Notes & Combos
A detour toward queer experience in youth followed by a reversion to cis-hetero norms in adulthood calls to mind the エスの関係/Class S relationships of early 20th century Japan. After all-girls schools were created at the turn of the century by government decree, the social phenomenon of young women sharing passionate affections in a homosocial environment soon became a matter of national discourse. These relationships would be viewed as platonic, non-sexual, and non-threatening to the social order, even as spiritual preparation for future heterosexual marriages, provided they desist upon reaching adulthood [1]. However societal permission was also predicated on gender conformity. Couples that took on legibly masculine and feminine roles (or as we might identify them today, butch and femme) were pathologized and explained in terms of moral depravity [2]. Making the jump to media with magazines and novels, Class S became a literary tradition and would influence the yuri genre when it emerged in the 1970s [3]. Indeed Class S lives on even to the present day, not only as a Yu-Gi-Oh! archetype, but in continuing heteronormative attitudes toward young queer women:
[…] it is not unusual for two schoolgirls to hold hands or engage in other activities that could be considered intimate. Even if they engage in a homosexual relationship (or simply experience feelings of attraction for a member of the same ***) during junior high or high school, they are not considered to be lesbian or bisexual—Class S is seen as a phase, nothing more. [4]
- Paalberg, A. G (2019) The World of ‘S’ and the World of ‘L’: Lesbian Influences on Class S Fiction
- Robertson, J (1999) Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan, University of California Press
- Zeriya (2018, January 5) [Script] Industrialization, Girls’ Schools, and the Birth of the Yuri Genre, Floating into Bliss
- Subramian, E (2011) Women-Loving Women in Modern Japan, Yuricon