ABSTRACT
Premarital sexual experimentation was considered quite common and even encouraged to attain compatibility after marriage. The lack of Buddhist (or the indigenous cults') religious sanctions against such practices made them seem "normal" and "natural". Some scholars suggest that the contractual sexual exclusivity did not extend to sex with women, which of course was considered the honorable Confucian obligation to provide progeny. Many references suggest that what we might call bisexuality was just as common. The practice was so common that scarcely any native writers deemed it necessary to comment on, except when the European Jesuit priests arrived. If gender roles and sexual expressions are social constructs, Japanese gender relations can be said to be products of their culture. The lesbian community, as well as the transgendered and bisexual communities, in modern Japan are only now beginning to try to piece together a scholarly historical treatment.
