The Boy, Part One

The problem with dating younger guys is that all the growing up you did you have to go through all again. All the uncertainty, the self-discovery, and the brutal adjustment to the working world you lived through in your twenties you get to experience vicariously, sometimes with unexpected consequences.

About a year after dumping Shouhei I met “Kenji.” He was a 22-year-old university student, finishing up his last year. An English lit major, he was working on his final paper. Coincidentally the topic was Mark Twain, one of my favorite authors, and it was refreshing to talk to a guy about something other than hair, underwear, and pop stars. He was plowing his way through A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and I actually re-read the novel to talk it over with him.

The age thing bothered me a little. I was 34 at the time, leaving only a dozen years between us, but with the exception of the Seven-Eleven guy I’d woken up with after getting a bit too drunk, twelve years was the biggest gap between me and any guy I’d ever been with. Kenji was unlike any other Japanese guy I’d dated before, and I had trouble believing he was (as he confessed to me) gay. The majority of the Japanese guys interested in gaijin were on the passive side, expecting you to do all the work (both in bed and in conversation). I was aware, of course, that Japan had its share of macho, butch tops, but none of them seemed interested in foreigners, who are generally perceived as being loud and aggressive. From what I had seen of the Japanese gay universe, the line between the active senpai and the passive kouhai was deeply established, with foreigners collectively stereotyped into the former rather than the latter. As a result, I had been on scores of dates where the boys sat there like lumps, looking pretty, waiting for you to do all the heavy lifting. After awhile, it was wearying.

Kenji, however, was extremely out-going, funny, self-confident, and even playful. He didn’t have the withdrawn and guarded attributes I’d gotten myself used to in Japan. In fact, there was something so innocent about him, I found myself wondering how he’d managed to escape donning the cynical armor most gay men put on after a few rounds of the dating scene. The answer soon became clear.

The first few times we were intimate, he was very passionate, but seemed a bit nervous. He would come over to my place and we’d fool around for hours, but nothing hardcore would happen. Then one night, he decided to stay over, and as they said back in high school, things went “all the way.” As we lay there naked in bed, he confessed that it was the first time he’d ever had sex with a man, and then apologized, expecting me to be angry that I had been his first.

I wasn’t, of course. I was deeply touched. “But you told me you’d dated other guys before,” I said. He admitted he had, but things never progressed that far. Then he told me one of the most horrible (and funny) dating stories I had ever heard.

Having come to the conclusion that he was gay, he started visiting internet chat rooms, hoping to meet a nice foreign guy. He eventually found a Canadian we will call “Todd.” Todd seemed nice, sweet, affectionate. After a few dates, Kenji nervously went back to his place for what would be his first sexual experience. As they moved slowly towards the bedroom, Todd told him he’d really love it if Kenji would give him a “golden shower.” Kenji, whose English was excellent but didn’t quite extend into the bizarre depths of the sexual world, was baffled. Unwilling to reveal his ignorance, he agreed, thinking Todd wanted them to take a shower first. But as things showed no sign of moving towards the bathroom, and Todd was waiting with expectation on the bed, Kenji was forced to admit he didn’t know what was going on.

“I want you to piss on me,” Todd told him. “Please? All over my body.”

Kenji, horrified, grabbed his clothes and fled the room. The fact that this wasn’t enough to make him swear off men entirely was admirable.

He laughed when he told me about it, so clearly no permanent damage was done. “Welcome to the gay world,” I told him. “Though I’d heard much worse stories of the first time!”

He snuggled against me. “That wasn’t my first time. You were. And it was perfect.”

It was the beginning of something really great.

Thank God for An An

An An, a Japanese soft porn periodical cleverly disguised as a fashion magazine for women, has done it again. In recent years, the editors have unleashed a string of special issues in which Japan's hottest men appear nude and/or in suggestive poses with various young ladies. Curiously, those ladies are usual foreign (non-Japanese) women. But really, who's looking at them?

