A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints

Royal Ontario Museum presents the exhibition, A Third Gender, exploring the complex system of sexual desire and social expectation from 1603 to 1868 in Edo Japan.

Four hundred years ago in Japan, male youths, called wakashu, were the objects of sexual desire for women and men. Creating a third gender, wakashu looked different from both women and adult men and played distinct social and sexual roles.

The exhibition, A Third Gender, explores the complex system of sexual desire and social expectation from 1603 to 1868 in Edo Japan. Featuring stunning woodblock prints, paintings, illustrated books, kimono, and armour, it tells a pivotal story in the history of human sexuality. Unsettling contemporary North American values, A Third Gender invites you to think differently about gender and sexuality.

A Third Gender Program Series

Japanese Visual Culture: Gender & Sexual Diversity
May 12, 2016
Asato Ikeda, the curator of A Third Gender, will examine the role of male youths in Edo-period Japan, and how this gender and sexuality system can be understood from a contemporary North American persepctive.
Free with Museum Admission.  RSVP here

It's Complicated: Gender Ambiguity in Early-Mondern Japan
June 7, 2016
Explore the roles of gender, sexuality and erotic art in Japanese culture with internationally renowned scholar Joshua Mostow.
*Please note this lecture will contain explicit images and discussions of a sexual nature, and is not reommended for those under the age of 18.*
Register here

Lost in Translation? Gender and Sexuality Across Time and Cultures
June 21, 2016
How do we understand representations of sexuality, including same sex sexuality, across different historical and cultural moments without imposing contemporary norms? Join our panel as they explore concepts surrounding our exhibition A Third Gender.
Register here

The Art of Japan
October 16, 2016
Experience the fundamentals of Japanese art in this in-depth workshop lead by ROM Educator George Hewson. This full day workshop includes a guided visit of the exhibition A Third Gender, and lunch.
Register here