These identities have become codified into a sub-cultural system of knowledge known as Typing ( taipu), which refers to the alignment of one’s subjectivity to a stereotypical identity category based upon ideas of an idealised body type and modes of consumption (Moriyama, 2012: 170). These media play an important role in rendering gay male desire as a commodity (Moriyama, 2012: 160), reducing gay men’s identities to patterns of consumer behaviour. The district is also the source of most Japanese gay male media, including gay magazines, pornographic videos and online dating agencies.
Ni-chōme, as it is commonly known, contains a variety of businesses catering to gay men including bars, pornography shops, saunas, brothels (known euphemistically as “host clubs”) and massage parlours. This is particularly true of Shinjuku Ni-chōme, a district in central Tokyo with a small area of 400m 2 which estimates suggest contains approximately 300 gay bars (Suganuma, 2011). By Thomas Baudinette (PhD Candidate, Monash many gay* male subcultures around the world, Japan’s is highly stratified by class, body type, age and gendered identity.
