#leupp

[buckeyenative01]

Yesterday in Leupp: Points on the Horizon Be respectful if you're like me: bilagaana on The Reservation #leupp #diné #dine #navajo #reservation #northernarizona #northernaz #arizona #az #azgrammers #azgram #igrsflg #flagstaff #tolanilake #todayinleupp #southwest #leuppaz #mesa #mesas #tomwaits #bilagaana (at Tolani Lake, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmVRk29ryRL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[osamiuya]

google am i in too deep when i start using my actual university library to conduct research for my anime boy fic???

[unohanadaydreams]

I’m re-reading Male Colors for the first time in a couple years for Bleach fic and how HOW H O W did I miss that Jizō as a deity was heavily associated with homosexuality.

Was my bleach brain turned ALL the way off in my first read????? Unacceptable! Highlighter has been activated! Marinating as we speak!!

[benedictusantonius]

Girls Will Be Girls (2003) directed by Richard Day

[catnip-kitty]

Why Gay Sex is Dialectic, an Essay

As a petite proletariat (twink) who reads theory, I was pondering the nature of homosexuality in terms of dialectical materialism, in particular, how gay sex fit into Engel's three laws of dialectics.

Just as Engels posits that internal contradictions or tensions drive change in the law of unity and conflict of opposites, the same could be said for the homoerotic tension of a top-bottom relationship. While tops and bottoms appear to exist as binary oppositional roles, they coexist internally within a relationship. While the duality may give rise to differences in preferences, desires, and dynamics these differences can be resolved through negotiation between the partners. The act of say gex, is thus, the ultimate act of such negotiation, a synthesis of contradictions.

Furthermore, the law of the passage of quantitative changes into qualitative changes could be seen the complications to that top-bottom dynamic. The roles of tops and bottoms can be redefined through the process of negotiation. In fact, surveys from Autostraddle [1] show that the majority of people in a gay relationships are switches, not strictly tops or bottoms. This indicates that the physical designation of top or bottom is thus the result of an accumulation of decisions and preferences, culminating in the qualitative dynamic. This is exemplified by the ways in which masculine-feminine attributes or sub-dom dynamics play a role in gay sex — these attributes, which can be seen as mostly qualitative assignations are the result of the accumulation of quantitative changes.

I would further propose that, through the collaborative dialectic process of negotiation, the social dynamics of gay relationships can change, including that top-bottom dynamic. Engel's law of the negation of the negation captures these changes precisely. The traditional associations between masculinity and feminity, subordination and domination are, to an extent, being subverted in many 21st gay relationships in contrast to the strict gender roles seen in Greco-Roman times [2] or the Tokugawa period [3]. For example, I want a femboy to top me. Whether through the process of resolving contradictions in homosexual intercourse, the top-bottom dynamic or between other qualitative attributes, the process of negation and transformation dialectically results in a more egalitarian understanding of say gex. This is the socialist means of reproduction.

In conclusion, gay sex is praxis.

[1] Riese. “Tops, Bottoms, Switches: One Last Look at All the Survey Data.” Autostraddle, 7 Aug. 2018, www.autostraddle.com/tops-bottoms-switches-one-last-look-at-all-the-survey-data-424953/. Accessed 3 Mar. 2024.

[2] Hubbard, Thomas K. Homosexuality in Greece and Rome : A Sourcebook of Basic Documents. Berkeley, Univ. Of California Press, 2010.

[3] Leupp, Gary P. Male Colors : The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. Berkeley, University Of California Press, 2011.

[old-powwow-days]

The first major solo museum presentation of fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody (b. 1983, No Water Mesa, Arizona) spans the last decade of her practice, showcasing over 30 weavings and a major new work produced for the exhibition. Using long-established weaving techniques and incorporating new digital technologies, Cody assembles and reimagines popular patterns into sophisticated geometric overlays, incorporating atypical dyes and fibers. Her tapestries carry forward the methods of Navajo Germantown weaving, which developed out of the wool and blankets that were made in Germantown, Pennsylvania and supplied by the US government to the Navajo people during the forced expulsion from their territories in the mid-1800s. During this period, the rationed blankets were taken apart and the yarn was used to make new textiles, a practice of reclamation which became the source of the movement. While acknowledging this history and working on a traditional Navajo loom, Cody’s masterful works exercise experimental palettes and patterns that animate through reinvention, reframing traditions as cycles of evolution. Melissa Cody is a Navajo/Diné textile artist and enrolled member of the Navajo/Diné nation. Cody grew up on a Navajo Reservation in Leupp, Arizona and received a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts and Museum Studies from Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe. Her work has been featured in The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2022); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2021); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2019–2020); Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff (2019); SITE Santa Fe (2018–19); Ingham Chapman Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (2018); Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock (2018); and the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe (2017–18). Cody’s works are in the collections of the Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and The Autry National Center, Los Angeles. In 2020, she earned the Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art.

