Abstract
This chapter draws attention to the intersections and collisions between discourses of work, masculinity, and sexuality in the context of Japanese corporate culture. Despite significant socio-cultural shifts over recent decades, the discourse of the middle-class, white-collar heterosexual “salaryman” continues to be a signifier for Japanese corporate masculinity, and indeed, for Japanese masculinity as a whole. Yet, the reality is that there are salarymen who may not be heterosexual, but nevertheless need to engage on a day-to-day basis with the heteronormative ideological expectations of corporate masculinity. This chapter, drawing on interviews with individual salarymen who identify as non-heterosexual, explores the complex relationship between the publicly articulated heteronormative ideology of the workplace and the day-to-day micro-negotiations with the expectations of this ideology by non-heterosexual individuals.
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Notes
- 1.
There is a whole sub-genre of Yaoi/BL manga (written by, and predominantly targeting heterosexual fujoshi women) revolving around sexualized same-sex salaryman fantasies – one example, for instance, is Guren Naomi’s 2010 Shachō wa Eroshikku (The Company President is Erotic/Ero‘sick’).
- 2.
One such example of a popular gay riiman bar in Shimbashi is “Townhouse” http://townhousetokyo.web.fc2.com.
- 3.
The names of all informants are pseudonyms. Japanese names, when the full name is used, follow the order of family name/personal name. When referring to my informants, I either use their whole name (e.g., Arai Jun), or I use their personal name (e.g., Jun).
- 4.
He mentioned regarding himself as “feminine/effeminate”, something that did not strike me during the interview.
- 5.
Some foreign multinational corporations in Japan (like IBM) have active LGBT-friendly policies and support services for staff. However, as Hiroaki and a couple of other informants noted, non-heterosexual friends working in these organizations were reluctant to be associated with such efforts. For discussion of IBM’s LGBT peer support group in Japan, see H. Sunagawa (2010).
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Dasgupta, R. (2017). Acting Straight? Non-heterosexual Salarymen Working with Heteronormativity in the Japanese Workplace. In: Lin, X., Haywood, C., Mac an Ghaill, M. (eds) East Asian Men. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55634-9_3
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