If you are familiar with Western-centric gay stereotypes, you have probably heard of Jocks, Bears, and Twinks. This article hopefully will enlighten you to some other categorizations which are specific to Japan.
If you have heard of or downloaded 9MONSTERS, you may have found the above labels of gay men. The above categories are a bit misleading and don’t represent the nuances in the types of gay men in Japan. For example, there is not much difference between ‘Bulky Bison’ and ‘Athlete Kong’.
Some phrases will overlap with the upcoming ‘Gay Terminology’ post soon, but here are some common types I have seen:
- Johnny (ジャニーズ系)
This is basically a Japanese twink, but its roots are not just from being young. Johnny refers to the Japanese talent agency which produces boybands and singers which is the basis of the Johnny image:
- young
- cute face
- slim body
- high-pitched voice
- set hairstyle (think wax, blow dry and anime hair)
2. GMPD
This acronym describes muscle to obese gay men.
- G= Really muscly / gachi ガッチ
- M= Has muscles / ムチ
- P= Chubby / ポチャリ
- D= Obese / デブ
Some people just write a combination, such as GMP etc. There is also various types of muscle to fat variations too:
・ガッチリ筋肉質 (gacchiri-kinniku-mon) Real built muscle cake
・ガチムチ (gacchi-muchi) Muscular
・ガチポチャ (gacchi-pocchya) Muscle with a bit of podge(fat)
・ガッチビ (gacchibi) Short and muscly
・スジ筋 (suji-kin) Athletic muscle (you can see the v-line)
・ゆるポチャ (yuru-poccha)Chubby
・普通体型 (futsuu-taikei) Normal build
・キショガリ (kisho-gari) Stick thin
(Taken from https://lgbt-life.com/topics/gaylife6/ )
3. Shio-kao (塩顔)
This is the ‘salt-face’ type. This sounds a bit weird, but stick with me…it’s basically an average, handsome, Japanese guy who is pale (or salt-white-like complexion). Here are a few features which make a salt-face guy so desirable…
- light facial features (i.e. not a big honker)
- light skin
- no beard
- clean, set, dark hair
- simple, neutral sense of fashion
- masculine but not particularly muscly
- no body hair
- slim~normal built
(https://tabi-labo.com/220654/saltboy-chara)
4. Nonke (ノンケ)
This means ‘straight’, i.e. heterosexual. I thought it came from ‘non-gay’, but that was a very Western imposed analysis. So, when I looked into it, it appears to be from「その気がない人-sono ki ga nai hito」’A person who doesn’t have those feelings’. This got shortened to 「ノン気-non ki」’non-feeling’, which sounds a awkward because it is a amalgamation of the English prefix ‘non’ and the Japanese ‘ki'(feeling). This overtime got changed to what we use now, nonke.
I add it as a type in this post because there are men who have sex with other men (MSM), or men who enjoy the company of men but do not identify as gay. They sometimes say they are mostly straight or live a mostly straight lifestyle (ほぼほぼノンケ-hobohobo nonke).
5. Onei (オネエ)
It’s usually used to describe an overly effeminate gay man; it is connected with drag queens, cross-dressing comedians, and other entertainers who use typical gay words or ways of speaking. There is a bunch of ‘onei-words’ or ‘onei-way of speaking’ too which could be seen as high-pitched, loud speech.
I often see this term in a negative light when it comes to dating profiles, i.e. No effeminate gays (オネイ🙅). However, many gay men who work at gay bars or in the entertainment industry self-identify as onei and are proud of the term.
In 2006, a national TV channel used the word on a TV variety show in reference to some celebrities . Although, the meaning quickly expanded to mean sexual minorities in Japan which is different to usage in the gay community as it is not considered a term which is associated with people who are transgender.
That’s all for now! If I think of any more, I will add them. Hope this is useful and if you think of anything that you want to know more about, please send me a message.
Love,
Gayjin
x
gayjinjapan.wordpress.com 
I like it..very nice.
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