"Since is illegal, gay love is in a sense taboo," agrees her friend. Yaoi (pronounced "Yowie") - or "boys love" is a popular type of homoerotic manga comic written by straight women, for straight women.įans of Yaoi are referred to as "rotten women", but the women embrace it because - as one superfan puts it - "we love that sense of immorality". Satsuki (pictured above), a transgender woman, says she finds it "absolutely positive", saying that she considers it "a form of self-expression that is not restricted by the concept of gender."Īs for the trans community in Japan, Satsuki says that "Japan has been relatively open to the idea from the beginning," but adds that it was "especially closed towards cross-dressing" until about five years ago. The bar isn't just for cis-men to wear a dress, though, as it's also considered a safe space for transgender women. more and more men are curious about what it's like to be a woman." "In Japan it's a trend to dress like a girl," says the bartender, who notes that 70% of the bar's patrons are straight. There's a bar where men can dress as "casually experience" dressing as a woman. "If a woman comes out, people don't sympathise because of a Japanese idea of what is ladylike." 4. "When a gay man comes out, it fits a stereotype, it's fun for the media," says one bar patron. While visiting Goldfinger - a women only lesbian bar - Ellen talks to the patrons. "I wanna have a penis just to try it!" exclaims Ellen as they leave the bar. The owner of a bar called Cholesterol went viral for performing a trick with his "special throat", and now he has his own line of sex toys - a replica of his mouth. According to the owner of Yo Chan Chi - a bar Ellen Page tells us is "one of the smallest and oldest gay bars" in the area - Ni-chōme was at one point the red light district, and rent was cheap, and one by one, the gay bars moved in. With 300 bars in a five-block radius, it's not just the gay district of Japan, but also has the highest concentration of gay bars in the world, so you can pretty much rest assured that there's something for everyone. The gay district of Japan is Shinjuku Ni-chōme (新宿二丁目) in Tokyo, and is also known as Ni-chōme or "Nichō".