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So, I was talking to The Canadian on the phone last week and we were talking about weird shit that goes down at school. I told him the kanchou-houdai story (see beginning of August on this blog for that one), among other things, and we agreed that while kanchou-houdai is the best one, there's nothing as strange as the stuff the kids do to each other.
Speaking of weird shit, the demure homoeroticism and continual nakedness of the high school Japanese boy is again at my mind. In the States, sometimes boys get flirtatious with each other and make sexual jokes, but it's charged with a certain sexual energy and associated with power. They'll make jokes and touch each other and everyone will giggle in a nervous tizzy, but here, people just touch and get naked like it's nothing. But not all people! For example: a girl cannot wear a tank top in public (I mean, she can, but it's like wearing hot pants in the states, some people will lift an eyebrow), but the other day i was walking down the hall at school and I stumbled across a boy in his boxers. We're not talking, "Oh, sensei! You snuck up on me in this empty back hallway while I was changing for basketball! Whoops!" we're talking, "Hey, I'm standing in a group of 15 boys AND girls, let me make eye contact with you, say hello, and then take off my pants while we're still making eye contact. Oh, by the way, I’m in the entry hall of school!" No problem, no one looks away, no one steals a peek. It's like he was combing his hair while having a conversation.
Then at the taikai yesterday, I was watching ping pong when two boys walk up to the registration desk. One bends over to lean on the table while he talks to another, and the friend he's with just reaches up his shirt and starts stroking his back idley. Then he pulls open the back of his pants about 4 inches, bare-ass view, and looks in mildly, like he's looking into a boring old box he found in the garage and can't remember what he put in it. No one reacts, no one is awkward, no one is joking. Just a couple of boys checkin' out each other's goods and goin' about their business. Cultural differences, eh?
Similarly, I'm told that even at the rarely-found co-ed onsen, there is very low sexual energy. A female friend from Alaska told me, "Yeah, I've been to a mixed bathhouse and once everyone strips, even if you're interested in someone, it's very non-sexual. It's like, 'oh, so that's what your penis looks like.'"
I find these sentiments absolutely amazing. They make sense, but I'd be curious to read about the situations in which people *do* get aroused. Is it that there's something these situations have in common that make them the exceptions, or is there some trick to Japanese sexuality that I don't understand as an outsider? It awakens the anthropologist in me.
Speaking of weird shit, the demure homoeroticism and continual nakedness of the high school Japanese boy is again at my mind. In the States, sometimes boys get flirtatious with each other and make sexual jokes, but it's charged with a certain sexual energy and associated with power. They'll make jokes and touch each other and everyone will giggle in a nervous tizzy, but here, people just touch and get naked like it's nothing. But not all people! For example: a girl cannot wear a tank top in public (I mean, she can, but it's like wearing hot pants in the states, some people will lift an eyebrow), but the other day i was walking down the hall at school and I stumbled across a boy in his boxers. We're not talking, "Oh, sensei! You snuck up on me in this empty back hallway while I was changing for basketball! Whoops!" we're talking, "Hey, I'm standing in a group of 15 boys AND girls, let me make eye contact with you, say hello, and then take off my pants while we're still making eye contact. Oh, by the way, I’m in the entry hall of school!" No problem, no one looks away, no one steals a peek. It's like he was combing his hair while having a conversation.
Then at the taikai yesterday, I was watching ping pong when two boys walk up to the registration desk. One bends over to lean on the table while he talks to another, and the friend he's with just reaches up his shirt and starts stroking his back idley. Then he pulls open the back of his pants about 4 inches, bare-ass view, and looks in mildly, like he's looking into a boring old box he found in the garage and can't remember what he put in it. No one reacts, no one is awkward, no one is joking. Just a couple of boys checkin' out each other's goods and goin' about their business. Cultural differences, eh?
Similarly, I'm told that even at the rarely-found co-ed onsen, there is very low sexual energy. A female friend from Alaska told me, "Yeah, I've been to a mixed bathhouse and once everyone strips, even if you're interested in someone, it's very non-sexual. It's like, 'oh, so that's what your penis looks like.'"
I find these sentiments absolutely amazing. They make sense, but I'd be curious to read about the situations in which people *do* get aroused. Is it that there's something these situations have in common that make them the exceptions, or is there some trick to Japanese sexuality that I don't understand as an outsider? It awakens the anthropologist in me.