so i’ve been halfassedly thinking about making an ace pride sign for the Tokyo Rainbow Pride parade, but i’m torn because discussing asexuality in Japanese seems really difficult… of course the language barrier plays a part in that, but it’s not even just that.
今夜 新しい言葉や慣用語を習った：「友情結婚」 mixiのAセクシャルのグループで友情結婚のオフ会についてのメッセージがあって、Googleでその言葉を調べた。そうすると意外にもたくさんのヒットがあって、適当にクリックするとたくさんの面白いBBSが見つけた。 ．．．親から結婚しろと口うるさく言われていて困っていまして・・・自分はゲイなのでそこの所を理解している女性と友達になってゆくゆくは友情結婚出来たらいい ？？？ wow. 信じられないと言うより信じたくない辛い事実だね…それがゲイである日本人の境遇だと言うこと。 i learned a new phrase tonight: “yuujou kekkon” (lit. “friendship marriage”) there was a message posted to an asexual group on mixi about an offline “friendship marriage” meetup, so i googled the phrase and got a surprising number of hits. from that, i stumbled upon one of many interesting message boards. ….my parents keep telling me to get married, it’s so annoying […] it would be great if i could find a woman whom i could marry with the understanding that i’m gay ??? wow. that gay people in Japan feel the need to go to such lengths is a truth that hurts.
while randomly watching videos on YouTube i came across the vlog of a Japanese FtX (their words, not mine) person. i was so happy that i immediately started typing a comment introducing myself, but when it came to saying that i’m neutrois i couldn’t figure out how to say it. see, Japanese kind of sucks…. there is no word to distinguish between SEX and GENDER– the both equate to 性 (sei). i dare say that the entire concept of gender vs sex is lacking in Japan, but that’s a topic for another time. i thought that maybe neutrois could be translated as 無性者 (museisha; literally translates to “person without sex/gender”) but apparently that’s used to mean asexual! wtffffff….. so then i thought that maybe i could say 中立性者 (chuuritsuseisha), which literally translates to “neutral person” but apparently 中立性 (chuuritsusei) is used in regards to having a neutral stance on any given thing and so wouldn’t really be used specifically for gender despite 性 (sei)…
