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Class S (culture)

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Hotaru Kari (ほたる狩り; "Firefly Hunting"), illustration by Shigeru Sudō [ja], 1926

Class S (クラスS, Kurasu Esu), or S kankei,[1] abbreviated either as S or Esu (エス), is an early twentieth-century Japanese wasei-eigo term used to refer to romantic friendships between girls.[2] The term is also used to designate a genre of girl's fiction (少女小説, shōjo shōsetsu) which tells stories about the same, typically focused on senpai and kōhai relationships wherein one girl is senior in age or position to the other.[3] The "S" is an abbreviation that can stand for "sister", "shōjo" (少女; lit. young girl), "sex",[3] "schön" (German: beautiful), and "escape".[2]

Although Class S can broadly be described as a form of love between girls,[4] it is distinct from a romantic relationship or romance fiction in that it is used specifically to describe platonic relationships based on strong emotional bonds and very close friendship, rather than sex or sexual attraction.[5]

History

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Following the Meiji Restoration the neologism 'ren ai' was coined to translate the Christian concepts of spiritual love influenced by Platonism [6]. A major point of entry for Christian concepts of love into Japanese society were private schools run by Catholic missionaries. While only a small number of students converted to Christianity, the White Lily associated with the Virgin Mary became an important symbol of chaste girlhood stripped of explicitly Christian connotations [7].

Meanwhile translations of European sexology introduced debate on newly formulated concepts of homosexuality. [8]

In 1899 the Kōtō jogakkō rei (Edict on higher girls’ schools) called for the establishment of schools for girls older than 12 in all prefectures. By 1920 around 12% of girls aged between 12-16 were in school, limiting attendance mostly to the newly emerging urban middle class. A distinct Girl's Culture began to emerge with the first magazine aimed at school girls, Shōjo kai, starting publication in 1902. [9].

By 1911 Newspapers were taking note of the emergence of intimate relationships in the country's 250 Higher Girls Schools. [10]. Different schools were noted for their own terms for passion between school girls including 'Ome' (etymology uncertain) in schools of the Tokyo region. The language used was highly polite and incorporation of honorifics such as 'o' were common. The term 'S' was to emerge a generation later in the magazines of the 1920s, by the 1930s its etymology had become obscure [11]. While 'S' could refer to both the concept of sisterhood and the beloved, terms such as 'imouto' (for the younger partner) and 'ane' or the exaggeratedly formal 'onee-sama' (for the older partner) began to be standardized in literature.

The widely reported suicide of two schoolgirl couples in July 1911 followed by various scandals among the staff of The feminist magazine Seitō_(magazine) [12] led to Japan's first moral panic over the newly coined concept of dōseiai (同性愛, "same sex love"), defined as a 'sexual perversion' by sexologists [13]. Debates raged between those who wanted to stamp dōseiai (同性愛, "same sex love") out from Girls Schools and Educators who saw spiritual love as compatible with the chastity they required of unmarried girls, with sexologists divided on the issue [14]. The result was an 'aesthetics of sameness' [15] that avoided the masculine clothing and presentation of the Seitō society [16] but accepted romantic relations between teenage girls as normative.

Influence of Western Literature

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The Western novels Little Women and A Little Princess were translated into Japanese in 1906 and 1910, respectively, in order to educate the girls to become "good wives, wise mothers". These works also helped introduce the concepts of laotong, sisterhood, sentimentalism, and romance to young female audiences in Japan, with Jo of Little Women in particular becoming a prominent example of a tomboy character.[17]

Takarazuka Review

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After the School environment and the magazine culture the third pillar of pre-War Girl's Culture was all-female theater troops with the first and most important being the Takarazuka Revue,[3] an all-women theater troupe established in 1914.[17] The revue featured women actors playing male roles referred to as otokoyaku (男役; lit. "male role") who would romance female characters.[18] Around this time, the term dōseiai (同性愛, "same sex love") was coined to describe butch and femme relationships, as well as relationships between two femmes, with femmes referred to as ome.[19] It was suggested in popular media of the time that the Takarazuka otokoyaku caused women in Class S relationships to become ome and persist in homosexual relationships long after it was acceptable.[3] Jennifer Robertson argues that "many females are attracted to the Takarazuka otokoyaku because she represents an exemplary female who can negotiate successfully both genders and their attendant roles and domains."[20]

