but the bishōnen type is one that today usually excites—and is cultivated for—females. One can cite as evidence the contemporary passion for yaoi or boizu rabu (“Boys’ Love”)—tales of homoerotic affairs among impossibly beautiful youths, produced by and for women—or the stadiums full of girls screaming at the products of Johnny’s Jimusho, the talent agency that has for two generations now brought forth an unending stream of pretty boys to prance about on stage and absorb vicariously female adolescent sexual energy.
