ABSTRACT
The reasons why Japanese gays tend not to come out of the closet are to be considered according to four dimensions: social, psychological, legal, and educational or more precisely the lack of instruction. There seem to be at least four factors that play a role in the non-acceptance of Western modes of activism by most Japanese lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, or queers (LGBTQ): marriage, social oppression, social visibility, and a general suspicion towards activism. There seems to be a strong dialectical dimension in the Japanese conception of happiness, negative features being part of its very cultural definition. Even if one can witness the existence of a blurred macro-gay community in Japan, parallel to a lot of stronger micro-communities formed around bars or among the same types, they have almost nothing to do with "militancy" per se, as it is usually understood in Western countries.
