Bara is a colloquialism for a genre of Japanese art and media known within Japan as gay manga (ゲイ漫画) or gei komi . The genre focuses on male same-sex love, as created primarily by gay men for a gay male audience. Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair, akin to bear or bodybuilding culture. While bara is typically pornographic, the genre has also depicted romantic and autobiographical subject material, as it acknowledges the varied reactions to homosexuality in modern Japan.
The term bara translates literally to "rose" in Japanese, and has historically been used as a pejorative for gay men roughly equivalent to the English language term "pansy".
A musha-e print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (c. 1834)
Gengoroh Tagame, whose manga in G-men is credited with shifting the aesthetics of gay manga towards masculine men
Gay manga often features masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair. This is a drawing of a muscular man without defined abdominal muscles, which provides a typical example of a gachimuchi body type.
Records of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. Western scholars have identified these as evidence of homosexuality in Japan. Though these relations had existed in Japan for millennia, they became most apparent to scholars during the Tokugawa period. Historical practices identified by scholars as homosexual include shudō (衆道), wakashudō (若衆道) and nanshoku (男色).
Old Buddhist, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Note the exposed bare feet of the boy indicating the sexual demeanor while the brocade Kesa robe indicates the wealthy status of cleric.
Man and youth, Miyagawa Isshō, ca. 1750; Panel from a series of ten on a shunga-style painted hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk. Private collection. Note that the youth on the left is wearing a kimono whose style (furisode) and color was considered appropriate for adolescents of both sexes but not adult men, which along with the partially shaved pate denotes the boy's wakashū age status while the exposed bare feet indicates the purely sexual demeanor.
A wakashū (wearing headscarf) sneaks a kiss from a female prostitute behind his patron's back. Nishikawa Sukenobu, c. 1716–1735. Hand-colored print.
