The search for modernity in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) involved not only the discovery of some new subject matter but also the suppression of some of the old. As the author tells us in this interesting volume: "Certain topics were deemed out of step . . . nanshoku topped the list of undesirable topics."
The term refers to male-male sexuality, in the practice of which Japan had had a long and distinguished history. Kobo Daishi is supposed to have both imported and practiced it. Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Miyamoto Musashi had male partners. At least seven of the 15 Tokugawa shoguns had, in the words of one authority, "well-documented, sometimes very conspicuous, homosexual involvements."
When it was discovered what the West thought of the practice, however, nanshoku became the love that no one any more talked about. In Europe and America it was thought a symptom of biological and cultural decline. As Reichert adds, "according to this theory, homosexuality was of the many possible morbid conditions that could be acquired from an unhealthy environment or an unwholesome upbringing." When viewed in this manner "male-male sexual desire morphed into a social pathology that posed a threat to the well being of society."