Melissa Cody: Webbed Skies currently on exhibition at MoMA PS1 through September 9nth, 2024

IDs Under the cut

Top to Bottom, Left to Right: White Out. 2012. 3-ply aniline dyed wool. 17 × 24″ (43.2 × 61 cm)

Deep Brain Stimulation. 2011. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 40 x 30 3/4 in. (101.6 x 78.1 cm)

World Traveler. 2014. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 90 x 48 7/8 in. (228.6 x 124.1 cm)

Into the Depths, She Rappels. 2023. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 87 x 51 9/16 in. (221 x 131 cm)

Lightning Storm. 2012. 3-ply aniline dyed wool. 14 × 20″ (35.6 × 50.8 cm)

Pocketful of Rainbows. 2019. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 19 x 10 3/4 in. (48.3 x 27.3 cm)

Path of the Snake. 2013. 3-ply aniline dyed wool. 36 × 24″ (91.4 × 61 cm)

[ilbenmalpensanteus]

It's funny how ss fans can be wrong even when they are... right. Yes, I'm not contradicting myself.

As you all can see thanks to the pics I posted, one of them was "talking" (read: whining) about how ss has mythology references as well.

Well, I won't denying it.

Saying otherwise could be 1. false, 2. wrong, 3. hypocrite, 4. honestly against my very line of work.

However, I would like to point out something:

Ninigi has, indeed, similiarities with Sasuke, such as:

a. his "connection" with Amaterasu

b. kusanagi

c. he will marry Sakura

But. The similiarities end here.

Now, that could be hardly casual given Kishimoto's clear knowledge of mythology, history and literature; however, aside from the marriage and the sakura flower, the similiarities between Sakura and Sakuya-hime, instead, stop here.

Thinking he could have used this specific, eventual, references to mark Sasuke and Sakura's relationship as a romantic one is ontologically wrong.

Why? For the genericity of the references, obviously.

Amaterasu and Kusanagi are two milestones of Japanese mythology and one can find them in several legends, related to very different characters.

Secondly, the comparison between Sakura and Konohana Sakuya-hime isn't flattering.

She was the usual empty, batshit crazy woman who burned the hut with their children inside to prove she didn't cheat on him.

You can find it in every, single, version of the myth. The girl was not fine.

The usage of fire as well: great, really, but a fuckton of japanese deities are fire-repellent, so it's like to say... nothing spectacular?

Now, about the "sources" they shared:

Aside from the one pic with Kaguya (totally out of the blue, I would say, given I only stated sun and moon symbolism are often associated with sexual intercourses or lovers), we have:

- Sakura and Sasuke's name on the sand (probably written by Sakura, don't know why this is relevant.

- Sasuke with kusanagi (that's okay) and snakes: here the snakes are clearly the focal point. But why? Was Ninigi associated with snakes?

- The cover with Sakura wearing a sakura-flowered dress and while holding the Uchiwa fan.

The last one specifically is... interesting because: where is the deep references? The flowers? That's the girl's name. The fan? It seems more like another sign of Sakura crushing on Sasuke and writing "Sakura Uchiha" on her notebook while giggling.

So, the point is:

If you want to make an analysis you need:

1. real sources (not photos already crafted to prove your ss point) - btw, I gave actual books, but they refused to take them in consideration;

2. to use images consistently.

Here a summarised analysis:

Shinjū is a Japanese term meaning "double suicide". Lovers committing double suicide believed that they would be united again in heaven. It was also possible for lovers to commit a murder-suicide (muri-shinjū).

