Matsuura Rieko's The Reverse Version

Japanese girls and women have often used the process of reading and writing imaginative male homoerotic narratives as a means of creating their own specifically female-oriented worlds. These narratives have been constructed and represented as fantasies in various cultural media, including manga comic books, animation, and literary works. ¹ Matsuura Rieko (b. 1958) is a prominent woman writer who produces narratives of gender discourse and female desire within a male homosexual context. Since the 1978 publication of Sōgi no hi (The Day of the Funeral), the majority of Matsuura's works, including Sebasuchan (Sebastian, 1981), Nachuraru ūman (Natural Woman, 1987), and Oyayubi P no shugyō jidai (Big Toe P's Years of Apprenticeship, 1993), raise questions about lesbian identity, especially as this relates to lesbian sado-masochism. ² She repeatedly presents young lesbian protagonists who express and fulfill their desires against a background narrative set in a male homoerotic context.