The Great Mirror of Male Love

The Great Mirror of Male Love (男色大鏡 Nanshoku Ōkagami), with the subtitle The Custom of Boy Love in Our Land (本朝若風俗 Honchō Waka Fūzoku) is a collection of homosexuality stories by Ihara Saikaku, published in 1687. The collection belongs to Ihara’s floating world genre of Japanese literature (浮世草子 Ukiyo-zōshi), and contains eight sections; each section contains five chapters, making 40 chapters in total.

The Great Mirror of Male Love has two parts: the first four sections (first 20 chapters) embody romantic relationships between warriors and monks; the next four sections center about the Kyoto-Osaka theatres, dealing with male loving stories about the kabuki actors. The stories are usually about homoerotic relationships between an adult male and an adolescent youth; the ethical constraints are very much like that of a man and a woman. In the first four sections, the samurai senior lovers are the image of manliness, supporter to the younger one, and the dominant role in sex. The young beloved boys are portrayed as beautiful, good students of the older samurai, and assume a submissive role in sex. From section 5 onward, the young kabuki actors are more like prostitutes to the older townsmen; however, recreational sex was taken for granted in Edo period Japan, therefore the relationship between the townsmen and the kabuki actors are still considered romantic accounts.

Saikaku claimed that heaven and earth in Japanese mythology are bound in the same way that two male lovers are bound. Women managed to capture the attention of men since the creation of the world, he added, but they were no more than an amusement to retired old men, and there was no way that women can be worthy enough to be compared to handsome youth.

1. Love: The Contest Between Two Forces
2. The ABCs of Boy Love
3. Within the Fence: Pine, Maple, and a Willow Waist’
4. Love Letter Sent in a Sea Bass
5. Implicated by His Diamond Crest

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