FtM crossdresser escorts in contemporary Japan: an embodied and sensorial ethnography

Abstract

Ethnography is a methodology that requires both intellectual and physical efforts and is carried out through the body. The body is also the site where affect is experienced, which in Massumi’s view is “an ability to affect and a susceptibility to be affected” of a body in constant transition. This article explores my ethnographic fieldwork on FtM crossdresser (dansō) escorts in Japan, taking into account the role played by the body, affects, and emotions, also analyzing their relationship with materiality and the surrounding environment. My body became the means of interaction with crossdressers and customers, and its masculinization affected and was affected by objects and the surrounding spaces. It was also the site where I experienced affective intensities descriptive of the experience of crossdressers and date clients. I first focus on the body and its physical and emotional reactions to investigate the practice of crossdressing, identifying the role played by objects in enhancing masculinity. I highlight crossdressers’ and customers’ management of spaces and human interactions as or towards displaced bodies. To conclude, I investigate the body as a way to interact with spaces and individuals from the standpoint of “affective correspondence”.

Keywords:

• Japan
• crossdressing
• dansō
• affect
• performativity

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Marta Fanasca obtained her PhD in Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester where she is also teaching at the School of Social Sciences. Her thesis “Walk like a man, talk like a man: Dansō, Crossdressing and Emotion Work in a Tokyo Escort Service” investigates the phenomenon of female-to-male crossdresser escorts in contemporary Japan. Her research interests are Gender Studies, Queer Theory, Japanese Subculture, and Japanese Visual Arts.

Notes

1 For Pink, “sensory anthropology” defines “an approach to doing anthropology that is informed by theories of the senses originating outside anthropology. It involves answering anthropological questions in ways that are informed by theories of the senses” (Pink 2010, 337).

2 According to Ingold (2007), a meshwork is a series of lines intersecting and overlapping with each other. Those lines “are the trails along which the life is lived. And … it is in the entanglement of lines, not in the connecting of points, that the mesh is constituted” (2007: 80–81).

3 It is usually forbidden to take pictures and videos of a crossdresser escort, unless the customer buys, for an additional 800 yen, the “picture option,” which entitles customers to take pictures with their devices.

4 This view was expressed by all my client informants during interviews.

5 According to a company’s internal rule, a prospective dansō’s weight should not be more than the results of their height expressed in centimeters minus 110. For instance, a 160 cm person should not weigh more than 50 kg (160 – 110 = 50).

6 Dansō usually refer to themselves as boku or ore, terms which characterize the male usage of first-person pronouns in the Japanese language.

7 The so-called “bathroom problem” is the denomination used by Halberstam (1998) to define the uneasiness felt by non-conforming gender people in using public toilets. Non-binary individuals may face abusive comments, and/or physical violence when entering gendered spaces, such as toilets (Browne 2004).

8 Also known as koshi sapōtō (waist supporters), they are elastic cotton strips with a velcro closing, usually adopted to relieve the pressure in the lower back and to help obtain correct posture.

9 Known in English as chest binders, they are a kind of elastic tank top designed to hide the breast, largely adopted by crossdressers and crossplayers.