Sexuality matters within VK

[saiko 429]

Talking about another interest of mine, while looking up for old VK dedicated web sites, I've found a translation done for an interview with SOFT BALLET. Here's a quotation that put me into deep-thinking, in which Ken Morioka (their keyboardist/guitarist and, I suppose, their leader), when asked about his thoughts over his flamboyant looks and stage performances, talks about his interest in gender-trascending aesthetics in spite of him "not being gay". 

 

When I saw the stage I thought of how you were the weirdest one Ken. Is that because you were thinking of that visual aspect?
Ken: Ah, well...(laughs). A large part of that comes from where I'm a narcissist and I'm all like "Lookie, lookie! Look at Meee!". And then there's the part of me that really loves and adores appearing to move in a state that's transcended gender, so I suppose that's where I'm coming from....

 

Meaning?
Ken: It's that I've gotten a lot of influence from various people, but I've been like this from a long time ago. I really wanted to become a woman, and I never really thought to deny that feeling. It doesn't mean I'm gay though. There's a sense that I was building up and developing my own preferences.

 

(If you don't know who Ken Morioka or SOFT BALLET is, next I'll leave a video of them performing live:)

 

 

This quotation made me revive an old interest of mine on how gender or sexual orientation identities circulate particularly within the people of the VK scene. Till today, there's enough been written about that topic, but taking Japanese society as a whole or some of their products (as anime/manga) as the unit of analysis, but I've never came across something related to VK although I've defintely did a specific search. What always triggered me is that, if we keep in mind the obvious fact that VK aesthetics rely essentially over challenging gender/sexual orientation performances, then it can't not come weird or suspicious that 99% of band members since VK was born --that 1% goes for Kaya and Ao Sakurai-  don't actually talk about the matter, while at the same time they are always straight-supposed within the logic of selling out as idols for their gya. And the few times they do so they have the urgence of make clear that they are actually "not gay" -and then in the commentary section fans support this statements by remebering the doubting fans that said bandoman actually has a kid "so he is definitely not gay!!!". Actually, I've read very, very few comments of Japanese fans supposing/acknowledging the LGBTness of their favorite bandoman and nontheless supporting them as artists, but maybe that's because I have a hard time looking up into Japanese web sites and translating. (Also, perhaps many bandoman actually talked enough about the fact in a serious way, but I  still don't have the chance to read them since only 5% of the interviews made up being translated).

 

Of course, I've been aware since the beggining of my stay in the weeb fandom that Japan, while not having serious persecussion issues towards LGBT people -at least in their last 50 years of history-, definitely don't finish to get politically open about it, and that's why society decided to treat the matter in a don't-ask-don't-tell fashion. I'm also aware that this fact takes place in a more general tendency of Japanese people to obssesively keep their lives and relationships actually very private, too.  But I can't not ask myself if it isn't at least a bit fool of someone, fan or not, to assume that naturally that every bandoman is "not-gay", in a scene where artistic creativity emerges from fantasies of "men" transforming into "women", or even into un-gendered beautiful creatures, even involving into sex with/as them?  (On a personal note, although I don't actually know their reasons behind, I always liked @nekkichi and other users attempt here to call every bandoman by "her").

 

What are your thoughts on this topics?

Edited January 24, 2020 by saiko

[薔薇の末裔 157]

It might sound weird from a western perspective, but visual kei is like the straightest and most homophobic music scene in Japan. We tend to look at visual kei with western eyes and mix its cultural aspects with things that belong to the western culture. Fanservice and provocations used for shock value put aside, the androgynous aesthetics of visual kei band rarely expressed anything related to gender identity and especially sexual orientation. 

After all, it started with people like X Japan who admittedly were inspired by glam rock bands and way of life, which I would find hard to connect to sexual orientation. Visual kei early bandomen were mostly chinpiras, bosozokus (bikers) and the likes. They really incarnated the somewhat glamrock aesthetic of riding bikes getting drunk, banging girls, etc. Of course X had their own decadent/romantic taste that made them different, and a lot of influences changed the scene over time. However, visual kei is still remains 99% driven by social outcasts looking for pussy and very rarely by something else.

In Japan we also have onnagatas, who are kabuki actors specialized in female roles that are again 99% straight. Bandoman with feminine looks call themselves onnagata, not josou (crossdresser), implying that the cultural source behind their looks is not connected with crossdressing but just playing a female role in a band,  but again this something that might be hard to completely understand it taken outside of Japanese culture. For example Izam, the king of all onnagatas, married more than once and has more tha one child, and outside of his role in Shazna he rarely did anything ambiguous, just like the kabuki onnagatas out of stage. Both media and fans are everything but respectful of privacy, but I've rarely seen Japanese articles or message board questioning bandomen sexual orientation. That's because the number 1 reason people do visual kei is because the girls like it (well, liked it, I am not sure this is the trend with young girls anymore). 

