bishonen

Pretty Boy

After seeing that episode of Bones, I sat down to write my post about it.  In the process of doing so, I looked up references to androgyny in Asian culture and found some fascinating things.

Pretty men in Japan seem to be well-liked by young females, and are popular television personalities and performers as they appeal across a broad spectrum of that society.  They are also popular in manga comics as the prototypical male, especially those targeted at girls.

Here’s a telling quote about the history and endurance of this type of character, from the wikipedia entry on the subject (link is below):

Lady Murasaki Shikibu‘s Tale of Genji, written in about the year 1000 A.D. Genji concerns the exploits and romances of a young prince, the son of an emperor and beloved concubine, who is not in line to inherit the throne, and follows his intrigues through the court as he comes of age. The novel typifies the Heian age of Japanese history, a period of highly-stylized romance. Prince Genji’s beauty is described as transcendental, so much so that “one could have wished him a woman”, with a bewitching attraction that is acknowledged by men and women alike.

I am not going to reproduce volumes of information or even an entire Wikipedia page.  I do refer you to the following link for further reading, if it is of interest to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bish%C5%8Dnen

What sets apart the Japanese version of a bishonen (loosely translated as pretty boy) is their sexual ambiguity in addition to their ambiguous appearance.  There is a clear flouting of all aspect of the rules we generally use to classify gender and sexual orientation, and has been for a very long time.