Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
Regimes of Desire : Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo Volume 93, Paperback / softback Book

Regimes of Desire : Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo Volume 93 Paperback / softback

Part of the Michigan Monograph Japanese Studies series

Paperback / softback

Out of stock

Description

Shinjuku Ni-ch?me is a nightlife district in central Tokyo filled with bars and clubs targeting the city's gay male community.

Typically understood as a "safe space" where same-sex attracted men and women from across Japan's largest city can gather to find support from a relentlessly heteronormative society, Regimes of Desire reveals that the neighborhood may not be as welcoming as previously depicted in prior literature.

Through fieldwork observation and interviews with young men who regularly frequent the neighborhood's many bars, the book reveals that the district is instead a space where only certain performances of gay identity are considered desirable.

In fact, the district is highly stratified, with Shinjuku Ni-ch?me's bar culture privileging "hard" masculine identities as the only legitimate expression of gay desire and thus excluding all those men who supposedly "fail" to live up to these hegemonic gendered ideals. ?Through careful analysis of media such as pornographic videos, manga comics, lifestyle magazines and online dating services, this book argues that the commercial imperatives of the Japanese gay media landscape and the bar culture of Shinjuku Ni-ch?me act together to limit the agency of young gay men so as to better exploit them economically.

Exploring the direct impacts of media consumption on the lives of four key informants who frequent the district's gay bars in search of community, fun and romance, Regimes of Desire reveals the complexity of Tokyo's most popular "gay town" and intervenes in debates over the changing nature of masculinity in contemporary Japan.

Information

£25.95

Out of stock
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information

Also in the Michigan Monograph Japanese Studies series

Coeds Ruining the Nation

£69.00

Add to Basket