Soft Ballet/Ken Morioka are closer to Soft Cell/Marc Almond so I would not even count them as visual kei even though they had some influence on it. And of course, there are exceptions as you mentioned. The chinpira bandomen of the 90's almost extincted and younger generations bandomans are usually anime/game otakus. They grew up with different influences and values, and it would make sense if the current incarnation of visual kei instinctively appealed to more people with sexual orientation/gender identity concerns, especially after Japan started talking about these issues in a less obsolete viewpoint.

[saishuu 3220]

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Kaya's the only queer person in visual kei

[Tokage 5930]

imagine how much better visual key would be if all the musicians really were female girls (female)

[Arkady 396]

I was always curious over what was/is K****o's official stance (I don't know japanese so I cannot follow all the original stuff there). He doesn't seem to hide it much even though he isn't really out either (I think?).

Or did I miss some huge stuff?

[platy 3018]

I think the reason the musicians don't talk about it much is because they're not thinking about their sexuality. Their look is a costume, just like other performance arts have costumes. Through western perspective it's easy to analyse and put gender roles and other analytical concepts to it, but I don't think the majority of vk performers thinks about what wearing make up and feminine clothes means to them on a gender transgression level/ as an extension of their sexuality. It's simple as "as a chef I put on my white apron" "and as a member of kiryu I wear full make up and sometimes a skirt. " of course there are queer members out there who probably enjoy the freedom of visual expression in the scene but we don't know for a fact who and how many, after all, sexuality in Japan is a taboo subject that can only be broken for the sake of fanservice bucks, horny fujoshi and temporary high school exploration storylines (hello shoujo ai). 

 

[Saga 116]

A easy example about how the looks don't necessarily reflect the person of a visual kei artist is the usage of the hakenkreuz by the earliests bands. We don’t see as much nowadays, but the SS caps always appears, sooner or later.

Of course that there was some classic japanese punk nationalism in some bands here and there, but core of V系 was about shocking after all. So, the imaginary of the nazism is aesthetic, therefore should be used. 

 

As @薔薇の末裔 pointed out, understanding Kabuki is a good way to understand this theatrical musical scene. 

 

Kabuki in its first days was a female theater, a more accessible branch of Noh. But it was just too sexy for that confucian society. “A woman's place is in the kitchen”, said the Shogun (or it was my dad last night?). And then, the boys took the place of the woman, doing woman roles. But the boys turned out into fuckboys. “Notto disu shitto agen”, said the Shogun. And then, old man were doing woman roles. “Hmm”, long and deeply said the Shogun. Keep in mind that everyone was killing everyone in the past sengoku century, so the Shoguns could not fuck around (ha).

 

“Ok, ok, And so what?”. Well, since being really sexy was not an option, the onnagata dudes started doing their own shit to emulate the woman sexyness. First come the fancy wig, then they started showing some little skin and so on. Little by little there was no more “man” or “woman”, but onnagata. A woman that no other woman could be. 

 

At that point, Kabuki without man doing female roles is not Kabuki. Visual kei without man doing female roles is not visual kei? I don’t think so, exist†trace showed their shit and we digged it hard. But I would say that is highly expected to see a man doing female roles in the visual rock scene. D’s “Ouka saki some ni keri” is my pick for today. The contrast of Asagi manly vocals with his woman clothing is a perfectly example of why we love it the way it is. They do it with passion (or for money), and we love them for it, not because their sexual preference.

 

The whole pv setting is a love letter for their culture. And it is just one example, there is so many other bands with pvs with that scenary (and probably there is a “something-kei” for it too). The pompous and bold Glam Rock found it’s home in the japanese costumes and evolved into the coolest thing.

 

To be deeper into to sexuallity stuff we could talk about how Japan society potentially repress the sexual preference of their people in order to have things working “in the right way” and how the west really needs to “talk about it” and not let the individuals be themselves without pushing some agenda into your fuckin throat so it’s fuckin hard to understand these japs using lipsticks just because they like it, but that stress me too much so fuck it.

[saiko 429]

6 hours ago, Arkady said:

I was always curious over what was/is K****o's official stance (I don't know japanese so I cannot follow all the original stuff there). He doesn't seem to hide it much even though he isn't really out either (I think?).

Or did I miss some huge stuff?

A friend of mine (who apparently had some connections with people involved into the teams that brought Kamijo to Latin America in his lastest tour) told him that Kamijo invited two guys of the crowd to drink wine and perhaps have sex, after the show. But who knows.

 

Btw, Kamijo always seemed pretty non-straight to me. His approach to the androgynous aesthetics differ a lot from what your typical bandoman does with them, imho. 

