Dive into LGBTQ culture in Tokyo:Night out at gay club

 Shinjuku 2 cho-me is the east side of Shinjuku station and widely known as a mecca for LGBTQ people in Tokyo. The main street called “Naka Do-ri” and many bars and clubs for LGBTQ people nestle up to one another. Until few years ago, it was not open to many people, but these days new types of bars such as “tourists bar” and “mix bar” where straight people or normal tourists can go is emerging.

  As my second challenge of plunge I decided to go to the gay club in Shinjuku 2 cho-me, called “Doragon Men” because I do not know about LGBTQ people in Japan. In fact, I have some lesbian friends in America and personally I do not have any distorted view about them. However I have never met LGBTQ people in my daily life due to the fact that Japan is still conservative about sexuality compared to America. Technically speaking, I have never known if they are LGBTQ people or not because of the tendency of Japanese people to conceal their sexuality. For instance, I went to a private girls’ school for 6 years and there were several types of rumor regarding lesbian couple, but all of them seemed to be a rooted belief of suppression.

 Through my experience at “Doragon Men”, I found two disappointing facts such as the high proportion of foreign people and straight men. Firstly, approximately 90 percent of the visitors of the gay club is foreigner, so I was not able to see the interaction of Japanese LGBTQ people in the context of Japanese culture. They could be the reason that it was close to the end of year, so many Japanese returned home and it was a sort of touristy gay club, so it was not the first choice for serious LGBTQ people. Secondly, there were at least 5 straight men at the club in order to hit on straight girls. Given that the size of the club was for about 30 people, this number is not small. According to the article about gay club of some websites, it was stated that gay clubs are quite popular among young women in terms of safety. Therefore there are men who try to hit on those young women at gay clubs. As a whole, aside from gay bartenders, there was not different from normal clubs.

 In my conclusion, gay clubs are not so different from other clubs. In positive way of thinking, this is the ideal place for everyone that some people find gay partners and other people find partners of opposite sex. I hope this situation will be realized also in everywhere in Japan.