this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
354 points (98.4% liked)
Data is Beautiful
3642 readers
24 users here now
Be respectful
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ehh..... Not really. Homophobia is just different in East Asian cultures. A lot of Asian people don't really care if someone they don't know is gay, but are incredibly harsh towards their own family members if they come out. Pretty much all East Asia is still extremely culturally conservative and still holds onto Confucianist social values like abiding to strict social expectations.
That's a large part of it, carrying on the blood line is super important to most East Asian cultures. The other part of the equation is that their cultural ideas leave no place for queer people in their idea of modern society.
It's kinda strange, but pre-western influenced East Asia was arguably less conservative in a lot of ways when it came to sexual orientation. There were more gray places in society for nontraditional relationships like court eunuchs, harams, and other noble positions that diverged from today's cultural norms.