[ SECRET POST #2190 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2190 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #313.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 3 4 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[caterfree10]

Oh god, your entire first paragraph, so much THIS. I wish I had an article on hand, but I def remember something saying that upwards of 90 fucking % of Japanese gay people kill themselves because, while Japanese culture isn't the bastion of religiousity that the US is, it's still very damaging to not be the norm because of the group-centered culture (and I imagine the statistics for trans/non-gender-binary folk are as bad, if not worse).

I mean, I can get that having your sexuality being considered weird is "better" than being told you're going to hell for it (shit, I know I'd take the former over the latter most any day, christly fuck), but it's still problematic, if in a different way.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know about the statistics, but I know that visibility as someone who's LGBTQ in Japan is really, really shitty. It's also considered to be less of an orientation and more of a fetish, so there are a lot of issues that come with that. I think as a foreigner in Japan, it's easy to feel like that kind of sentiment has less weight because you may have friends and acquaintances who feel that way, but it's not your family, either. And foreigners also get a certain degree of leeway when it comes to not totally fitting the social expectations that someone who's been born and raised there wouldn't be privy to. I can actually get why people would say that they'd rather be considered weird than be told they're going to hell. They both suck, but the whole going to hell thing implies that you're an all around terrible person and deserved to be punished because part of you is wrong, which can be a lot more hurtful than people just thinking you're weird. But at the end of the day, people thinking you're weird and judging you for your sexuality still sucks balls.

So, yeah, it really is a case of it being "better" in certain ways, depending on how you look at it, but I think sometimes people (not the anon above's friend - but a lot of people in anime and Japanese fandoms in general) mistake the "better" and the fact that it's a different kind of problematic for meaning it's not at all bad. Which, yeah, isn't really the case. :/

[caterfree10]

Yeah, the leeway given to foreigners can go a long way in these feelings. As a foreigner, you aren't expected (practically not even allowed in many contexts) to ever be a part of the in group in Japanese culture, no matter how many years you spend there. Therefore, one could theoretically be seen as weird as an LGBTQ person, but still otherwise be welcomed as much as one can be as a foreigner. Whereas a native born Japanese LGBTQ person would be shunned and ostracized.

And yeah, it's also a very different scenario and culture being involved in the differences. The weight of something in one culture (ie, being considered weird for something) can have very different connotations in different cultures (can vary in how alienated you are in US culture due to individualistic nature of said culture as well as varying attitudes in areas across the country - but can lead to some very serious problems in a group-centered culture such as Japan's if one isn't like the rest of the group). Both attitudes toward someone of a different sexual orientation are shitty, but in vastly different ways between the cultural contexts.