century. It is then followed in the Japanese homosexual tradition by the love relationships between bonzes and their acolytes known as chigo. The supposed founder of homosexual love in Japan is Kuka, also known as Kobo Daishi. Kuka us the founder of the Shingon school of thought who is said to have brought over from the mainland, along with the teachings of the Shingon or the teachings of male love. Mount Koya is the location of Kobo Daishi’s monastery serves as a byword for male love up to the end of the premodern period.
Cultural aspects
The practice was upheld in high esteem thus encouraged especially within the samurai class. It was taken as beneficial for the youth, to teach him virtue, honesty, and the appreciation of beauty. Its value was different with the love of women, which was condemned for feminizing men.
Substantial historical and fictional literature of the period commended the beauty and courage of boys faithful to Wakashudo. The modern historian Jun’ichi Iwata drew up a list of 457 titles from the 17th and 18th centuries. It was then considered as a “corpus of erotic pedagogy.”
The rise in power and influence of the merchant class also saw the adaptation of the practice of shudo by the middle classes. The homoerotic expression in Japan started to be more closely linked with traveling kabuki actors known as tobiko, “fly boys,” who were taken as prostitutes.
In the Edo period (1600-1868), kabuki actors, known as onnagata when playing female roles, often worked as prostitutes off-stage. Kagema were male prostitutes who worked at specialist brothels called “kagemajaya”. Both kagema and kabuki actors were much in demand by the sophisticates of the day, who often practiced danshoku/nanshoku, or male love.
The rapid decline of sanctioned homoerotic practiced during the late 1800s happened at the start of the Mejii restoration and the growth of the Western influence.