hello. i've seen the commentary you've made regarding the term "bara" and i would like to know if this term is considered inappropriate to use in light of that information? i've noticed some people are already denouncing it, and considering this is tumblr, there's a high chance of people that will call out or personally attack others that still use that term because they aren't as informed
"Bara" isnāt worth starting a Tumblr social justice war over. Itās a loanword with a complicated history both in Japanese and English, and a plethora of usages. At best it unites fans with a common interest in the type of art posted on this blog, and at worst itās a culturally insensitiveĀ misnomer.
I would say maybe itās inappropriate to use it in a sentence like āGengoroh Tagame is my favorite bara artist,ā because thatās not how he identifies. However, the Japanese artists weāve discussed it with seem more perplexed by its usage than oppressed. Itās an antiquated word there, most strongly associated with the oldĀ Barazoku magazine, but it doesnāt connect with modern gay culture.Ā
Thereās a long history of Western misappropriation of the Japanese language, so Iām striving to be mindful of that (after using the term ābaraāĀ myselfĀ for years). This is a nation that calls itself āNihonā (ę„ę¬), and weāre still calling it āJapanā 700 years after Marco Poloās misinformed assertionĀ that the region was named āCipangu.ā
More recently, and with more than a few parallels to the subject at hand, the term āyaoiā came into popular use internationally for the manga genre that Japanese artists mostly refer to as BL (Boyās Love).Ā These days, artists all over the world are making work they proudly call āyaoi,ā and thatās great. If they identify with the term and find what it represents to be empowering, how can you hate on that?Ā
Itās not just a one-way street, either. Japanās own sexual categories have both influenced and been influenced by Western terminology. Even the word āgayā (ć²ć¤ orĀ gei)Ā has had its own unique trajectory in Japan since it was introduced during occupation following the Pacific War. It became a widely used term in Japanese culture decades before the word āgayā was well-known in the U.S.Ā
From Mark McLellandās great book, Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age:
Indeed, āgay,ā as a signifier for homosexual men and women, was not widely understood even in the United States in the 1950s. The term established itself as a common referent among homosexual subcultures in the United States only as a result of the mass mobilization during the war, which brought a diverse number of homosexual men and women together from all parts of the country and helped standardize gay slang.
[ā¦] Compared with the slow dissemination of the word āgayā throughout anglophone societies, where it was to take another 25 years before becoming general currency, the rise ofĀ gei in Japanese was meteoric. Gay (gei) entered Japanese immediately after the war via gay men in the occupation forces, who referred to their Japanese partners asĀ gei boi or āgay boys.ā By the 1950s gei, especially as part of the compoundĀ geiĀ boi, wasĀ being used in the Japanese media to describe effeminate homosexual men.
The meaning ofĀ geiĀ originally didnāt quite match up with the American usage of āgay.ā It referred specifically to homosexual men (never women) āwho displayed transgender characteristics or worked in the entertainment industry.ā
The term geiĀ continued to evolve in Japanese usage over the following decades, and by the time the Japan experienced a cultural āgay boomā in the early 1990s, the meaning ofĀ geiĀ had grown closer to the newly globalized āgay,ā as LGBT activism surged around the world. However close geiĀ has become to āgay,ā thereās still an important distinction. When I talk about gay manga, Iām always really talking aboutĀ gei manga.Ā
Anyway, Iāve gone off on a few tangents here, but this is all to say that the terminology of sexual minorities is often contentious and frequently shifting, and in the case of ābaraā itās complicated further by the tides of cross-cultural exchange.
For more reading on the many complex ways in which language has shaped understandings of sexuality in Japan, I highly recommend reading the above-mentionedĀ Queer Japan, as well as Katsuhiko SuganumaāsĀ Contact Moments: The Politics of Intercultural Desire in Japanese Male-Queer Cultures and Gregory PflugfelderāsĀ Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse 1600-1950.Ā
