Meaning information, of course.
I discovered a legitimate and fairly recent website of a university course on Japanese culture. Fascinating stuff.
This, in particular, is very interesting. The date is 1994:
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~bmori/syll/Hum310japan/familyforms2
Here’s a counterpart international table from the same site:
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~bmori/syll/Hum310japan/familyresp2
(Oh, hey, check out England…)
Of course, the numbers would have more weight if we knew how the studies were actually conducted, but it’s still neat. If only I could find poll data from after 2000.
EDIT:
I found just a little more.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?nn20000919b4.htm
Dated 2000, “In a 1997 survey conducted by a major daily newspaper, about 65 percent of Tokyo residents polled said they did not believe homosexuality was natural…” And there was murder involved somewhere.
Getting the general cultural attitude about same-sex relations accurate is pretty important for the majority of “Syncope” even if I’m not going to show masses of people talking about it. But I’m pretty sure Japan as a whole has never been gay-friendly and still isn’t now when looking at the family units.*
P.S.: Don’t think that the United States is particularly “open” to gays either, as a whole. (Several states and the country itself have pushed forward bills to ban gay marriages, whether successful or not.)
As of a 2007 political election in Japan–
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/politics/2005-4557.html
“Only four countries allow same-sex marriage; the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Belgium, and South Africa. The state of Massachusetts in the US also allows same-sex marriage.” It may be better to read ‘allow’ as ‘recognize’.
*(So why is yaoi popular with Japanese women, anyway? There’s actually a detailed study about that somewhere. And, according to that author, it’s really not what you think.)
Huh, interesting… sometimes I really forget how traditional mainstream society is from all the anime. >.>;
Haha, reality check? ^_^;
Interesting! But indeed more fresh data would be welcomed. I wonder if the fact that lesbians are more visible in Japan now and that majority of young women do not want to marry have any effect on such statistic.
Well, at least one lesbian was a lot more visible (running for gov’t office in 2007). I wonder what happened with the election, though. I’m assuming she lost. ^_^;
Even though it’s true that more young women are unwilling to marry into the very patriarchal Japanese system (both in traditional culture and in government structure), I think that has little to do with how the society views homosexuality.
Oh, more links :)
Yes, it looks like she lost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanako_Otsuji
Maybe you are right, but with the conservative goverment trying to force women into traditional marriage
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/14/LVGE79P17G1.DTL
the situation of lesbians may get worse. They may be seen as one of the evil groups putting the traditional family in danger.
On the other hand Takarazuka is very popular :)
Well, next to countries allowing same-sex marriages also the ones allowing same-sex civil partnerships should be listed.
And probably you’ve seen it already, a book about Japanese lesbians:
http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue9/welker_review.html
Ah, yaoi. I can’t say anything, because I am not interested ;D, but isn’t anime subculture very different to the Japan society as whole?
With a homophobic society around Shizuru’s behaviour (or Natsuki’s, Haruka’s, Yukino’s etc) wasn’t so surprising.
> Well, next to countries allowing same-sex marriages also the ones allowing same-sex civil partnerships should be listed.
This is a good point! After all, “marriage” in most cultures arose from religious ceremony, so while pretty much all the major world religions frown about same-sex union, the secular government may move away from that and allow civil unions. I’ll look into that later as well.
And yes, I think you’re right that anime subculture is very different from reality. I have indeed found that book (review) but don’t intend to get the actual book since that’s waaaaayyy over, above, and beyond what I can and should put into the story research. ^_~
Thanks for the links!