The weakness of sweetness: masculinity and confectionary in Japan.

This paper explores the complex relationship of sweets to changing gender identities in Japan. Drawing on ethnography and popular culture sources, it examines ways men negotiate their beliefs and activities concerning sweets within a context where being a sweet lover problematizes masculine identities. Sweets in Japan were traditionally regarded as the domain of women and children, while men were expected to prefer spicy foods/alcohol. Changes in food preferences have coincided with erosions in hegemonic forms of Japanese masculinity that emphasized vigor and drive. In popular culture Japan's economic malaise has been attributed to the replacement of the post-war "carnivorous men" with a generation of "grass-eating boys", whose interest in sweets is emblematic of their passivity and femininity. In real life, this link is treated rather paradoxically. Informants typically characterize it as a stereotype that no one really believes, or even that the stereotype doesn't exist, yet their actions and expression of sentiments display having internalized it. In exploring how a discourse can simultaneously be both deeply felt and dismissed as a trifling inanity, I consider the greater attention that ambiguity and uncertainty might be afforded in accounts of food specifically and human life more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]