This is a clear example of Shinjū's reference:

Here, we have:

- the will to die together

- the hope they will meet again in the afterlife

- the "connection of hearts" (from the very term's meaning and the context)

Here the sources:

1. Becker, Buddhist Views of Suicide and Euthanasia, Philosophy East and West

2. Takahashi, Cultural dynamics and the unconscious in suicide in Japan

3. Leupp, Male Colors: The construction of homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan

4. Heldt, Between followers and friends: male homosocial desire in Heian Court Poetry

5. Saikaku Ihara, Love of Comrades

6. Saikaku Ihara, The Great Mirror of male love

7. Rogers, She loves me, she loves me not. Shinju and Shikido Okagami

8. Heine, Tragedy and Salvation in the Floating World

THIS is a sensible reference. And a very small analysis.

And a parallelism.

Bye :)

PS Tumblr fucked up the pics order (sorryyyy)

[teffiebell]

A side note about Japan and queerness: I wrote a thesis about the history of homosexuality in Japan in uni, so I feel qualified to comment on it. Gay and trans identities were absolutely not invented in English speaking countries in the 20th century, they are the ones who invented homophobia. Japan in the middle ages and up until the end of the 19th century was extremely gay and had a very open gay culture, bisexuality was considered the norm. The samurai, who were the ruling class were extremely gay and Buddhism didn't have any history of homophobia, so both the dominant religion and the political elites were not homophobic and were encouraging same sex relationships among men. Japan not being super queer is a fairly recent (20th century) development. The terms that were used back then to describe queerness were also different and it is not useful to try and describe these identities with modern terms, but if you look at old primary sources, then there was probably a lot of conflating of what we would today call trans and gay. Japan is not a pure desexualized heterosexual place from a shoujo manga. If anyone wants to read more, I would recommend the book "Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan" by Gary P. Leupp. (there are also a bunch of other good sources, but this is the one I would recommend first). So yeah, don't let the weebs tell you you are pushing an LGBT agenda on Japan, the period of Japanese history in which homosexuality and transness were considered normal is way longer than the non gay period.

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Gennai Hiraga.

Of all the name-droppings the series has been doing, so far they do it exceptionally well when it comes to Japanese folklore and historical personages.

Hiraga was a real person. Now, what’s so interesting about him is that not only he came from a low-ranking samurai family during the Edo Period, he was also a polymath, a rōnin (wandering samurai) a doctor, a pharmacologist, an inventor. Most of all, he was purported to be a homosexual. He frequented the brothels that showcased male prostitutes.

Hiraga (1726-1779) was a prominent Rangakusha (scholar of "Dutch"-i.e., European-learning) and botanist who conducted experiments with asbestos and electricity. He was also one of the most popular writers of the late Tokugawa period and a regular patron of the male brothels referred to as kodomo-ya. His friend, the leading scholar Ota Nanpo, recorded that "when [Gennai] had money, he hurried to spend it in Yoshicho on the pleasure-boys. There he would spend days at a time, and that is why he glorified nanshoku in Nenashigusa.

He was also a writer, a satirist to be exact. He also wrote guidebooks on the male prostitution in Japan.

Those who like female prostitutes dislike youths; those who like youths revile female prostitutes. — Hiraga Gennai, “San no asa” (1768)

…

Gennai himself, according to Ota Nanpo, often visited Yoshicho and the "southern wards" of Edo, with their nanshoku teahouses, but never went to Yoshiwara, with its female prostitutes. His biographers claim the scholar was not simply a shudo-zuki but an onna-girai, or "woman-hater."' Men identified as such, like similar characters in Ming-Qing or even in English Augustan literature, find any contact with the female sex revolting.

…

For the benefit of such culturally deprived men, Gennai lightheartedly describes the nanshoku-jaya experience, including its thrills and frustrations: “Stroking his patron's arm, [a male prostitute] will strike a dreamlike pose, as though he is himself reaching heights of ecstasy. He'll make endless, capricious vows,i and address you with the most intimate names. [Tears] will appear about the eyes on his dazzled face. Aara, that's strange! Is this some apparition? A group [sent from] his manager!k Yai! Those of you who love sweets might find this amusing. But don't laugh. It'd be the gravest mistake not to eat up all those crumbs. You might start taking a liking to wine!”

One of his works dealt with farting and a story about a Kappa “that tries to seduce the actor and then attempts to drown them, in order to complete their task. In the end the Kappa ends up falling for the young actor and instead brings back a less attractive Onnagata as a consolation prize.”

Kappa is a type of a water sprite in Japanese folklore.