The most recent piece of eye candy is Akanishi Jin, male idol and (using the word very loosely) "singer" for the boy band KAT-TUN. But really, when you look that good who cares what you sound like? This reviewer certainly doesn't.

In tribute to An An, feast your eyes on our Jin Jin and some of his illustrious magazine predecessors. Cheers!

Being Two-Faced

A few nights before leaving San Francisco for my bright and shiny new life in Japan, a gay Taiwanese friend invited me to dinner. It was years ago and I can't remember the name of the place, only that it was on a hill near Coit Tower and it sold only varieties of quiche. But I digress.

Solemnly, after the plates were cleared away, he gazed at me from the other side of the table. "When you get to Japan," he told me, "you have to be careful. Don't believe anything anyone says. The Japanese have two hearts and two faces."

I was shocked, indignant the way only a young, liberal, former Teach For America volunteer could be. I knew of course that there was still some bad blood between Japan and its neighbors, but "Ning" (all names in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent) was a member of the young Asian demographic awash in and enamored with Japanese fashion, manga, and video games. Surely Ning, who gobbled up Japanese magazines to copy the latest hairstyles of the Johnny's Entertainment idols wasn't holding on to the memory of war atrocities? It smacked to me of simple bigotry, and I believe I said as much to him. Ning just shrugged. "Maybe. But sometime you are going to remember what I said."

Flash forward three and a half years. Shouhei and I had been together for two years, and things were going well. We'd been to China and Thailand together, and he had come back to meet my family in the States. We weren't quite living together, but I had a key to his apartment and spent half my nights there. The sex was happening less often than it had, but when it did occur it was fantastic. He'd said he loved me and I believed it.

If there was a problem, it was that he worked to hard, but this was hardly unusual in a country that coined a word, karoshi, for death by overwork. He left early and came home late, often very late if etiquette required he go out with his co-workers. That he often did not answer his phone annoyed me, but this was Japan, not the States. The rules were different. Almost none of the Japanese guys I had met were openly gay, and they liked to keep their private lives hidden. For Shouhei, that meant keeping me hidden. I had long before put aside jealous suspicions in an attempt to live as I should "when in Rome," to understand him on his own terms.

It was one of those evenings. He was out. I was waiting. I decided to check my emails as I often do, when suddenly a message popped up from another gaijin, written in English. It was only two words.

"Hello Sexy!"

I ignored it. Shouhei had forgotten to sign off and this guy--possibly his ex, whom he was still friendly with--was messaging him. After a few minutes, another one appeared.

"What's wrong? Shy?"

I clicked on the box, but of course the software on Shouhei's computer was in Japanese, a language I was struggling with back then. I wanted to log him off.

"You weren't so shy the other night."

Still ignoring, I made a guess and clicked the cursor on a box I assumed would shut it off. Instead, his email opened. Not his regular email. A separate email, all in English. I read.

There were dozens of emails from dozens of guys, going back the entire two years we had been together. I didn't read all, but I read enough of them. Shouhei had been meeting guys behind my back the entire time, and I hadn't a clue. I remembered suddenly making love the night before, with him looking up at me with soft, sincere eyes, telling me how much I meant to him. It was the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. When-You-Get-Home-I-Am-Gonna-Kick-Your-@$$.

Ning could have phrased his assessment of the Japanese character a bit more diplomatically (which would have been the way the Japanese would have done it), but he was not essentially wrong. They call it here tatamae and hon'ne, saying or doing whatever is necessary to maintain an atmosphere of harmony and peace and the "truth." Most cultures do it to an extent, but like sword-smithing the Japanese have perfected it. It is even part of the language. As a trilingual French friend of mine recently put it, "French is the perfect language for expressing emotion. English is the best language for swearing. And Japanese is the supreme language for dodging questions, being evasive, and hiding what you really mean."

The astute reader may wonder what the photo above had to do with the actual content of this post. I had to get your attention somehow.