“Does this skirt make my butt look big?”
How is it that the wonderous Japanese male gender-bending, almost all in the name of heterosexuality, keeps getting bad press and moral condemnation. Another foreign article in Times Online profiles men who like to eat cake, a feminine past time, and dream of becoming house-husbands.
Rather than celebrate freedom and variety, the phenomenon of herbivores and ojo-man has alarmed sociologists who predict the demise of the Japanese nation. One pompous sociologist is quoted with this fearful prediction:
“I worry that herbivorous boys are the future of Japan . . . As young Japanese men become more timid and more averse to taking risks, it will affect the energy and vitality of the society.”
Who knew that a skirt and feminine aspirations could be such a powerful threat to the survival of a proud people? Are girly men Japan’s terrorism?
Update: CNNGo has a profile about Japan’s first men-only nail salon, in Osaka only for now.
Tokyo Moe 
-_- This is sexism at its worst. Basically they’re saying, if women were to have more power, the world would sink off into oblivion or whatever.
As if the world isn’t already in a lot of shit because of specific men anyways.
The more I stay in Taiwan the more I am amazed at the level of femalishness the boys here have. It is a wonderful shock. I NEVER read it was to this degree. I love it.
It’s funny because recently I’ve been thinking: what happens when this generation gets older? When we’re in our 30s, 40s, 50s… How will the girly Asian boys change? How will society be different? What will the next generation do to rebel against mine?
I hope to god we don’t see a rise in hypermasculinity in the next 40 years. We’ve all had enough of that.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I’m very happy you wrote about this.
I had no idea there were full on investigations of this. If I had my way, I’d be at the forefront of the sociologist trend to pay attention to the girly Asian boys of today. But, of course, I would do it from a nonbigoted pov.