Mischievous by nature, they loudly pass gas in public and love to peek up women’s kimonos. Sometimes their mischief turns violent. Kappa have been known to kidnap or rape swimming women, and kill people. A kappa’s preferred method of attack is to drown its victims, or bite them to death under water. Kappa also devour humans alive. Usually they go for the rear end to get at the shirikodama, a mythical ball of flesh located just inside the anus.

Anyway, Gennai Hiraga is indeed an interesting person. The episode tied him up nicely emphasising his Jack of all trades-esque personality.

Source: “Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan,” Gary P. Leupp

[liminalpsych-in-teyvat]

upon parting from a friend (by Ōtomo Yakamochi, ca. 750, in the Manyōshū)

It must be because you listen to others' slander that, although I wait for you, my Lord, intensely, you do not come. If rather our friendship ended, would I now be yearning like this, making you the thread of my vital breath? I who long for him though he does not think of me; with all my heart consumed, with each tiny fiber exhausted.

found on pg 24 of Male Colors: The construction of homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (1995) by Gary P. Leupp

[jamieroxxartist]

✔ Mark Your Calendars: Fri Sept 29 on 🎨#JamieRoxx’s Pop Roxx Radio 🎙️#TalkShow and 🎧#Podcast w/ Featured Guests:

#DannyMadden, #Director (#15Cameras | #Movie, #Horror)

☎ Lines will be open (347) 850.8598 Call in with your Questions and Comments Live on the Air.

● Click here to Set a Reminder: http://tobtr.com/12271708

​Pop Art Painter Jamie #Roxx (www.JamieRoxx.us) welcomes Danny Madden, Director (15 Cameras | Movie, Horror) to the Show!

(Click to go there) ● IG: @15camerasmovie ● IMDB: www.imdb.com/title/tt28255598

15 CAMERAS COMING TO ON DEMAND ON OCTOBER 13TH ALSO PLAYING THEATRICALLY IN LOS ANGELES via: Gravitas Ventures

Directed by: Danny Madden Written by: PJ McCabe Starring: Will Madden, Angela Wong Carbone, Hilty Bowen, James Babson, Shirley Chen, Hannah Mckechnie, Skyler Bible, Courtney Dietz, Erik Leupp, Donna Allen, Brianne Moncrief, Jim Cummings, Stephen Ruffin

When Cam and Sky bought their duplex, it seemed like the perfect investment opportunity for the young couple; a starter home, a mortgage offset by renters, and even a guest room for Sky’s sister, Carolyn. But as Sky and Cam slowly uncover hidden cameras and secrets of the duplex’s previous owner, obsession consumes their marriage and they both fall into destructive forms of voyeurism. When new tenants move in downstairs, their fixation with observing others has deadly consequences and they are forced to confront the very things they have been consumed by.

​● Media Inquiries: October Coast PR www.octobercoastpr.com

[vancouverislandtotoronto2023]

Day 11, Tues June 6: Flagstaff Arizona, Navajo Territories, Gallup New Mexico, and Durango Colorado. 565 km

Route 66 intertwines with the Interstate 40 east of Flagstaff, so I turn to Garmin for some back roads. I end up taking the Leupp Road and Hwy 264 through the Navajo Territories. What a morning, what an experience. The Navajo Territories cover 27, 500 square miles over Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. Unbelievable clouds, scenery, buttes, mesas, and hard dessert landscapes. You have to be tough to carve out a living here. There is so much remoteness, some areas with no power, just a tough, vast, beautiful landscape.

Another early start, I make it to Gallup, New Mexico, in four hours. Arizona does not observe DST. The Navajo Nation, however, does so it caught up with me today and cost me an added hour, so I get there just before noon.

The ride north from New Mexico to Colorado on Hwys 491, 371, and 140 again take me through the Navajo Territories. On the way, I pass herds of horses, sheep, and cows and one classic shot of a male Llama standing on a butte looking over his herd. And over head, the beautiful New Mexico sky.

As I traveled north, I start seeing more irrigation and greenery, enabled in part by perhaps better soil but almost certainly by the higher elevation and cooler temperatures.

As I pass into Colorade (no welcome to Colorado sign, just to the Southern Ute Indian Reservation), the climb continues. No irrigation here. Colorado is just naturally higher, cooler, wetter, and greener.

