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Man and youth
Tryst between a man and a male youth.
Miyagawa Isshō, ca. 1750; Panel from a series of ten on a shunga-style painted hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk. Private collection.

Shudo (衆道 shudō or shūdō) is the Japanese tradition of age-structured homosexuality prevalent in samurai society from the medieval period until the end of the 19th century. The word is an abbreviation of wakashudo (若衆道), "the Way of the young" or more precisely, the Way of young (若 waka) men (衆 shu). The "do" (道) is related to the Chinese word tao, considered to be a path to awakening.

The older partner in the relationship was known as the nenja (ねんじゃ), and the younger as the wakashu (わかしゅ).

Though the term shudo first appears in 1485, it is preceded in the Japanese homosexual tradition by the love relationships between Buddhist bonzes and their acolytes, who were known as chigo. The legendary founder of male love in Japan is Kūkai, also known as Kōbō Daishi, the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism, who is said to have brought over from China, together with the teachings of the Buddha, the teachings of male love. Mount Koya, where Kōboō Daishi's monastery is still located, was a byword for male love up to the end of the pre-modern period.

Despite the attribution of male love to Kūkai, the actual roots of male love in Japan can be traced to some of the earliest Japanese texts, such as the 8th century history "Kojiki" (古事記) and the "Nihon Shoki" (日本書紀).

The teachings of shudo, "The Way of the Young", entered the literary tradition and can be found in such as works as Hagakure (葉隠), "Hidden by Leaves", and other samurai manuals. Shudo, in its pedagogic, martial, and aristocratic aspects, is closely analogous to the ancient Greek tradition of pederasty.

The practice was held in high esteem, and was encouraged, especially within the samurai class. It was considered beneficial for the youth, teaching him virtue, honesty and the appreciation of beauty. Its value was contrasted with the love of women, which was blamed for feminizing men.

Much of the historical and fictional literature of the period praised the beauty and valor of boys faithful to shudo. The modern historian Jun'ichi Iwata drew up a list of 457 such titles from the 17th and 18th centuries alone, considered a "corpus of erotic pedagogy." (Watanabe & Iwata, 1989)

With the rise in power and influence of the merchant class, aspects of the practice of shudo were adopted by the middle classes, and homoerotic expression in Japan began to be more closely associated with travelling kabuki actors known as tobiko, "fly boys," who moonlighted as prostitutes.

In the Edo period (1600-1868) kabuki actors (known as onnagata when playing female roles) often worked as prostitutes off-stage. Kagema were male prostitutes who worked at specialist brothels called "kagemajaya" (陰間茶屋: kagema tea houses). Both kagema and kabuki actors were much sought after by the sophisticates of the day, who often practiced danshoku/nanshoku, or male love.

Beginning with the Meiji restoration and the rise of Western influence, Christian values began to influence the culture, leading to a rapid decline of sanctioned homoerotic practices in the late 1800s.

• Shonen-ai
• Historical pederastic relationships
• Pederasty
• Homosexuality in Japan
• Homosexuality and Buddhism

• IHARA Saikaku (Paul Gordon Schalow, trans.). The Great Mirror of Male Love. Stanford University Press, 1990.

• Leupp, Gary. Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. University of California Press, 1997.

• Pflugfelder, Gregory. Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950. University of California Press, 2000.

• Watanabe, Tsuneo and Jun'ichi Iwata, The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality GMP, London, 1989 ISBN 0-85449-115-5

• The Beautiful Way of the Samurai