What was the influence of the contact with Portugal and Catholicism in the Japanese view regarding homosexuality?

by Nexus2501
ShaolinBao

I'm guessing you're referring to Portugal-Catholicism in the context of the first 'Nanban' contacts with Japanese. If so, I'd argue that there was very little influence on the general perception of homosexuality, which had been somewhat common during the Edo Period. As an aside, Gregory Pflugfelder (an associate professor at Columbia's East Asian Cultures department) even makes the claim that illicit affairs between men-women were punished more severely than those between men-men.

More notably, however, Japan did briefly ban homosexuality and sodomy during the Meiji Restoration (specifically between 1873 and 1880), in order to appear more in line with Western standards.

The influence of Western culture and social-darwinist ideals combined with rising nationalism during the early 20th century leads us to the general disdain for homosexuality present in both Imperial Japan and, in many ways, modern Japan.

Sources:

Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 (University of California Press, 1999).