Beautiful green mountains and valleys, along with distant snow-capped mountains, tell me I have definitely left the desert and entered the highland region.

As I come back from dinner, the clouds start to darken. It's been a long day, and I turn in, to the sound of falling rain.

[missmyloko]

Regarding the questions about kagema - there is a book by Gary Leupp called Male Colors about ‘ homosexuality’ (not that they thought of it in such terms) in pre-modern Japan they may find interesting

Thanks for the addition ^^!

[simuran]

Omg what a delightful rabbit hole to jump into!

I'm as far from expert on this topic as anyone can be, so I wanted to find some solid sources. M. J. McLelland's Queer Japan From the Pacific War to the Internet Age seems legit? Here's what it has to say, with interesting bits highlighted by me.

TL;DR - Taigen indeed probably didn't have a "queer awakening moment", and wasn't surprised by or ashamed of his attraction to a man.

During the Edo period there was no necessary connection made between gender and sexual preference, because men, samurai in particular, were able to engage in both same- and opposite-sex affairs. Same-sex relationships were governed by a code of ethics described as nanshoku (male eroticism) or shudō (the way of youths), in the context of which elite men were able to pursue boys and young men who had not yet undergone their coming-of-age ceremonies, as well as transgender males of all ages from the lower classes who worked as actors and prostitutes (Pflugfelder 1999; Leupp 1995). The latter group included onnagata, or female-role players, from the kabuki theater as well as kagema, or transgender prostitutes.

Male homosexuality in Japan had long been associated with both transgender performance and prostitution, associations that were to remain strong in the modern period. De Becker notes how some establishments in Yoshiwara, Tokyo’s main brothel district, “hired and offered to their patrons the services of attractive boys in the same manner as the regular brothels dealt in women” (1905: 369). These establishments had been so popular during the Edo period that some Japanese historians, somewhat implausibly, suggest that they had a retarding effect upon population growth (Kuno 1937: 367—8). Although popularly referred to as kodomo-ya, or “children’s houses,” the brothels also employed young men who catered to a female clientele, including, it was rumored, ladies-in-waiting from the shogun’s harem (Kuno 1937: 367). [the prostitutes] were understood to have become transgendered for professional purposes—that is, to earn a living—and while they would offer sexual services to other men (and occasionally women), their transgender performance said nothing about their own sexual preferences.

“The other paradigm within which male homosexual relationships took place was age related, tracing its origins back to Buddhist monasteries in the Heian period (794-1185), where adult monks could establish sexual relationships with young child acolytes known as chigo. This practice supposedly derived from China, and like other borrowings from the continent, it “was seen as part of a civilizing process” (Faure 1998: 227).” Unlike in the Christian world, where “sodomy” was perceived as a serious sin, sometimes punished at the stake, Japanese Buddhism not only tolerated intergenerational relationships between monks and boys but even offered doctrinal support for them (Faure 1998: 213).

Due to the fact that many samurai were educated in the monasteries, the “way of youths” also became popular among Japan’s military elite. Within this system, an adult, known as a nenja, or “man who loves,” could court and become the lover of a youth known as a chigo (page) or wakashū (youth) who had not yet undergone the coming-of-age ceremony and had his forelocks shaved (Furukawa 1994: 100). At this time nanshoku (eroticism between men) and joshoku (eroticism between men and women) were not seen as mutually incompatible; neither nenja nor wakashū were yet, in Foucault’s terms, seen as distinct “species” (1990: 43). Similarly, transgender performers such as onnagata and kagema were seen not as distinct personality types, still less as deviant “sexualities,” but as occupational categories

And here's something for the Mizu/Akemi shippers!

[...] there is surprisingly little representation of women’s same-sex desire in Edo-period culture. Although instances of same-sex sexual acts between women are recorded in a variety of literary, artistic and other sources, such acts were not codified into a dō, or “way,” of loving, and there is little discussion of (or terminology for) specific roles adopted by women. The polarized, role-based style that structured sexual interactions between men seems not to have been reduplicated in relationships between women, although, as Leupp (1998) points out, many of the incidents involving women’s same-sex love in the literature do involve women of different status, such as mistress and servant or paying client and courtesan. Significantly, while nanshoku, made up of the characters for “man” and “eroticism,” was a general term covering a variety of forms of love practiced between men, joshoku, made up of the characters for “woman” and “eroticism,” actually referred to love relationships between men and women. No concept existed at this time that referred in a general sense to women’s same-sex love (Wu 2002: 68) and there was no way of cognitively linking both male and female “homosexuality”.

