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Miss Poubelle and her hubby visited Osaka recently and had a chance to learn a little about the Japanese gay scene. We were surprised to hear that Osaka may have as many as 100 gay bars, since our eyes did not pick up many obvious signs of gay culture. We found that there is indeed a lively gay life in Osaka, though it may be a little hard for most foreigners to find it. Luckily, we were able to connect with an old college friend, Mark, who has lived in Japan for 13 years and speaks Japanese fluently. Mark was able to direct us to bars we could never have found on our own, and also able to translate conversations for us so that we could get to talk a bit with the locals.

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The first bar we entered was called H2. The biggest surprise on entering H2 was how tiny it is. H2 is about the size of the men's room in a typical North American gay bar. The bar is L-shaped, and there are about four chairs on each side, so that around eight people can sit down, and perhaps another eight or so can stand. With the "master" of the bar, that makes fewer than 20 people. Interactions in the bar were also unlike those in any American gay bar Miss Poubelle has visited-- the expectation seemed to be that all the people there would talk to the master and to the other guests present. In some ways, it felt a bit like being at a party at someone's house, and it was far less isolating than a visit to many North American bars.

H2, as it turns out, was located in a building that contained 35 gay bars, each about the same size, and catering to a different type. Japanese bars are much more specialized than their North American or European counterparts-- there are separate bars for those who prefer old men, young men, businessmen, transvestites, bondage fans, leathermen, jocks, foreigners, "pop" boys, and several other variations as well.

Once we got clear on how the scene worked, we made haste to visit Momo Ru, "Perfectly Round," one of Osaka's range of debu bars. Debu is the Japanese word for "chubby," and there is a large gay scene oriented around big men all through Japan. Since the hubby is quite debu, he provoked expressions of fascinated (but polite) amazement in a number of places in Japan. At the debu bar, he found himself to be quite the center of attention from a number of debusen. Debusen are men interested in guys who are debu-- roughly what we would call chubby chasers in America.

However, Miss Poubelle was a bit surprised to learn that what is considered debu in Japan is pretty much the average body type in North America! As is well known, we are getting increasingly heavier and taller over here, to the point where the average American male weighs about 170 pounds (77 kg) and is 5 feet 10 inches. The average Japanese man is closer to 5 feet 6 inches and weighs about 144 (66 kg). That makes a lot of us debu from their perspective.

The master of Momo Ru wanted to take our photos, and later pulled out an album with pictures of the patrons of the bar. Most of the guys considered debu in Japan didn't really seem all that heavy to us visiting Americans. And to some extent, debu seems to cover guys who might be considered bears in the Euro-American typology of body types, though Japanese men rarely have the sort of extensive body hair that is part of the Western bear prototype. Interested readers might want to have a look at the web site www.debusen.com to get some appreciation for the range of physical types that are part of the debu scene.

The disparity between American and Japanese notions of fat reminded Miss Poubelle of story she heard a few years ago. One of her acquaintances is a handsome gay man who weighs around 300 pounds. He recounts the story of being at a chubby chaser's party in New York and overhearing two queens discussing him. "He's cute," said one, "but he's not really that fat." Clearly weight is all a matter of perspective. And from a Japanese perspective, America must be a debusen paradise.

From our point of view, the Japanese experience was a welcome reminder that standards of attractiveness and sex appeal are not absolute, but differ through place and time. The Japanese seemed more comfortable that we are with the idea that everyone likes something different, whether the men were athletic or foreign, old or young, fat or thin. The trip helped Miss Poubelle strengthen her own resolve to move beyond the narrow range of approved body types towards a greater appreciation of the rich and erotic spectrum of men's differences.