ABSTRACT

In Japan, intimacy, and issues broadly related to it, are at the heart of contemporary questions about what it means to be a good or successful person, how to balance personal desires with responsibilities, and the future of the nation. Not only is the aging population of baby-boomers stretching social services like the pension and healthcare systems, but younger people are waiting longer to have children, having fewer children overall, and are increasingly likely to forgo having children at all. Attention to intimacy within and beyond family relationships reflects the centrality of “family” as a key symbol in modern Japan where, since the 1868 Meiji reorganization of the nation-state, “family” has been used as a central idiom through which to unify the Japanese population. In the contemporary moment, intimate practices and patterns are likewise held up as both the causes and effects of catalytic social change. This chapter argues that as people debate the future of the nation and reflect on the types of intimate relationships they want and the relationships that are possible to create, intimacy is the hinge between the personal and political, as well as private and national concerns.