Compared with numerous literary sources discussing sexual and romantic affairs between men (Miller 1996; Ihara Saikaku [1687] 1990; Watanabe and Iwata 1989), incidents involving women are far fewer, and no texts that take the love between women as their central theme seem to have been written during this era. However, the fact that women did desire and provide sexual pleasure for other women was acknowledged, particularly in erotic woodblock prints known as shunga. Most (but not all) of these illustrations showing women pleasuring each other were created by male artists and were most probably enjoyed by a male clientele. Further underlining the phallocentrism of the culture, they usually portray the use of dildos as penis substitutes. Dildos were commercially available in sex shops in both Edo and Osaka. The fact that catalogues describing tagaigata or dildos “for mutual pleasure” write the term “mutual” with nonstandard characters,” including two “woman” (onna) radicals (Leupp 1998: 24), suggests that women purchased these devices and used them together. Whether desire between women was always mediated by a penis substitute is impossible to deduce from surviving representations; cunnilingus between women, like fellatio between men, for example, is never depicted in erotic artwork of the period (Leupp 1998: 34).

Sadly, I can't seem to find anything about women cross-dressing as men, or trans men, or anything that could be applicable to Mizu's situation really. Anyone has an advice where to look for it?

been seeing some stuff on blue eye samurai and big yikes to nearly everyone pushing extremely western ideals onto these characters.

this is early edo period. 1600s. the japan you know now did not exist yet.

yall. please. there was NO concept of sexuality in pre-modern japan. that came with both the influx of christianity and western influence very very late in history. like, mid-1800s. (yes, there was christianity pre-1800s but it was not a widespread idea yet and wouldn't be until about the 1800s since, y'know, missionaries were routinely murdered before then)

"so and so is either bi and hasn't figured it out yet or..." no. that isn't how it worked then. nobody gave a shit what was between your legs. anyone could be attracted to anyone else. it was a little more common for male homosexual relationships to be between an adult and younger male - like many other places around the world - but two adult men could bang and love each other just as easily. relationships between women were quite common - especially since so many men were often away at war. there's tons of pornographic prints from the time depicting all manner of fun queer relationships. sex itself had absolutely no moral assignment to it. good sex was good health. it didn't matter who with. (well, social class/caste mattered more than anything else tbh but that didn't stop upper and lower class from fucking.) that isn't to say people didn't have preferences. of course they did. that is human nature. preferences arose more from physical appearance, caste, and circumstances with gender being about the last thing one would look for in a partner - romantic, casual, or otherwise. the only role in sex where gender actually mattered was for procreation.

there would be no queer awakening moment, no sudden switch flipped, no stigma to have internal conflicts about because it simply did not exist as a concept whatsoever. you were either attracted to a person or you weren't, it was that simple. gender played no role when it came to sex and sexual attraction. the japanese were lightyears ahead of western cultures in this particular area - like most cultures were before christianity came in and ruined everything with its backwards morals and strict good/evil dichotomy.

yall have got to realize queer rep will not and should not always adhere by modern western standards. there was no straight, gay, bi, or anything else of the sort. the closest they ever got was referring to roles during sex - as in who is giving and who is receiving.

i know this is mostly a made up story but it is still set within a very specific time period and culture, which should be honored and respected by not making it fit into our box. tons of research went into making this show historically accurate (albeit with some discrepancies but tbh they aren't really that huge) right down to the calligraphy writing. please please please don't whitewash the culture from these characters.

i say this mainly because without this knowledge, so many of you are going to build these characters up on a foundation they aren't meant to be on and then you'll rage about queerbaiting and bad queer rep if it isn't somehow super explicitly stated, if it doesn't match your very modern, very western ideal of what queer looks like. don't try to force this plot and narrative and characters into something they canonically and historically aren't. headcanons are a thing, AUs are a thing, fanfiction is a thing - leave your western thinking for those and let these characters simply exist as they should otherwise. this is one of those times where the queerness really does not need to be examined at all beyond what we get.

i know it can be hard to wrap your head around - sexuality is such a huge part of our identity in the western world and has slowly started to spread amongst other parts of the world in importance. but just keep in mind with these particular characters, that concept would be so very alien to them.