Gregory Pflugfelder's Cartographies of Desire shows an interesting history of male-male desire in Japanese history. While it may be tempting to equate Tokugawa male-male acts with contemporary conceptions of sexual liberalization, it's important to keep in mind that Tokugawa society did maintain its own rules of what was and wasn't acceptable. It was standard for lords to seek penetrative pleasure from younger pages, but those younger were not supposed to enjoy these acts. Meanwhile, it was frowned upon for two young men to engage in sex, as it was for a young man and older woman. There were numerous directions in terms of what was and wasn't acceptable. However, one could argue that "homosexuality" (male-male love) in itself was more accepted then than it is now.

An interesting literary perspective from the time is Ihara Saikaku's The Great Mirror of Male Love.