The rapid creation of all-girls' schools during this period is also regarded as having contributed to Class S: by 1913, there were 213 such schools.[17]

Decline and revival

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In the 1930's, Class S literature was banned in many all-girls' schools due to an increase in double suicides associated with two girls throwing themselves into the volcanic crater at Mount Mihara, as well as the view that Class S stories were "feminine and weak" which increased as Japan drew nearer to war.[17] The ban was lifted after World War II, along with restrictions on depictions of male-female romance in girls' magazines.[21] This, combined with the closure of girls' schools in favor of co-educational schools and the mainstreaming of the free love movement, led Class S to decline as both a literary genre and a social phenomenon.[1]

Class S literature experienced a revival of popularity in the late 1990s. The 1998 yuri light novel series Maria-sama ga Miteru is credited with reviving the Class S genre, and is considered to be a modern equivalent to Nobuko Yoshiya's Hana Monogatari.[22]

Influence and legacy

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As a social phenomenon

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A 1911 article in Fujin Kōron claimed that between seven and eight women out of ten had experienced Class S relationships.[23]

Class S relationships were typically regarded as not a genuine expression of same-sex attraction.[17] So long as these relationships remained confined to adolescence they were regarded as normal, even spiritual.[2] This attitude would later inform contemporary perspectives on lesbianism in Japan: a tolerance towards non-sexual intimacy between girls, and the widespread belief that female homosexuality is a "phase".[24]

Class S has had a significant impact on the Japanese literary tradition of depicting friendship between girls, as well as the development of Japanese lesbian literature and the yuri genre of anime and manga.[24][5]

S Literature

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Early S Literature

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The beginnings of S literature appear in the Shojo magazines of the 1900s with stories about friendships between school girls.

1930s S Literature

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By the early 1930s, Class S themes had become completely prevalent in the popular magazine Shōjo_no_tomo, outperforming previously popular genres of Shojo Shosetsu such as girl's detective stories.[25].

Two novels serialized in Shōjo no tomo in this period represent the most studied examples of Class S literature. Yoshiya Nobuko's novel Wasurenagusa (Forget-me-not (April-December 1932) and Yasunari_Kawabata/Tsuneko_Nakazato's Otome no Minato (Girls' Harbor) (1937-1938) [26]. Both works use the structure of a Love_triangle between students that is resolved when the third party comes to accept defeat but unlike the tragic tales of Hanamogatari a happy ending is achieved when the trio is able to reconcile as friends.

Otome no Minato includes the following themes considered exemplary of the mature Class S genre [27]: A Catholic Mission School in Yokohama, the 'Harbor' of the title. A first year heroine who has to have the concept of 'S' explained to her. Love letters from senior students or 'onee-sama' who act as the 'romantic pursuers'. The exclusivity of the S pairing, resulting in the rejected admirer's jealousy. An absence of sexual content and focus on emotions over action.

With the beginning of the Second_Sino-Japanese_War increasing government censorship and paper rationing led to an overall decline in S Literature. The wartime government objected not primarily to any homosexual subtext but the over-all sentimentality of Girls' Culture and sought to replace it with Economic Rationalism, Patriotism and self-sacrifice. [28]

Post War S Literature and Manga

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If the S Literature of the 1930s boomed in between wartime censorship and enforced female chastity, the Occupation_of_Japan and a shift towards co-educational schooling saw its narrative techniques mostly appropriated for heterosexual romances.

An example of an Shoujo_Manga that continued S themes from pre-war literature is Makoto Takahashi's Sakura Namiki (1957) [29]. Like Otome no Minato, the drama come from a student trying to impose herself into the exclusivity of an S relationship and ends happily when the heroine confirms the loyalty of her onee-sama.

While S relationships continued even in co-educational schools in the 1960s [30] increased discussion of feminism and sexuality made the chastity of Class S appear old fashioned [31]. The boom in Shoujo manga of the 1970s was primarily a boom in heterosexual romance. The few Class S works of the 1970s such as Shiroi_Heya_no_Futari and Dear_Brother introduced explicit discussions of the conflict between spiritual love and homosexuality [32] and exaggerated dramatic action. Eventually the themes of spiritual love that had once defined pre-war Shojo shosetsu became limited to exotic fantasy settings or the Boys_Love works of June_(magazine).

