Representations of the Masculine in Tagame Gengoroh’s Ero SM Manga
WILLIAM S. ARMOUR
Tagame Gengoroh (1964–) is a Japanese manga writer who specialises in erotic gay male SM themed comics. Though prolific and having a substantial cult following in his native Japan, parts of the US and Europe, his work has not received the academic attention it deserves. This essay explores how Tagame constructs masculinity in three stories set in the context of wartime Japan. By drawing on several interdisciplinary areas to inform my reading of these narratives, I argue that, while on one level Tagame presents stories as graphic cartoon porn, on another level he weaves into the images and wording a much deeper sense of how homosociality can easily transform into homosexuality, despite his male characters being positioned as examples of hegemonic masculinity. The essay comments on how Tagame deterritorialises characters associated with wartime Japan such as the soldier, the POW and the kenpeitai by requiring them to engage in acts not typical of any definition of hegemonic masculinity, and then reterritorialises them into creating equally complex and horror-filled homosexual utopias.
WILLIAM S. ARMOUR
Tagame Gengoroh (1964–) is a Japanese manga writer who specialises in erotic gay male SM themed comics. Though prolific and having a substantial cult following in his native Japan, parts of the US and Europe, his work has not received the academic attention it deserves. This essay explores how Tagame constructs masculinity in three stories set in the context of wartime Japan. By drawing on several interdisciplinary areas to inform my reading of these narratives, I argue that, while on one level Tagame presents stories as graphic cartoon porn, on another level he weaves into the images and wording a much deeper sense of how homosociality can easily transform into homosexuality, despite his male characters being positioned as examples of hegemonic masculinity. The essay comments on how Tagame deterritorialises characters associated with wartime Japan such as the soldier, the POW and the kenpeitai by requiring them to engage in acts not typical of any definition of hegemonic masculinity, and then reterritorialises them into creating equally complex and horror-filled homosexual utopias.
In this essay I explore how masculinities are represented in the work of Tagame Gengoroh (1964–). Tagame’s ero SM manga deal with Bondage/Discipline/Sado-Masochism (BDSM), slaves, rape, torture and humiliation, and are typically consumed as pornography. They depict what Mackintosh describes as osu or hairy, sweaty, muscular men who partake in extreme and violent sex (Mackintosh, 2010,p. 5). Although there are some who assume that pornography is a subject not deserving of academic criticism, Tagame’s manga are worthy of attention for the way they poignantly traverse the fantasyscape. While ero-manga that target heterosexual Japanese men have been explored (Allison, 2000, pp. 51–79), as have the roles boys’ love, yaoi and other homoerotic manga play in Japan and othercountries, Tagame’s manga require attention because they become a potent medium for exploring a broad range of social, cultural and political issues. My analysis of his manga foregrounds the themes of self-discovery and the cultural politics of sexual abuse during wartime, drawing attention to an ‘‘idealised version of nationalist masculinity’’ (Payne, 2008, p. 37). By transgressing a range of socially constructed taboos, Tagame depicts in microcosm how some human beings live their lives to understand and reflect on what makes them tick. Like Marilyn Wesley (Adams, 2008, p. 1), I am interested in how Tagame uses manga to comment on socio-cultural assumptions about these taboos. [...]
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