 

Do you have any other info?

[Rahzel 110]

I was gonna say something smartypants in this topic but I lost all my arguments at "sexuality in Japan is a taboo subject that can only be broken for the sake of fanservice bucks, horny fujoshi and temporary high school exploration storylines (hello shoujo ai)." quite frankly, I mean Saga was amazing at the exposure but my shit was far gone lol 

 

Regardless. Yeah, it's For The Art, man. And the horny fujoshi.

 

As I see it from someone growing in the 90s and 2000s I think vk (not just vk but also ... Jpop culture generally I guess) being counterculture ends up being critical of certain aspects of culture and Japanese culture is pretty gendered so it's as I see. Some probably enjoy the aspect of being sexually/genderwise ambiguous more than others just like how some are in it for the pussy and others are more for the music etc that's for sure. Besides the anime and game aesthetics is influential esp in 2010s vk and well Traps Are Kawaii. I mean -cough- and it was also influential to so-called genderless kei which again is much about smashing gender boundaries not so much about sexuality which is somewhat in another axis. So yeah to add post 80s X Japan cultural references to what was exposed before these would be some. 

 

( Having Said That, Glammed Rockers Are Charming. ) 

[nekkichi 6043]

fuckyeahtan*ki translated a few (alleged) bandomen confessions from the satans board some years ago, and even those who aren't straight keep quiet about it.

with the others (excepting the blessed 1 % of, like, Kaya?..and her dancers?..) it would be incredibly hard to tell because hyper-feminine/flamboyant straight men also exist and openly gay ones in VK keep on the masc/Morrissey-LARPer side it seems.

my gaydar is completely defunct in relation to regular Japanese men, but I get off-het vibe from Kaoru (masc4masc grindr-tier), Atsushi Sakurai, Hazuki and Cummijo, already mentioned here - which all might be a part of an act.

 

>I always liked @nekkichi and other users attempt here to call every bandoman by "her"

 

thank u luv. it's an imprint picked up from gay twitter.

[Arkady 396]

7 hours ago, saiko said:

A friend of mine (who apparently had some connections with people involved into the teams that brought the prince of pretty vampires to Latin America in his lastest tour) told him that the prince of pretty vampires invited two guys of the crowd to drink wine and perhaps have sex, after the show. But who knows.

 

Btw, the prince of pretty vampires always seemed pretty non-straight to me. His approach to the androgynous aesthetics differ a lot from what your typical bandoman does with them, imho. 

 

Do you have any other info?

No extra info except a 20 y.o. long certainty from within my pure heart and some small (or not so small) clues scattered in his projects (song lyrics etc.), plus bandomen members wishing him an happy birthday using a pretty unmistakable sequence of emoji.
I don't know, he doesn't really seems to care too much to hide it, even though he isn't out and proud to the public either. My (maybe limited) understanding is that he may be pretty much out with the people working in the field and prefer to withhold the information to the public for a cultural matter and because it's better for selling that romantic vampire boyfriend fantasy to japanese (and overseas) young ladies, but if the information would start to spread he wouldn't care very much.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Arkady

[Wakarimashita 317]

I get that Japan is weird in many ways from a western point of view, so I understand their concept of sexuality and being open about it doesn't necessarily meet our expectations.

 

Question time! My thoughts run to JILUKA's Sena who has no issues letting everybody know how fabulous he is on his YT channel & isn't afraid of going around in full hair&makeup even if it's not for a gig. To me he's unquestionably gay, but I can't really tell as I know so little about japanese society. How is he perceived? Is it socially "normal" to see guys in full drag on the streets? Is that perceived as "weird" or "gay"?

[Komorebi 2193]

1 hour ago, Wakarimashita said:

Question time! My thoughts run to JILUKA's Sena who has no issues letting everybody know how fabulous he is on his YT channel & isn't afraid of going around in full hair&makeup even if it's not for a gig. To me he's unquestionably gay, but I can't really tell as I know so little about japanese society. How is he perceived? Is it socially "normal" to see guys in full drag on the streets? Is that perceived as "weird" or "gay"?

As far as I know/have seen it’s kinda obvious to some gyas but they don’t really talk much about it other than the fact that he has no devoted gachikoi gya unlike the other members and that he is “cold” towards them (probably because he isn’t flirting back). It’s also common knowledge that Zyean is hot for his legs lol

He’s the only bandmember I’ve met that gives me such a strong non-straight vibe. Idk about full drag on the street though. If someone did it it might be perceived as cosplay or something like that. 

