Something’s Got to Go: Contrasting Ideologies of Masculinity in Discourse around Men’s Intimate Hair Removal in Japan

The current study examines the mobilisation of social ideologies surrounding men’s gendered behaviour within discourse around men’s intimate hair removal in Japan (known as VIO datsumō ), contrasting the language of advertisements promoting a new concept of kaigo datsumō (hair removal for assisting late-in-life caregivers) to men against online discussions of men’s VIO datsumō on the popular Japanese forum Girls Channel. While both data sets show some embrace of new ways of doing masculinity in Japan, frequent clashes between the two are found between distinct traditional images of Japanese heteronormative behaviour for men. As a result, advertising discourse around a so-called “new” practice is found to serve more as stimulation for discussion over gender norms rather than a place where progressive ideologies of gender and sexuality clash with more traditional ones, with the primary disagreements between the two data sets relating to which traditional ideologies of masculinity take precedence over others.