Notable figures

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Nobuko Yoshiya, a lesbian Japanese novelist active in the Bluestocking feminist movement, is regarded as a pioneer of Class S literature.[33]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b Shamoon, Deborah (January 1, 2009). "The Second Coming of Shôjo". Heso Magazine. Archived from the original on September 24, 2014. Retrieved May 22, 2009.
  2. ^ a b c Robertson, Jennifer. Takarazuka. p. 68. Citing:
    • Hattori, Kakō; Uehara, Michikō (1925). Atarashii Kotoba no Jibiki [Dictionary of New Words] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha. pp. 83–84.
    • Kabashima, Tadao; Hida, Yoshifumi; Yonekawa, Akihiko (1984). Meiji Taishō Shingo Zokugo Jiten [Dictionary of New Words and Colloquialisms in the Meiji and Taishō Periods] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan. p. 41. OCLC 14078498.
  3. ^ a b c d Robertson, Jennifer (August 1992). "The Politics of Androgyny in Japan: Sexuality and Subversion in the Theater and Beyond" (PDF). American Ethnologist. 19 (3) (3 ed.): 427. doi:10.1525/ae.1992.19.3.02a00010. hdl:2027.42/136411. JSTOR 645194. Archived from the original on 2020-06-20. Retrieved 2019-09-01.
  4. ^ "Proto-Yuri Novel: Otome no Minato (乙女の港) – Part 1, Introduction and Synopsis". Okazu. 2 March 2014. Archived from the original on December 17, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
  5. ^ a b "Why Is It Always Catholic Schoolgirls in Yuri". Okazu. December 18, 2018. Archived from the original on January 15, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
  6. ^ Shamoon 2012
  7. ^ Shamoon 2012 page 31
  8. ^ Pflugfelder 2005 page 143
  9. ^ Maser 2014
  10. ^ Pflugfelder 2005
  11. ^ Pflugfelder 2005 page 137
  12. ^ Peichen Wu 2002
  13. ^ Pflugfelder 2005 page 140
  14. ^ Pflugfelder 2005 page 143
  15. ^ Shamoon 2012 page 66
  16. ^ Peichen Wu 2002
  17. ^ a b c d e Dollase, Hiromi (2003). "Early Twentieth Century Japanese Girls' Magazine Stories: Examining Shōjo Voice in Hanamonogatari (Flower Tales)". The Journal of Popular Culture. 36 (4): 724–755. doi:10.1111/1540-5931.00043. OCLC 1754751.
  18. ^ Randall, Bill (May 15, 2003). "Three by Moto Hagio". The Comics Journal (252). Archived from the original on April 25, 2011. Retrieved 2008-01-23.
  19. ^ Robertson, Jennifer (1999). "Dying to tell: Sexuality and suicide in Imperial Japan". Signs. 25 (1): 1–35. doi:10.1086/495412. PMID 22315729. S2CID 29956565.
  20. ^ Robertson, Jennifer. Takarazuka. p. 82.
  21. ^ 藤本由香里 『私の居場所はどこにあるの？』学陽書房、1998年。ISBN 978-4313870116。
  22. ^ "Esu toiu kankei". Bishōjo gaippai! Wakamono ga hamaru Marimite world no himitsu (in Japanese). Excite. Archived from the original on 2008-02-21. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
  23. ^ McHarry, Mark (November 2003). "Yaoi: Redrawing Male Love". The Guide. Archived from the original on April 17, 2008.
  24. ^ a b "Women-loving Women in Modern Japan". Okazu. September 22, 2014. Archived from the original on December 6, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
  25. ^ Maser 2014 page 36
  26. ^ Shamoon 2012
  27. ^ Maser 2014, pages 43-44
  28. ^ Shamoon 2014 page 56
  29. ^ Shamoon 2012 92
  30. ^ Pflugfelder 2005
  31. ^ Shamoon 2012 page 111
  32. ^ Maser 2014 page 57
  33. ^ Suzuki, Michiko (August 2006). "Writing Same-Sex Love: Sexology and Literary Representation in Yoshiya Nobuko's Early Fiction". The Journal of Asian Studies. 65 (3): 575. doi:10.1017/S0021911806001148. S2CID 162524708.
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