Quite some time ago, I wrote an entry about dating in Japan mainly applicable to heterosexuals and received an anonymous comment asking about information on that for homosexuals. As I’m not familiar with it, all I did was suggest about Shinjuku 2-chome, a district well-known for homosexual clubs and bars, not just for gays, but for LGBTQs and even heterosexuals.
I’m pretty certain there are also gokon events for gay people if you just get to know the right people who organise such events because after all, many of such events are arranged by friends for friends. But upon doing some research, I learned that some apps that heterosexual people use are also used by LGBTQs. One of which is Tinder.
There’s also a gay dating app that originated in Japan but appears to be pretty well known among the LGBTQ community across Asia, called 9monsters. It has an English interface but what I read was that, many of the Japanese users do not speak English, so if that is not a problem for you, you may want to give it a try.
I did a quick search on Google with the terms “ゲイ合コン” which literally translates to “gay gokon” and arrived at a couple of sites such as IMLGBT, which organises dating events for the LGBTQ community and this post on Gayty, which also arranges drinking parties for gay people in Nishi-Shinjuku. Please do note that I do not have enough information about these events so do your own research and decide if you want to participate.
By now, you would’ve realised that Shinjuku seems to be the main area gay people hang around with 2-chome being the gay district and events being held in Nishi-Shinjuku. The area is indeed an interesting place with even onnabe bars, which is like host clubs for women, except that the hosts are also women, who dress like men. Put it simply, it’s what Singaporeans call “butch” and these bars are frequented even by heterosexual women.
Speaking of which, I wonder if the term “butch” is stigmatised since I know people who find it taboo to use it. But for such terms used to describe people, pejoration of a word is often a result of the ugly nature of human to misuse it, associate it with negative connotations, thereby leading to the necessity in creating new words. But the cycle in creating new words to replace stigmatised terms can go on endlessly. Only when the human mind is ameliorated, can these terms be, as with the term “gay.” While as a human we have come a long way, what is happening now is still not enough, and I hope that someday when I receive such questions again, whoever asks the questions no longer find the need to remain anonymous. Only then are gay people truly free.
