Rethinking Lesbianism in Seitõ: Focus on the Lesbian Novels in Journal Seitõ

Abstract

  Seitõ, founded in 1911, is recognized as a forerunner of Japanese feminism. Previous research has found that in Seitõ discourse, female same-sex love was defined as “sexual inversion,” a term that originates in sexology, implying that lesbianism was excluded from the “natural” and “genuine” category of “woman.” These studies, however, focused only on Raicho Hiratsuka’s critical articles and overlooked the literary works representing female same-sex love in Seitõ. This paper examines four lesbian novels in Seitõ concerning the social environment to evaluate the “exclusion of lesbianism” in the magazine. Around 1913, the Seitõ Society came under attack by the media and society in general. As the issue of lesbianism among its members received keen attention, female same-sex love became a “social concern.” In response to the emergent discourse on female same-sex love, Seitõ’s novels presented diverse patterns of lesbian intimacy that could not be categorized as “exclusion of lesbianism,” radically questioning the norm of heterosexuality. These novels deny or reject the scandalous discourse on female same-sex love by subverting the distinct marks of homophobia directed against female same-sex love. Furthermore, even after Seitõ characterized same-sex love as “sexual inversion,” these texts challenge the sexology term and the “exclusion of lesbianism” that occurred in Seitõ society by recognizing lesbian desire. I will reveal a hitherto overlooked aspect of Seitõ’s lesbianism by looking into these novels.