An advertisement for a Japanese “hook-up app” similar to Grindr, called 9 Monsters, which contains models who are highly representative of the ikanimo-kei ideal is presented below. The ikanimo-kei is an identity category which is fiercely linked to normative images of youth and heteronormative masculinity, including highly gym-trained bodies, constant late night partying and a carefree attitude to gay relationships which prioritises casual sex and an apolitical attitude). Ikanimo-kei refers to an identity based in patterns of material consumption of certain brands of clothing (such as fashion labels Abercrombie and Fitch and Calvin Klein) and activities such as visiting large gay night clubs marking men as being “obviously” gay (Moriyama, 2012: 170). Whilst conducting fieldwork in Ni-chōme and discursive analyses of various gay media (including Badi magazine, Japan’s most popular gay magazine), it has become apparent that “youth” ( wakasa) represents an important trope which is drawn upon in Japan’s gay media to construct a Type known as the ikanimo-kei (literally, “the obviously gay Type”). My study aims to investigate both how media presents certain Types as being “normatively” desirable and how consumption of media has affected young Japanese gay men’s conceptualisations of their gay identities and desires. Types are intimately linked to specific norms of consumption, with each Type expected to participate within certain “scenes” in Ni-chōme (McLelland, 2000).
These identities have become codified into a sub-cultural system of knowledge known as Typing ( taipu), which refers to the alignment of one’s subjectivity to a stereotypical identity category based upon ideas of an idealised body type and modes of consumption (Moriyama, 2012: 170). These media play an important role in rendering gay male desire as a commodity (Moriyama, 2012: 160), reducing gay men’s identities to patterns of consumer behaviour. The district is also the source of most Japanese gay male media, including gay magazines, pornographic videos and online dating agencies. Ni-chōme, as it is commonly known, contains a variety of businesses catering to gay men including bars, pornography shops, saunas, brothels (known euphemistically as “host clubs”) and massage parlours.
This is particularly true of Shinjuku Ni-chōme, a district in central Tokyo with a small area of 400m 2 which estimates suggest contains approximately 300 gay bars (Suganuma, 2011). He looks at his victim and grabs his feet one last time before leaving.By Thomas Baudinette (PhD Candidate, Monash many gay* male subcultures around the world, Japan’s is highly stratified by class, body type, age and gendered identity.
His dead body is motionless, the killer then steps away. Slowly he begins to fade into death, he slips away and lays dead on the bed with his eyes open and mouth gaping. The victim kicks out his feet at the end of the body and tries to fight off his attacker but he is too weak. The killer then escalates his twisted fantasy and begins to viciously strangle the teen with his leather gloved hands. The killer then gently caresses the soles and toes of his victim. He then takes the young victim's socks, exposing his bare soles. He grabs his shoes and unlaces them, taking each one off carefully. He removes his shirts and then moves down to his feet. The killer then picks up his small victim and carries him over his shoulder to his bed, he throws the unconscious body down and then begins to slowly strip him down. His limps flop to the side and his head is laid to rest. A young student is attacked by a masked killer, he is chloroformed as he sits in his chair and he slowly inhales the fumes before passing out.