Male Colors

"An invaluable resource for anyone seeking a history of the representation of homosexuality in Japan."--Sandra Buckley, author of Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism "Opens a window on the complex and varied patterns of sexual relations between males in early modern Japan. Imperative reading for anyone concerned with human sexual expression in social context."--David F. Greenberg, author of The Construction of Homosexuality "Nanshoku--male colors--as male same-sex eroticism and sexuality were known in early modern Japan, enjoyed an honored place in the life and mythology of the age, celebrated in art and literature with as much energy and enthusiasm as male-female eroticism. Unfettered by the moral opporbium that constrained--or concealed--male-male eroticism in Europe, male colors flew brightly in the public culture of urban Japan. Gary Leupp explores the practices and the cultural celebration of the Edo-era nanshoku tradition in this exuberant, sensitive, and yet dispassionate social and cultural history of male homoeroticism, the best modern scholarly study in English to date. Leupp ranges widely in a vast array of original literary, dramatic, and visual sources, which he brings to life with a finely textured use of comparative material from other traditions of male-male love both in East Asia and across the premodern world. Highly original and insightful, it will be standard reading for years to come."--Ronald P. Toby, author of State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu