○What do you think when you hear about “Gay music in Japan”?
There must be gay music seen in Japan, but people living in other countries cannot know about it well because there is no report about it for foreigners. So, I tried to research for Japanese gay music seen for foreigners, making you know more about Japanese gay.
○ I will introduce Japanese gay music seen in three ways.
1) Japanese Music that Japanese gays like.
Do you know the gay app “Jack’d”? Jack’d is a gay social network app so you can meet gay using this app. With this, we can know what music gays like because many gay users writes about their favorite music in their profile. I used this app and found that there are some gay iconic musicians. I am introducing those, mainly Japanese, artists.
2) Gay musicians
I introduce Japanese musicians who came out that they are gay. In Japan, there are some artists who are said to be a gay, but it’s only a rumor. Not so many artists come out that they are gay. So I will introduce Japanese gay artists who came out, because if someone hasn’t come out, we can’t know if he is really a gay or not.
3) What we can say researching 1 and 2. (Conclusion)
In conclusion, what music do Japanese gays like? What common thing we can seek from this research? I’m considering what we can say about Japanese gay music seen, researching 1 and 2.
1)Music that Japanese gays like.
Before considering about this, I want you to know that everybody like various kinds of music. There are gays who don’t like these music below. But, we can say that major Japanese gays like these artists below, by researching.
I want to introduce mainly Japanese artists, because you may know well about foreign gay iconic famous artists, but I guess you may not know well about Japanese artists.
● Japanese artist that Japanese gay like.
☆Namie Amuro (安室奈美恵)
Namie Amuro is the most famous Japanese gay iconic artist in Japan. There are many Japanese gays who like her. There is an “Amuro night” for gays in Japan, which we can dance with Amuro’s songs in gay club. And, every time When Amuro holds her live, many gays come to her live.
She shows that she is gay-friendly herself. In her music video of "Lady Dynamite", all of the casts is gay, and in "beautiful ****", you can see lots of Japanese gay.
Like Namie Amuro, she is famous generally, but we can see there are Japanese gays in her funs.
She got famous several years ago, and she isn't active as a artist any more now, but Japanese gays like her songs, mainly old gay people. As she was active in the old age, young gays don't know her well. For example, I was born in 1991, but she was active in 80s and 90s, I don't listen to her song when I got interested in music.
○Foreign artists famous for Japanese Gay
☆Lady Gaga
We cannnot talk about Lady Gaga without gay.
Japanese gays also like her songs, attitude to gay, and her talent. When she held her live in Japan,there were lots of Japanese gay.
In gay club, every gays gets hot when her song was played, and I don't know the gay club which doesn't play her song.
☆Madonna
Like Lady Gaga, She is the most famous artist in the world.
She is the gay iconic artist, and Japanese gays also like her. In her gay club, we can listen to her songs played, and, as she keeps famous for long years, many old Japanese gays also like her.
○Japanese gay musician, and music that Japanese gays make.
There are not so many gay artists in Japan. For example, we can see gay artists / groups like Village People, Queen, Adam Lambert, Cazwell…and so on. But
In Japan, though some artists is said to be gay, but it’s just a rumor. We cannot see Japanese gay artists a lot who came out that they are gay. This is because Japanese society is not open to gay yet. I will introduce some major artists who came out that they are gay.
☆ Akihiro Miwa
On the left side, there is a Miwa’s present picture. She is the well-known gay singer who came out (though I call “she”, she is man.). We can see him in television, radio, and so on now. She is 77 years old now, but nobody can know it by looking at her.
On the right side, we can see the picture of when she was young. As you guess, she was said to be very beautiful. She is so well known in Japan, there may be no one who doesn’t know her. She succeeded in music, actress, and voice actor. Do you know the movie “Princess Mononoke” by Ghibli? She played a voice role of wolfs, including Moro.
He is the well-known gay artist in Japan. Many Japanese know him, but not so famous in Japanese gay. He came out that he is gay, but not every Japanese know it. His music is about love and things we feel in our lives.
Of course there are more artists who are popular among Japanese gays, and Japanese gay artists. But as it’s too many, I could introduce only these artists.
As the semiotics of Japanese gay music, we can conclude these things.
Artists who are famous for Japanese gay is…
・ Mostly woman.
Except for Namie Amuro, Ayumi Hamasaki and Seiko Noda, there are some gay-famous artists. Many of them are woman.
・ Whose music is electronic.
Gay people like electronic and club-tasted music. Namie Amuro is an iconic artist, who makes dance music.
・ Who has confidence of herself, and have her own style.
Those artists are powerful and don’t care so much about what others say about them. Even though in fact they care about criticism against them, the image of them is “the man who goes his own way, and don’t care what other people say”.
・ Beautiful or cute, and sexy.
As you may have thought, they are beautiful or cute. And, their performance is often sexy.
・ Looks like bitch.
The image of bitch in Japan is the woman who has blond color, heavily making up, and has sexy body. We Japanese gay think it’s cool.
・ Gay friendly.
We know they are gay friendly, and at the same time, they know it. In their music video, we can see gay dancers, and general gay like “Lady Dynamite” by Ayumi Hamasaki.
We can conclude about music made by Japanese gay…
・ Not always popular among Japanese gays.
We know they are gay, and they are famous for general Japanese, but it doesn’t mean we Japanese gay like them. And they don’t make songs which Japanese gay like (dance music). They make songs for general people.
・ Not having come out when they start.
They kept it secret when they started to make songs. After starting, they came out that they are gay. In this Japanese society, Coming out is not easy to do, so I guess they didn’t have tendency to come out when starting, but as they got famous, they stopped lying to people, including their fans.
I researched for Japanese gays, but this report includes my subjective supposition. But I hope that these information will help you know more about Japanese gay. Thank you.
Could you imagine “elderly gay”? You can see a lot of elderly people when you walk around the streets, but most people may not have seen elderly gay people. Most of the young people have their sexual minority friends, but I have never heard a story like “One of my elderly neighbors is a gay and he has a male partner.” Or I have never met elderly people at Shinjuku 2 chome.
But from some research, it is a fact that there are sexual minority in any community or in any period, so of course “elderly gay” exists. Mr. Shibun Nagayasu sometimes says “There is no gay who will not get old”. It means sexual minority must get old even if they are young now.
The reason is that Japanese people couldn’t live their lives “as” gay for long time. In Japan, people had to ‘graduate’ gay when he got about 30s. They had to get married and have 2 or 3 children even if they were gay. In 1990s, it changed. “Gay boom” occurred and “gay liberation was promoted. Today, the people who were 20s at that time (born in 1960s or in early 70s) have got 40s. Straight people have choices that they would have/ would not have their child, too. It means the conception of “life planning” was created. People have to think about how they want to live or to get old by themselves.
After that, most of the gay people accepts the fact they are gay and don’t mean to get married as straight. But, they don’t have model cases to live as gay.
In Japan, we don’t have any same-sex marriage law or domestic partner system. Even if you have a partner, you are not legal family. Most laws don’t suppose the existence of sexual minority. So, it is not easy to live as a gay. More and more countries make laws about sexual minority. For example, most European countries have adaptation system. In some states in the US, people can use sperm bank legally. They mean sexual minority have some choice to have children.
If Japan could have society that you can see various styles of families, it releases not only sexual minority but also majority.