[Gesu 1537]

1 hour ago, Wakarimashita said:

To me he's unquestionably gay

I'm always a bit iffy whenever I hear someone say "he must be gay, he looks it". Now, granted, stereotypes do often have a grain of truth in them whether we want to admit it or not and a lot of the time, camp men do happen to be gay but I wouldn't say it's unquestionable (even if, given the question, I would probably guess Sena was gay too so I guess I'm not trying to vehemently disagree with you). Actually, I once knew a guy who was about as stereotypically, histrionically camp as you could imagine but I know for a fact he wasn't gay. For the record, I have a shite gaydar (if that's even a thing) and can never really guess someone's sexuality accurately if I'm put on the spot to do so but the point I'm (perhaps clumsily) trying to get across here is that I don't think you can say someone is or isn't something just because they seem it or because someone on the Internet/your friend of a friend said so, especially in a scene defined by flamboyance and intricate hairstyles/makeup/costumes; basically, traits that would be considered "gay". Hell, I'm straight as a fuckin' arrow and when I was about seventeen, people used to think I was bisexual because apparently, my hair looked it, whatever that means.

[Wakarimashita 317]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not that easy on judging someone's sexuality. In fact, I don't usually do. Bottom line is: it's none of my fucking business, but for Sena there's more than just the looks, it's more than one bell ringing if you know what I mean, lol

[Komorebi 2193]

Yeah, every single interaction I’ve had with him tells me he’s... atypical. I won’t push a label on him/her/them(?), but most gya agree he’s not straight, based on the whole way he acts, talks, moves, etc, not just looks. 

Edited January 25, 2020 by Komorebi

[Saga 116]

12 hours ago, Wakarimashita said:

 Is it socially "normal" to see guys in full drag on the streets? Is that perceived as "weird" or "gay"?

These questions reminded me of this video:

 

 

Some things we can take from it:

1) It’s said that Akihabara is a “very tolerant city for men in drag”. The necessity of having to say it give me the perception of being something unusual in other places, potentially weird then.

 

2) Mostly of their clients are woman (aha!).

a) It’s more comfortable to talk with a guy in drag than with another woman.

b) A guy in drag is more special than a ordinary guy and, because of it, more attractive. 

 

3) Being in drag is fashion. It’s about clothing and looking good, not about turning into a “real woman”.

Which we can relate. Hizaki it the prettiest mother fucker, but when he open his mouth he sounds like a really big dinosaur with tiny arms  (just using some hyperbole, love this guy to the heart). That’s a really common thing with visual kei artists. They don’t try to fool you or modify their voice to match their drag character.

 

4) They keep man clothing for social stuff, like going to hospital. This one says a lot of how the japanese society functions in that matter.

For me it sounds like “You can dress yourself as you want: drag, tokusatsu, baseball mascot, but when you are doing you social role, you have to be the ‘real you’ (which is the one in your ID)”.

 

5) Three of themselves are bi, but they don’t use sexual terms to describe it, like “I am A” or “I am B” but they say “I am attracted by X and Y”.

Now, I don’t really know if this is a language thing or if japanese in general are less attached to specific terms to describe their sexuallity.

One of them just do drag to get attention from woman (loved that guy). I guess that relates with point 2.

 

With all that said, I have more questions than answers kek, but I think that these are some important lines of thinking to understand the myth of the japanese man with bra and his place in society.

 

I also recommend a movie called “Close-Knit”. Talks a lot about point 4. The director itself is a transgender, so there is a lot of self insert in it. Really interesting to see:

 

 

[Wakarimashita 317]

Fascinating! Thanks!

[Rahzel 110]

On 1/25/2020 at 10:10 AM, Wakarimashita said:

I get that Japan is weird in many ways from a western point of view, so I understand their concept of sexuality and being open about it doesn't necessarily meet our expectations.

 

Question time! My thoughts run to JILUKA's Sena who has no issues letting everybody know how fabulous he is on his YT channel & isn't afraid of going around in full hair&makeup even if it's not for a gig. To me he's unquestionably gay, but I can't really tell as I know so little about japanese society. How is he perceived? Is it socially "normal" to see guys in full drag on the streets? Is that perceived as "weird" or "gay"?

My heart and what little I have seen of his youtube channel tells me he's (FFXIII) Lightning kin

[薔薇の末裔 157]

On 1/25/2020 at 10:10 PM, Wakarimashita said:

Is it socially "normal" to see guys in full drag on the streets? Is that perceived as "weird" or "gay"?

Make up boys are a recent trend in Japan, a lot of popular instagram/youtube guys are wearing (mostly minimal) make up and even doing tutorial for other boys but they 90% appeal to girls. In the US/Europe everyone would probably think you are gay but there is no such connotation in Japan. After all people who shave/trim their eyebrow/dye or perm their hair were considered gay in the western culture until few years ago but have been absolutely normal things for a straight guy in Japan for at leas 20 years. Weird hair color is a different issue, most people will look at you as weird or someone who hasn't a serious job, etc.