Mark McLelland is a research fellow in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. He is the author of Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan (RoutledgeCurzon) and co-editor of Japanese Cybercultures (Routledge).

Romit Dasgupta lectures in Japanese language, Japanese Studies, and Asian Studies in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. He has published widely on the topic of Japanese masculinity in edited collections and academic journals.

Introduction 2. Hegemonic Gender in Japanese as a Foreign Language Education: Australian Perspectives 3. The Origins of 'Queer Studies' in Postwar Japan 4. Transgendering Shojo Shosetsu: Girls' Inter-text/Sex-uality 5. From The Well of Loneliness to the Akarui Rezubian: Western Translations and Japanese Lesbian Identities 6. The Politics of Okama and Onabe: Uses and Abuses of Terminology Regarding Homosexuality and Transgender 7. Salarymen Doing Queer: Gay Men and Heterosexual Public Sphere 8. Being Male in a Female World: Masculinity and Gender in Okinawan Shamanism 9. 'Understanding Through the Body': The Masquerades of Mishima Yukio and Morimura Yasumasa 10. An Introduction to Men's Studies 11. Rethinking Japanese Masculinities: Recent Research Trends 12. Salarymen Doing Straight: Heterosexual Men and the Dynamics of Gender Conformity 13. Feminist Futures in Japan: Exploring the Work of Haruka Yoko and Kitahara Minori 14 Commodified Romance in a Tokyo Host Club

Incorporating Japanese language materials and field-based research, this compelling collection of essays takes a comparative look at the changing notions of gender and sexual diversity in Japan, considering both heterosexual and non-heterosexual histories, lifestyles and identities.
Written by key Japanese authors and Western scholars the volume examines how non-conformist individuals have questioned received notions and challenged social norms relating to sex and gender. The chapters depict the plurality of gender positions; from housewives opposed to gender roles within marriage to heterosexual men wishing to be more involved in family life. Including material not previously published in English, this volume gives an overview of the important changes taking place in gender and sexuality studies within Japanese scholarship.